Author Archive

I didn’t know what to expect from Freestyle Love Supreme at Ars Nova. I knew Shockwave (Chris Sullivan) would be showcasing his awesome beatbox and improv skills, but that was about it. I had never been to Ars Nova before and it’s a hip little place, which was a complete surprise because the street where it’s located is pretty unimpressive.
There was already a crowd in the lobby when I arrived. Lucky for me, I had reserved a ticket in advance because the people standing in front of me in line were told the show was sold out, but they could be put on a wait list. They happily agreed to wait.
The crowd was full of mostly hip looking young people that all seemed to know one another. There was a real sense of community; you know that feeling you get when you go to a show and it’s obvious that a lot of the people there have been there before and think of the show as their own
discovery? There was a collective anticipation that something amazing was about to take place. It was indeed the funnest show ever!
Freestyle Love Supreme is freestyle musical improv comedy and it feels so fresh and original. They do comedic totally made up freestyles based on suggestions from the audience and I’ve never seen anything like it. They freestyled about Harry Potter; Jean-Claude Van Damme;
Flint, Michigan. There was a whole song about porn taken from the performers’ true life stories. I especially enjoyed UTK the INC (Utkarsh Ambudkar), who did an amusing bit about discovering porn on the internet and watching videos while his girlfriend was away.
Nothing is as funny as the truth and there was so much relatable truth in this show. They brought an audience member onstage and asked her about her day and freestyled about that. Two-Touch (Anthony Veneziale), the charismatic host, interviewed the for some reason reluctant audience member. She volunteered, so I don’t know why she was giving such vague answers and being so standoffish. Regardless, the results were really funny and Two-Touch had a great sense of humor about it, so what could have been a lost moment in the show turned out to be one of the funniest. Then they acted out her day. Shockwave provided the beats and movements as her body and Lin-Man (Lin-Manuel Miranda) was her mind, so he provided the words with the other guys interjecting as the different characters in her world. It was hilarious.
The great thing about this show was that there was no weak link. The music, the beatboxing, the freestyling and the comedy were all successful. The performers were all equally smart, confident, and funny. J-Soul (James Monroe Iglehart) was impressive in what was apparently his first full show with the guys. As a group, they were so talented that they made it look easy and the crowd was completely enamored with the performers. The audience was so completley engaged the entire time. I cannot stress this point enough: they had us for the whole time!! That is a very rare thing in comedy, especially improv. I didn’t feel like there was a noticeable low point in the action at all. It was incredible.
FLS is on their way to the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal from July 12-22. So unless you can swing a trip to Montreal to see them (which I actually considered after seeing this show) you’ll have to wait till they get back. Keep checking their website for upcoming dates!! You will not be disappointed.

It was Friday May 18, otherwise known as Sweet Paprika’s Gay in May show! Yay! Allison Castillo and Ophira Eisenberg host this weekly comedy show at The D-Lounge, a cabaret lounge located in the basement beneath The Daryl Roth Theatre. I wasn’t expecting such a swanky space; I figured it would be more like…well, a basement. It was actually pretty nice. The only problem? I didn’t know there was a 2 drink minimum and I’m cheap so this kind of bummed me out, but the prices aren’t outrageous. $5 beers and $6-8 mixed drinks so it certainly didn’t ruin my evening.

Allison and Ophira have two traditions at their weekly show: get dressed up and get drunk. Honestly, I wasn’t so impressed with them at first; they seemed like they were trying too hard (love me! won’t you please love me!), but I liked them more as the night went on and they settled down. Ophira was the funnier of the pair, but they were both likeable.

The problem with this show was that the performances were uneven. Keith Price and Adam Sank made me laugh, but Anne Neczypor did not. She seemed inexperienced and perhaps a bit uncomfortable. Mike Albo did a sort of spoken word theatrical performance of conversations he’s heard in the city. I thought he was hilarious, but my friend thought he was being too mean. The audience seemed to have mixed reactions to everything.

The highlight of this show? Pepper Mills! She rocked out with her renditions of Burning Down the House and We’ve got Tonight. She brought some much needed energy back in the room and ended the night on a high note.

While it wasn’t the best comedy show I’ve seen in recent weeks, I would definitely give Sweet Paprika another try.

I love Town Hall!! The time on the ticket said 8:00 and guess what time the concert started? Pretty much at 8:00. Yay! I love when things start on time. The lights blinked in the lobby and people filed into the theater for the opening acts: Jonathan Rice & David Bazan. I very much enjoyed them. They both had a similar style; very Bob Dylan folky, heavy on the imagery and simple guitar playing, but I liked it.

Another trait they shared? They were both low talkers. I would guess maybe this was because they’ve only played in smaller venues before or maybe it was simply a technical issue. I could hear them perfectly when they were singing but not at all when they were talking between songs, which was frustrating. They were both fun though. Jonathan Rice led the audience in a sing a long and David Bazan sang a funny song about reviewers. Gulp. Hope he likes me!

Ben Gibbard was flawless. Playing solo really spotlights how incredibly talented he is. He played his solo stuff, stripped down versions of Death Cab for Cutie songs and a couple of covers: Neil Young’s Harvest Moon and Nirvana’s All Apologies. He also did a cover of Iron & Wine’s cover of one of his Postal Service songs “Such Great Heights”. I was hoping to hear his cover of The Backstreet Boys classic “I Want it That Way”, which I heard recently and it’s awesome.

Oh well. He played “Lack of Color”, so I was satisfied.. And yes, I still have a crush on him. le sigh.

There was only a short break between each act, probably about 10 minutes, which was nice. It made for a quick evening of music. When I looked at the clock on the way out, it read 10:30!

In conclusion, I love Town Hall! It’s the perfect venue for singer-songwriter types. I saw Regina Spektor there and I’m going to see bright eyes there in a couple of weeks and I really hope that others like them start playing there. It’s a cozy intimate setting and you get to sit down and relax and not have to worry about some teenager stepping on your toes or blowing pot smoke in your face while you’re trying to enjoy the music. Yes indeed, I’m old. I no longer enjoy standing around for hours waiting for the band to come on because the venue wants to sell as much alcohol as possible. All in all, a fun night of music at my favorite new venue. If you like Ben Gibbard and folky singer types, you would love this show. No more NYC tour dates, but they’re playing tonight in DC at Club.

John Vanderslice lets his fans get up on stage and sing with him. That’s how much fun he is. More about that later. Now for the review. The lineup for the evening was Chris Mills, St. Vincent, and John Vanderslice at The Mercury Lounge and it was possibly the best $12 I have ever spent. What a f-ing amazing show and I’m not a big cusser so that means something…something awesome.

The show kicked off with the weak link in the lineup: Chris Mills. He was kind of a dramatic 80s pop/rock singer/songwriter/guitarist and he played with a piano player and so it kinda reminded me of The Boomtown Rats, though just not as memorable. If you had a tape of theirs in your car and you knew all the words, you would sing a long and have a good time, but that’s about it. He was good, but when St. Vincent came on, I completely forgot about him.

By the way, St. Vincent (Annie Clark of Polyphonic Spree fame) is my new obsession. I can’t remember the last time I fell so hard for a musician that I had never even heard of before. She sings, plays guitar, bass, piano, synth, and does all this cool programming stuff. She’s charming and delightful and a seriously skilled and interesting guitarist. She was like…I don’t even want to insult her by comparing her to other female singer/songwriter types. Do yourself a favor and check out her myspace page or better yet see her live cause I don’t think she’ll be playing tiny venues for much longer. Look for her album coming out soon on Beggars Banquet.

Anyway, as I was saying, John Vanderslice lets his fans get up on stage and sing his songs karaoke style while he plays along. Seriously. If you go to his website, you can email him and tell him what song you want to sing or play bass with and he picks one person from each show to come up and do just that. Tonight’s lucky guy was Kevin and I was so jealous! Later in the show, he brought up five audience members to sing backup on “me and my 424″. He was the funnest and so down to earth and he really wants to be friends with his fans and include them in the show. He took requests, he charmed the audience, he gave away a Seiko watch! The audience loved him and he loved us and he didn’t want to leave; so he just kept coming up with more songs to play. Surprise guest Erik Freilander even made an appearance on a couple of tunes and he brought back Annie Clark for the finale. And that’s not all!! At the end of the night John announced that they would be sticking around for a dance party! Yay! He’s doing a show at Union Hall in Brooklyn on Sunday and I already have my ticket. If you can’t make that show, he’ll be at the Mercury Lounge again in September. Please for the love of all things musical do not miss this show. I love music so f-ing much (there I go again with the cussing) and this night reminded me why and I would tell John Vanderslice that right now if I could, but he’s probably out having breakfast with his fans.

I love trivia and I’ve always wanted to go to Capone’s because of the free pizza deal. You get a WHOLE free cheese pizza with every drink you buy. Free pizza + trivia? What could be funner than that?

We arrived early because I had never been there before and wanted to make sure I got a seat. Luckily, Capone’s is a rather large dive-y bar and it was quite empty at 8:00 on a Tuesday. We had our pizza, which was really good for free pizza and waited for trivia to start. More people arrived and Gideon, our charming old-timey host, walked around trying to get teams together to compete. There were 3 teams competing for one prize: a glorious pitcher of beer. We were team uncoolkids competing against team just a second and team batcave.

The first round was fan-boy trivia and this time it was all about video games, which I know nothing about. At the end of the round, he passed out some white lined paper and gave us the names of a bunch of video games and we had to write down who the hero was. I got 2 points just for having a pen! I think we only got a couple right, but my random wrong answer of Marmaduke as one of the heroes got us an additional 3 points.

The next round was pop culture and we got all of these right. He had us finish the first line of a tv show theme song and name the show. I was BORN to play this game, having watched way too much television as a child and also possessing an idiot-savant like ability for remembering song lyrics. During the second part of this round, Gideon would describe a scene from a movie and you had to give him the name of the song and the artist that was playing during said scene. This was my favorite round. It was a lot of fun. Also, I knew all the answers so I felt all smart and stuff.

The next round was not as fun. It was all about booze and this time specifically about rum, which none of the teams really knew anything about. I guess the $500 my Dad spent so I could go to bartending school really was a waste. Sorry Dad. This was when team just a second bowed out. I asked if we could have their points but was denied.

Then it was time for Brooklyn trivia, which lucky for me, my teammates seemed to know a lot about. For the bonus round, you had to name 4 movies that featured The Brooklyn Bridge. We put Lonely Guy, Manhattan, The Baxter, and If Lucy Fell. They were all right, but our host hadn’t seen Lonely Guy or If Lucy Fell so he looked them up online because he didn’t believe us. We ended up being right, so we got extra points. Told you so Gideon.

The lightning round about Nations was really the deciding factor for this game. We kicked some team batcave butt. Gideon would give us a phrase, for example ’splitting the bill’ and we would respond with ‘going dutch’. Get it?

In the end, the winner was……..team uncoolkids!!! yay!! We won a lovely pitcher of Newcastle. It was a super fun cheap casual no frills kinda night. Perfect for a Tuesday night especially if you’re a little low on funds, like I was. I will definitely be back.

The Triviacrats happens every Tuesday night at 9pm at Capone’s Bar, N 9th St between Driggs and Roebling and it’s FREE.

I’m an actor and I have actor friends. This means that I have seen, and quite frankly been a part of, A LOT of bad theater. Bad acting, bad directing, bad sets, bad writing. Bad, bad, bad. That being said, I’m obviously not easily impressed. So I went to see the first production of MTB Studio’s THEATRE UNPLUGGED with less than great expectations. The play is being presented at the MTB Acting Studio. It’s a small space with 3 rows of chairs, the equivalent of a black box theater but nicer. It’s simple with hard wood floors and black curtains surrounding it. There was no set, few props, and no lighting or sound effects. In fact, the house lights were up the entire time. We were up close and looking right into the actor’s eyes and they were looking back at us. There was nowhere to hide.

Thankfully, I didn’t feel the need to. It was brilliant and the actors held my rapt attention for the whole time I was there. (Keep in mind, that I am a person that can fall asleep anywhere and on this particular Sunday, I was a bit hungover.) The play, a satire about greedy politicians and little people coming together to save the day, is entirely relevant and I really enjoyed it. If you are a fan of acting, you should see this show because the acting was flawless. I looked hard for the weak link in the cast but I just couldn’t find it. I especially enjoyed the performance of Noelle McGrath who played the title character. She was simply delightful. I look forward to the next production from THEATRE UNPLUGGED.

This is the kind of theater that should be supported and celebrated. Seating is limited, so make your reservations in advance!

I walked in to The Big Quiz Thing and the place was packed. No seats anywhere and none of my friends were there yet. It was only 7:30. Oh well. They finally arrive and we get our drinks and as Shannon hands me my jack and coke, it somehow spills up my sleeve. Not a good start to the night. I got a Big Quiz Thing pad and pencil from Noah Tarnow, the host, and my team and I force ourselves into a crowded corner by the doors so we have something to lean on. Our team name was uncoolkids dot com. Original, I know. My favorite team name of the night was “Buy more chairs”. Right on.

The quiz itself? HARD. I didn’t know I was so dumb. Actually, I was a little smarter than I thought. Here’s a hint: don’t second guess yourself. Every time I did, I was all “D’oh! I should have gone with my first guess.” There were five rounds with about 10-15 questions about movies, Fortune 500 companies, books, unusual deaths of famous people, candy bars, politics, even a ‘name that tune’ round…a little something for everyone. They also give away Smart-Ass Points. If you don’t know the answer, make something up, and if it’s funny, Noah will read it and decide if you get a Smart-Ass Point based on audience response.

I thought I had put together a pretty decent team and while we didn’t come in last, we certainly didn’t come in first, not even close. Regardless, we had a blast. Noah Tarnow is a charming and delightful host; not at all creepy and orange like a Bob Barker or Chuck Woolery type. And you can win prizes like books or CDs or Entenmann’s donuts (the team that was in 17th place won these) or the grand prize of the evening: $200!! The Big Quiz Thing is a good excuse to get your friends together and go out on a Monday night. Just get there early. I spoke with a regular who said she usually gets there at 6:30 or 7:00 to score a booth for her team . You can bring in outside food and have a couple of drinks before the show begins. Also, they want teams of at least four people, but never fear. If you show up alone, they’ll find a team for you. For those of you looking to cheat, don’t try it cause you’ll most likely get caught. Plus Noah doesn’t like cheaters and frankly, neither do I.

I can’t wait to go to The Slipper Room for The Big Quiz Thing again. Next time, however, I will get there early because I want a booth!!

Dear Mo Pitkins,

What the hell?

I arrived at 7:30 for the 7:45 Shark Show that was happening in the upstairs lounge and there was no one sitting at the little desk at the top of the stairs where they usually take your money and tell you what’s going on. Hmm. I went back downstairs. Then I saw some other people go upstairs, so I followed them thinking they might know what’s going on. They didn’t. At this point, it’s 7:45. A woman with a Mo Pitkins t-shirt comes up the stairs and says “The show started already you know, you can go ahead in.” So we walk in and start to sit down when we’re told by the man on stage that the show has in fact, not started yet. Back into the hallway to wait some more. Finally, 8:00 and we are let in. Grr. Poor organization makes me frustrated. We sit down and the waitress comes over to take our drink order. My friend wanted an Orange Julius. Unfortunately for her, they don’t make the specialty cocktails upstairs, so she had to settle for jack and coke. Hmmph. This show better be good cause now I’m all cranky.

Lucky for me, it was the funnest!

Gabe McKinley, Nick Stevens, Dan Gaba and Ari Voukydis are The Shark Show. It’s sorta like Saturday Night Live, if Saturday Night Live had comedians instead of musical guests. The guest comics included Chris Jurek, A.D. Miles, Sean Crespo, and Dan Newbower. I enjoyed Chris Jurek’s email from his mother about his Time Out New York joke of the week. I had seen A.D. Miles two days prior and even though some of the material was the same, I still laughed. I loved Sean Crespo’s take on hipsters who are “so over motor skills”. Dan Newbower was charmingly funny as always, but I was disappointed that he ran out of time before he could finish the re-telling of a dream he had about doing stand-up at Carnegie Hall.

My favorite moments with the regular cast included the passive aggressive environmentalist, Nick Steven’s pantomime, Ari’s Ann Coulter CUNT watch, and Gabe McKinley’s news update. Honestly, sketch comedy and variety shows frighten me a little because it’s SO easy to do it badly. I had nothing to fear.

The Shark Show lived up to all the great things I’ve heard about it. This is smartly written, well acted, funny stuff. You should check it out.

Sometimes I feel like I’m following the same comedians around the city and watching them perform the same stuff over and over again to the point where I start to think, well geez, I hope Jordan Carlos doesn’t think I’m stalking him. So you can imagine my excitement when I went to see Sweet, hosted by Seth Herzog, at The Slipper Room on Thursday and realized I had never seen any of the guests perform before!. Yay! Also, it had been a while since I had visited The Slipper Room and I do so love it. It’s super cute and kitschy and right across the street from Rosario’s which has really yummy pizza. Anyway, Seth’s guests for the evening included guest DJ and comedic sidekick Nick Stevens, A.D. Miles, Arj Barker, Tony Camin (of Bro’in Out fame), and these people - I think they were called The Dreggs (sp?). Video here:

Anyway, they pretty much stole the show cause you can’t beat a singing dog. Afterwards, the guy in the group did this monologue in the style of a one person show delivered by Michael Thomas Foster about being gay. It was hilarious. Other than that, I think my favorite part of the show was when Seth brought his mother onstage (which he does every week in what I think is a genius idea) or Seth and Nick Stevens who I really really liked. A.D. Miles stuff about his divorce and an unused sex swing full of dirty socks was priceless. It was revealed as he was getting offstage, that his ex-wife was originally supposed to be the guest DJ of the night. True or not, that would have been interesting. All of the comics were solid, so I was a little disappointed that the crowd was so low energy that night, myself included. I was just really tired and I would like to publicly apologize to them by saying: It wasn’t you, it was me. Two more things. Seth? Where did you learn to dance like that? And Nick Stevens, I’m going to be at The Shark Show on Saturday. I promise I’m not following you; it’s just a coincidence.

I like free things. I’m on a mailing list for Time Out New York that offers free advanced movie screenings. All you have to do is be one of the first people to respond and you get free general admission tickets They overbook so you have to be there early because there’s no guarantee you’ll get a seat.

I was a little late for the free screening of Starter For 10, meaning I arrived at the theater 10 minutes before the movie started, so my friend and I had to sit in the front row. Oh well, being really uncomfortable will just give me more of an impetus to get up and leave if the movie sucks. The movie, produced by Tom Hanks, centers around a small town working class Brit named Brian Jackson (James McAvoy). He’s going off to university because he wants to know everything. He loves to learn. When he was a child, he used to watch quiz shows with his dad, who has since passed away. He meets Alice Harbinson (Alice Eve) while trying out for the university quiz team. He helps her cheat on the entrance quiz and because of this, ends up as only an alternate while she gets a spot on the team. He doesn’t mind though because it’s not long till the rest of the team recognizes his quiz team chops. As a bonus, Alice, the pretty preppy blonde type, agrees to go out with him. Days earlier, however, he met Rebecca, a protest-y punk rock type who also likes him, but at this point he is too smitten with Alice to look twice at her. Thus begins the love triangle. This is where the story lost me. First, I did not believe that either of these girls would actually like him. Second, I didn’t buy that he wouldn’t automatically choose Rebecca. She was just so much cooler and prettier than the other girl. Regardless, I feel like I don’t have to tell you anymore about the plot because if you’ve ever seen a movie, you know exactly what’s going to happen here.

The movie is set in the 1980s, but it also was filmed in a 1980s style, which I thought was an odd and distracting choice. I kept thinking ‘who would choose this crappy instrumental synthesized garbage as background music’ on purpose? They only did it in the 80s cause they didn’t know any better. The movie has a couple of funny moments but all in all, it’s pretty predictable and a little too corny and the characters didn’t feel very flushed out. I enjoyed Rebecca Hall and all The Cure songs and it wasn’t so bad that I walked out. It would have been a long walk to the back of the theater and it didn’t deserve that grand of a gesture, though if I were you, I wouldn’t waste my money seeing this in the theater.