March 2011
1 post
Jewelry as Art; Art as Delight
So, first things first. When I was in college—and to explain, college was this thing we used to do before we had reality TV shows to star in—I went though a silent-film phase (no, really, I did and trust me, of all the phases I went through, that was the least regrettable). Because of it’s unique restrictions, silent film has a very particular clarity and beauty to it,...
November 2010
1 post
NYC Art Scene POPS to Life!
Pop art is splashed across the walls of New York City’s art spaces this fall. From the endless white walls of the City’s cultural institutions to the auction house playgrounds of the extremely wealthy to warehouses nestled deep in the Meatpacking District, pop art is all around us. In an age where celebrity and fame are omnipresent, tabloids and tweets tell us where celebrities eat, what they eat...
August 2010
13 posts
FringeHIGH Artist Profile: Christian Santilli
Meet Christian Santilli
Christina Santilli plays Brandon in When Lilacs Last, a coming-of-age story set to the poetry of Walt Whitman.
The Stats
What’s next on your Netflix queue?
Do not have a netflix What’s playing on your iPod right now?
Tupac Last good book you read was…
1984 Favorite restaurant in the city?
Carmines All-time, hands-down favorite piece of theater?
A...
FringeHIGH Artist Profile: Jessica Greer Morris,...
Meet Jessica, Ashley & Elizabeth
Jessica, Ashley and Elizabeth are Executive Directors and Editors of Project Girl Performance Collective, an organization that uses the performing arts as a platform and catalyst to discuss social issues. The Project Girl Performance Collective is showcasing GirlPower: Survival of the Fittest at Fringe 2010.
What’s next on your Netflix queue? Jessica -...
FringeHIGH Artist Profile: Michael Karas,...
Meet Michael Karas
Michael Karas is a featured juggler in Playing By Air, which is making its premiere at the Fringe Festival 2010.
The Stats What’s next on your Netflix queue? I really want to see Capitalism: A Love Story by Michael Moore. What’s playing on your iPod right now?
Let’s see…Successful by Drake. Favorite lyric - “I know that it’s coming, I just...
FringeHIGH Artist Profile: Sarah Walker Thornton,...
Meet Sarah Walker Thornton
Sarah Walker Thornton plays Rosalind in BAMA Theater Company’s gender-bending production of As You Like It.
The Stats
What’s next on your Netflix queue?
I actually try to forget my queue so that it’s a surprise when I open the movie envelope! But I think it might be either Greenberg starring Ben Stiller or The Last Station with Helen Mirren (one of my...
FringeHIGH Artist Profile: Lillian Meredith,...
Meet Lillian Meredith
Lillian Meredith directed HAMLETTES, produced for Fringe 2010 by FullStop Collective. HAMLETTES is a quirky comedy in which three 12 year-old girls staging THE PLAY make a vow to never drop character.
The Stats
What’s next on your Netflix queue?
I don’t have Netflix, but if i did it would be Wall-E.
What’s playing on your iPod right now?
Old Crow...
FringeHIGH Artist Profile: Jenni Wolfson,...
Meet Jenni Wolfson
Jenni Wolfson, human rights activist, playwright and performer, is showcasing RASH at Fringe 2010. A one-woman play, RASH follows the story of a Scottish UN human rights worker living in post-genocide Rwanda.
The Stats
What’s next on your Netflix queue?
My Kid Could Paint That about a 4 year old artist.
What’s playing on your iPod right now?
Citizen Cope by...
FringeHIGH Artist Profile: Jon-Michael Reese,...
Meet Jon-Michael Reese
Jon-Michael Reese is the lead actor in When Last We Flew, an extraordinary story that begins on an “ordinary” Midwestern day when misfit teen Paul steals a copy of Angels in America and events unfold that change his life forever.
The Stats What’s next on your Netflix queue?
A Place in the Sun, because I think Montgomery Clift is just the bees knees....
FringeHIGH Artist Profile: Ben Whiting,...
Meet Ben Whiting
Ben Whiting is the writer and performer of American Gypsy, a dazzling new show that combines theatre and slight-of-hand. Ben also co-founded the MagicMouth Theatre and has performed magic on streets around the world. The Stats What’s next on your Netflix queue?
I don’t own a television, but I have the entire series of Slings & Arrows saved on my computer....
FringeHIGH Artist Profile: Gabrielle Maisels,...
Meet Gabrielle Maisels
Two Girls, the one-woman show by writer/performer Gabrielle Maisels, tackles tough issues through the friendship of two very different girls - one black and one Jewish - in South Africa. The show, and Gabrielle’s brillant performance, transcend time and space by seamlessly moving between Mandela’s South Africa and Obama’s America.
What’s next on...
FringeHIGH Artist Profile: Aaron Braxton,...
Meet Aaron Braxton
Aaron Braxton is showcasing his one-man, 12-character show Did You Do Your Homework? at Fringe 2010. Did You Do Your Homework? focuses on the comical and tragic realities of the LA public school system told through the eyes of one if its teachers.
The Stats What’s next on your Netflix queue? I just cancelled my Netflix membership because I found that I did not use...
FringeHIGH Artist Profile: Thomas Hodges, Composer
Meet Thomas Hodges
Thomas Hodges, the 21 year-old composer of Dear Harvey, a collection of stories about gay activist Harvey Milk, wrote the music for the Dear Harvey premiere at the age of 19.
A San Diego State University alum, he composed for the school’s productions of The Glass Menagerie, Jungle Book, The Good Person of Szechuan, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Check out...
FringeHIGH Artist Profile: Josie Peterson,...
Meet Josie Peterson
Josie Peterson, a local NYC actress, is the playwright and adapter of Tristan & Isolde, featured at Fringe 2010. The play is based on the tragic age-old legend of Tristan, a warrior who brings the Irish Princess Isolde to wed his uncle for a political alliance, but falls in love with her throughout their voyage across the sea.
The Stats
What’ s next on your Netflix...
BargeMusic
Picture this. The sun dips below the Manhattan skyline splashing the sky with color. The water below lulls the boat slowly rocking you back and forth. After a moment of complete peace, a calming quartet begins to play, gracefully sliding their bows across the strings. That’s just a typical night on the Barge down at Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn. BargeMusic, one of the most unique and...
July 2010
1 post
3 tags
Ukeleles Make Everything Better
“One-Man Show”, hearing that phrase makes my skin crawl, my mind is racing at the horror of sitting in an un-air conditioned black box for 45 minutes watching another egotistical actor whimsically perform some creative story he came up with as a child and has now produced into his epic “One-Man Show”. Out walks actor/creator/animator/director, Tim Watts; clad in wet-suit, long stemmed lamp...
June 2010
1 post
Q & A with Othello's Cara Reichel
High 5 sat down with director Cara Reichel about her latest directorial effort, Othello, from Oberon Theatre Ensemble and talked about what drew her to the play. High 5: On the show’s website, you say the goal is to create a “fast-moving, high-octane production.” What directorial choices have you made to achieve this goal? Cara Reichel: I’ve worked with the actors to...
May 2010
2 posts
Q&A with Family Week's Composer Dan Bern!
MCC Theater’s latest production, Family Week, is currently playing at the Lucille Lortel Theater and I recently sat down with the play’s composer, Dan Bern, to talk about his creative process and what it was like to work on the show! Dan Bern is a very unique and interesting artist. The son of two Jewish artists who escaped the havoc of World War II, Bern grew up in Mt. Vernon,...
Passionate about Passion Play
As I arrived at the intimate Irondale Center for the New York premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play, I had no idea what to expect. Although I was slightly familiar with the Ruhl’s work, I was not at all prepared for the force of nature that is Passion Play. This show truly blew me away. Sarah Ruhl’s mastery of language and raw emotion, matched by Epic Theatre Ensemble’s production, created a...
April 2010
1 post
21st Century Breakdown: Who's the American Idiot?
After enduring months of hype about Green Day’s new musical American Idiot, not to mention hearing my boyfriend overplay the soundtrack, I wasn’t exactly breaking down doors to see this show. But when a free ticket floated my way, I went—and, man, did I feel like an idiot for pre-judging this show! American Idiot focuses on the lives of three teenager, Johnny, Will, and Tunny (oh...
September 2009
1 post
Tonglen & The BFT (Bad Friend Theater)
We’ve all been there. Your best friend, your sister’s husband, your old college roommate’s in/wrote/directed/what-have-you a show and they can’t wait for you to see it. So you buy your ticket and take your seat in a dingy black box more fire hazard than theater. You want the performance to be good, to be great. You can’t wait for the show to send you home, brain abuzz with the taste of new worlds....
August 2009
5 posts
MONUMENTAL
Last week, I saw the world’s largest cupcake. Don’t hear that often, do you? However, it was deeply — perhaps even profoundly – disappointing. I imagined (and granted, I may have a far too-rich interior life) a towering monstrosity of a cupcake, so high in the sky that the pink scalloped frosting blotted out the sun. But no. It was about four feet high. Yes, it was over...
Images from Storm King
FLW/H5
When I was a kid, my parents had a subscription to National Geographic, a glossy and gorgeous magazine that I’d eat up every month like it was warm chocolate cake. And of all the amazing photographs in the Geographic, what has remained with me all these years weren’t the fantastic towers of Angkor Wat or the empty eyes of the Terracotta Warriors of Qin Shi Huang, it was a picture of...
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Sculpting Space: Isamu Noguchi
My first job out of college was kind of terrible. I was the executive assistant to the publisher of a boutique art-book press – Soviet Propaganda Art of the 1950’s, Odalisques, An Illustrated History, that sort of thing. Think The Devil Wears Prada, but with radically less attractive people and you’ll have a fairly good approximation of My Life in Publishing. I lasted about six...