How did I get hooked up with all these cool bands?

I'm really not sure, I'm so bad at seeking out new music, it's damned lucky that it seeks me. Or at least the people that play it seem to turn up all around me.

I have not had a chance to see this band yet but I've checked them out online, I love the lyrics and the lead singer is a great chick to hang out with. So, tomorrow night go out and catch Audio Fiction before they leave the country!*

Audio Fiction
Saturday Jan 7th @ 10 PM
Piano's
158 Ludlow, at Stanton St.

If you absolutely cannot make it, check out their place on MySpace, there's new content this week.

*It's OK, they'll be back in a week. But if you know anyone in Ireland tell them to check out AF next week on the Emerald Isle.

TOMORROW NIGHT! LIVE!

One of those pictured above will be playing a live gig tomorrow. In the interest of leaving a little mystery in our relationship I'll let you guess who. I've been told that the costumes will be optional.

He's a rock star, my friends, with a talent not only for singer-songwriting but also for gathering a stellar band around him. I haven't heard this particular configuration of musicians yet but I've been hearing about their awesomitude for about a year now. The anticipation is killing me!

He's playing at Freddy's bar in Brooklyn and you know how much I love Brooklyn and dive bars. If Freddy's were like 12 blocks closer to my house it'd be the perfect bar. Eh, but perfection is boring so I'm going to suck it up, wear a warm hat and walk over there tomorrow night to hear the music at 9:30. The beer is cheap, the music is great and the company can't be beat, I promise you.

Alex Sniderman & Eureka!
Freddy's Bar
Dean Street & 6th Avenue
BROOKLYN
9:30pm
Friday January 6, 2006 (It's epiphany, people!)

P.S. I must admit that I pirated the picture from here.

Santa Takes Holiday

I regret to inform you that Santa Jay is taking a break this year.

As I am sure I have told you before I am no fan of the period between Halloween and my birthday known as "THE HOLIDAYS". One of the few things I looked forward to, though, is going to see Santa Jay. I love me some live voices singing the classics, and the classically twisted. So I'm disappointed that we won't be seeing any of that this year but I understand that even Santa needs time off once in a while.

Watch this space for an announcement about next year's show, I want to get a big crowd together for it.

In the mean time you can get the recorded version of the greatest hits of the holiday to give as a gift or to give your own party a little lift. The whole CD is great but I am particularly fond of The Restroom Door Said Gentlemen. It's the right combination of classic and insubordinate. If you're having a New Year's party check out the piano bar CD, it would make a delightful and classy addition to any gathering that involves champagne.

Give Santa Jay some love, people, I want him to come back next year.

A party you can actually enjoy

Now I know that you've got an office party and a family party and your girlfriend's agent's client party and you have to stand in line to see Santa so your niece can have a new Furby. And I know that you think that the last thing you want to do is to go to another party.

You're wrong.

I've got a party at which you can actually enjoy yourself.

After 15 years at 750 Eighth Avenue The New Perspectives Theatre is moving! (The owners are tearing the building down! They're probably going to make condos, 'cause that's what we need, more high priced housing.) Most people, even us wacky theatre folk, don't add throwing a party to the list of things we need to do on moving day. However the NPT folks are all about enjoying the ride, so they are throwing a gala benefit to celebrate this new phase of their development.

They're even having a tag sale so you could do some Christmas shopping. Whatever you do please give them some support because what we do need is more good, affordable, intelligent theatre.

Go! Have fun! Aunt Hattie won't be there asking you why you aren't wearing a ring yet.

Here's the scoop:

New Perspectives Theatre Company (NPT)
Pelican Studio Theatre
750 8th Avenue, New York, NY
Wednesday, December 14, 6:00pm -
Thursday, December 15, 12:00am
212-730-2030
$50.00 per person

Our home of 15 years at 750 8th Avenue will be demolished after the new year, and we are having a Bon Voyage Benefit Bash!

**Join our special guests, including Senator Tom Duane, Austin Pendleton, Actor and Playwright; Virginia Louloudes, Executive Director ART/NY; Stephanie Berry, OBIE-Award Winner and founder of Blackberry Productions; Bob Ost, President and Founder of TRU; Stephanie Barton-Farcas, Founder and Artistic Director of Nicu's Spoon; Deirdre Hollman, former NPT Literary Manager and now with the Schomberg Center; and many of our long-time companie members and associate artists, to


*pay homage to the Pelican Studio theatre space and NPT's history here
*gather friends, artists and supporters from all the years, past and present
*raise funds to help with the transition to our new home
*and CELEBRATE NPT's exciting future

We'll have food and drink, a silent auction, testimonials and entertainment, tears and laughter, and plenty of party time! We're especially looking forward to hearing many NPT/Pelican Studio anecdotes and will have a "memory book" available for written stories, notes and good wishes.

Tickets: $50 (tax-deductible) Checks made payable to New Perspectives Theatre Company, or charge with PayPal. If you cannot personnally attend, please consider buying a ticket so one of our starving artists can attend! Or make a small donation to help with moving costs.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

6-7: General Schmoozing, Browse Silent Auction Items, Feasting & Quaffing

7-8: Welcome & Introductions, Fun Speeches & Moving Testimonials**

8-8:30: More Browsing & Making Merry

8:30-10: Special Guest Speakers and Performances**

10-Midnight: General Merriment & Reminiscing


For 15 years, our home has provided an affordable and safe haven for hundreds of established and emerging artists, Off-Off Broadway theatre companies, and literally thousands of school children and community members. As we look to the future, we ask for the support of the New York Theatre Community, and our friends, neighbors and audiences. We are looking forward to sharing a toast, a story and maybe a tear or two with all of those who have benefited from this historic space over the years.

Run, Stanley, Run!

I am a big fan of the Official Flat Stanley Project. A lot of my friends have been asked to house Stanley on different legs of his world wide tour but I have never been asked and I'm not afraid to tell you that I get a little envious. Imagine my delight when Media Guy told me that The Notify had inadvertently participated in the project.

Tipped off by a second grade class in Ohio (Or possibly Indiana, I really should have checked that fact before I posted. Sorry class! My apologies!) that Stanley might be attending events in NYC, Media Guy has been scouring the internet with his special photographic enhancement software (as seen on CSI, CSI:Miami, CSI:NY, Navy:NCIS, Without a Trace & pretty much every crime busting show since Quincy) to find some evidence to send back to the classroom. It turns out that in last week's Marathon Wrap Up post he found what he was looking for.

I present you with the appropriately enhanced photo:



Congratulations Stanley! We knew you could do it.

Edited to add that the second graders in question are from Indiana. Go Hoosiers!

Hope & Prior planning with a side of minor disappointment

You can clear your calendar for the afternoon of November 19th, we've had to postpone the reading until January or February.

I was really excited about this and it was helping to keep my spirits lifted as we careen into the holiday season like a tipsy Ice Capades chorine. So, it's a bit like taking the carrot out from in front of the donkey.

On the other hand it's not canceled canceled it's just postponed.

Secondly, the one on one meetings with the actors have gotten me to thinking a bit and I might want to make some more slight revisions. Having more than 2 weeks in which to make said revisions is a good thing.

Thirdly, a cast member has to have oral surgery so, you know, I'm thinking having all three actors not be in chronic pain is going to be nothing but good for the overall value of the production.

So, disappointing, of course, but the right thing to do.

Watch this space for updates on our progress.

Marathon report

It would be very easy for this entry to become a whiny sort of a rant about how I need a new camera. No amount of whining will win you over, though, because if I had a better camera there'd be even more pictures and you'd be clicking over to something else so fast you might crash your computer. Let me sum up with, if I had a camera that actually took the picture when you pressed the button even these few pictures would be way better and I would have gotten shots of the guy dressed as Magnum PI, the breast cancer survivor, the guy dressed as Wonder Woman, the guy with the shirt that explained that he ran the DC marathon last week, a close up of the front running women....well, you get the picture. Er, idea.

I think these people are crazy to run a marathon. I think the whole idea of it is nuts and pretty gross and every year when I see them it makes me choke up. I defy you not to get a tear in your eye when you see a guy with "Team Daddy" on his shirt or the senior citizen with a photo tee on that proclaimed "Go Grampa Budy" or, you know, that woman in the Breast Cancer research tee with "SURVIVOR" emblazoned across the top.

Anyway, I love watching the marathon and here's what I saw this year.

I see this guy every year. He's turkish and his companion (with the beard) does a great job berating the crowd into making enough noise for his liking.



The frontrunning women. I have no idea who won either gender's race in the professional categories.



Frontrunning men.



Here's a new one on me. I believe he was running to promote "men's cancers". Yes, that's what he's dressed as. Yes, really.



There are always at least 2 rhinos. This year there were three. This was the first year that I saw why they run as rhinos. They're running for a web site that helps save rhinos from extinction.



There's a lot of action in the bleachers, too. This guy was waiting for a friend who was running in the race and his wife had taken the squirmy toddler home so he had to hold the sign, tilt the bottle and keep an eye out all at once. Multi-tasking Brooklyn style.



There were a lot of kilts this year. Not sure what that's about but I liked it.



These women, or at least members of this same group, run every year. I believe they're from Britain, I assume they are promoting breast cancer awareness. Also, one of these people is not a woman, but they are all wearing very cool spangly bras.

And now something about me, Me, ME!

I have written a play.

Like the Moon is a historical one act about the family of Playwright, Anton Chekhov. Chekhov was chronically ill for much of his life and was cared for by his sister, Masha. His illness also kept him from living in Moscow where his wife, Olga Knipper, was a member of the Moscow Art Theatre. In this play I explore the heightened emotion that grips the trio as Chekhov's disease begins to take him over.

Wow, that was so stilted and icky. I wrote this play it's about that famous Russian playwright dude and his wife and his sister. He had to live most of his life in Yalta and his wife worked in the theatre in Moscow so they spent most of their courting and married life a 2 day journey from each other. (Some might say the perfect way to spend one's courting and married life.) It also made for some serious tension since Chekhov's sister ran his house in Yalta and spent more time with him that Knipper.

Better.

This summer Like the Moon was given a reading in the theatre portion of the Marblehead Festival of Arts. It was a wonderful blessing and spurred me to revise the play and find some ways to have it performed again. Interest has been shown from a number of venues in the US and Canada so I've decided to up the ante a little with a New York reading.

The reading is free and we will be serving vodka and cookies. I want to have as many people as possible hear the play and give me feedback for some final revisions before I begin work on a full production and publication.

Saturday, November 19, 2005
3:00pm
New Perspectives Theatre
750 Eighth Avenue
Suite 601

We'll be in the studio.

Who is this we of which I speak?

I have been blessed again with my 3 first choice actors for this reading.

In alphabetical order:

Paul Daily as Anton Chekhov
Julie Flanders as Olga Knipper
Libby Hughes as Maria Chekhov

It's at this point that I feel I should have asked them all for bios. Oops. (Guys, if you have bios, please send them and I'll update the post.) Suffice to say they are actors of high standing in the community, coming from diverse backgrounds and training and whether you like the play or not you will be compelled by the performers.

For more information or to RSVP e-mail me at kbrob (at) juno (dot) com. Now, you don't have to RSVP but it'd sure make me feel better to know that people were really coming.