You're in luck this month, friends! I am deep in rehearsal for a show that doesn't open for six weeks, meaning that for the nonce I have nothing to pester you to see! I have some interesting details about that project below, but in the meantime, it turns out the most timely product I have to hawk this month is absolutely FREE and only a click away...

*  A strong Black History Month theme this month on my blog Travalanche (travsd.wordpress.com)...mostly due to the fact that several African American vaudevillians had February birthdays: Lonnie Johnson, the Mills Brothers, James Reese Europe, and Ida Cox, along with a new exhibition about the Apollo Theatre, opening at the Musuem of the City of New York. BTW, Black History Month is the perfect time to check out the African American interest section of Travalanche, which celebrates the achievements of scores of African American artists....and explores other items of related interest, such as negative portrayals of blacks on stage and screen, mostly through the use of blackface.

 

Also on Travalanche this month, we'll have profiles on Enrico Caruso, Lola Montez, the Marx Bros' favorite songwriters Kalmar and Ruby, boxer Max Baer (a.k.a "Jethro's" father), juggler Bobby May, George Fuller Golden (founder of the vaudeville union The White Rats), and -- on the same day -- Betty Hutton and Buffalo Bill Cody! (Annie, get your gun, indeed). And much more.

I am very excited to report my show Trav S.D.'s Tent Show Tetragrammaton opens at La MaMa E.T.C. on March 17. The evening consists of four original one-acts written and directed by your correspondent,  exploring themes of identity and transformation as expressed through American folk culture: tall tales, superstition, theatrical stereotype, popular theatre forms (like the traveling tent show and freak show) and various form of American folk music. The plays include:

• The Strange Case of Grippo the Apeman. This play premiered in La MaMa’s Experimental Play reading series under George Ferencz’s direction in 2007, and was first runner up in the Bob Dylan Days Creative Writing Contest (Hibbing, Minnesota) in 2008. It concerns two fly-by-night hoodlums who exhibit a monstrous idiot-savant who possesses a genius for music and impersonation. But the tables are hideously turned with a twist out of O. Henry and E.C. Comics. The cast includes: James Habacker (proprietor and host of The Slipper Room), Catherine Porter* (of Peculiar Works Project and Dixon Place) Bob Laine, Stephen Heskett, and introducing Tom Bibla as the Ape Man.

• The Ballad of Jasper Jaxon.  A folk mini-operetta in the style of Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads, and performed by Trav S.D., Josh Hartung et al., this play was given its first reading in earlier form by the And How! Theater Company in 2007, directed by Arthur Aulisi. Based on a true story, it treats of the world’s worst bank robber, who winds up being posthumously exhibited as a mummy in carnivals.

• Universal Rundle. This play was given its first reading at Soho Think Tank’s Sixth Floor Series in 2006. Based on a section of Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough, it tells the story of a voodoo priest and bluesman who lives deep in the Louisiana bayou, anxiously awaiting the usurper who will overthrow him. When the devil arrives, he comes in a surprising disguise. This moody comedy several original songs by Trav S.D. and stars Timothy McCown Reynolds*, Jeff Lewonczyk and Hope Cartelli (Piper McKenzie Productions and the Brick Theatre), and featuring Art Wallace as "The Old Cracker in the Chair".

• Strega Nonna stars Sarah Melinda Engelke* (of Supermajor and Dye Violets) as the “Little Baby Grandma Witch” who reads your fortune in her magical pot of spaghetti and serenades you out with her accordion. The evening’s digestif, directed by Carolyn Raship.

      * Appears courtesy Actors Equity Association

 

Full information, including when, where and how to get tickets all all that will follow as we get closer to the date. Just wanted to tip you off to what's in the works.

 

 

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