A WGA VALENTINE

You might think that the WGA strike was resolved due to the Oscars. But the behind-the-scenes story goes much deeper than that.



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WWW

By special arrangement with the WGA and The Late Show with David Letterman, we further interrupt our rerun schedule to bring you this fresh episode of WWW:

"A little OT since we’re talking about TV schedules – Bill Maher will be a guest on The Late Show this coming Thursday, 1/3/08. Letterman’s company (Worldwide Pants) has come to terms with the WGA, so Bill won’t be crossing any picket lines. I’m a little surprised that he’s agreed to return to his own show, however, as of January 11, 2008. I imagine that he wants to keep the other staff employed, although I wouldn’t be surprised if he starts out with some kind of ‘solidarity’ statement on the first broadcast!"—newsblooz at the AC 360° blog (January 1, 2008)




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WWW is a weekly series on Blog About Town. Click here to see other episodes.

Photo: David Marc Fischer

WWW

This week's installment of WWW has been pre-empted due to the WGA strike. Instead, we offer this rerun and the following message from Woody Allen:



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WWW is a weekly series on Blog About Town. Click here to see other episodes.

Photo: David Marc Fischer

WWW

This week's installment of WWW has been pre-empted due to the WGA strike. Instead, we offer this rerun and the following message from Doris Lessing:

"What has happened to us is an amazing invention - computers and the internet and TV. It is a revolution. This is not the first revolution the human race has dealt with. The printing revolution, which did not take place in a matter of a few decades, but took much longer, transformed our minds and ways of thinking."

WWW is a weekly series on Blog About Town. Click here to see other episodes.

Photo: David Marc Fischer

WRITE-AID: THE FOLLOW-UP!

I had a good time last night at Write-Aid: A Comedy Benefit for (Striking) Writers. The fun began even before I got to Comix, as Andy Borowitz and I exited the subway around the same time. I'm so glad neither of us took a limo!

The show itself was most impressive to me in the variety of comic approaches. In addition to Borowitz, we heard routines from host Laurie Kilmartin, Bill Scheft, Jim Gaffigan, Nick Griffin, Brian Kiley, Robert Wuhl, and Alan Zweibel, plus group improv from Brian Stack, Andy Blitz, Miriam Tolan, Jason Mantzoukas, Michael (Conan) Komen, and Tami (30 Rock) Seger. There was dog humor, bacon humor, cookie comedy, parent humor, hammock humor, mineral humor, relationship humor, boy scout humor, classroom humor, Michael Vick humor, classic sperm bank jokes, and storytelling humor. And there were even some jokes about the strike!

Thanks to BAT friend Frank Santopadre for making it all possible!

ACCESS-A-RIDE STRIKE

I've had trouble finding online guidance for Access-A-Ride users even though the strike by Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181 against van companies contracted by the MTA is already underway.

NY1 encourages strandees to call Paratransit Reservations at 1-877-337-2017 for guidance.

Here are the MTA's Guide to Access-A-Ride and Guide to Accessible Transit. Here's the website for the Disabled Riders Coalition.

WRITE-AID

What to do when television's top comedy writers are on strike? Put on a show, of course! Blog About Town friend Frank Santopadre is producing Write-Aid: A Comedy Benefit for (STRIKING) Writers at Comix at 9 pm on Tuesday night, December 11, 2007. Admission is $20 ($25 on the day of show) unless you have a WGA card, which is worth a $5.00 discount!

Featured performers include Andy Borowitz and Robert Wuhl as well as Brian "O'Brien" Kiley, Laurie "Craig Ferguson" Kilmartin, Bill "Letterman" Scheft, and Brian "O'Brien" Stack.

That thing in the illustration? It's a typewriter.

WWW

This week's installment of WWW has been pre-empted due to the WGA strike. Instead, we offer this rerun and the following message from Amy Sohn:

"Everyone knows the future of TV is the Internet and I see this move as an attempt to get us to get used to not being paid on the Internet so the next generation of writers, who are kids now, won’t expect to be when they’re in the position we’re in now."

WWW is a weekly series on Blog About Town. Click here to see other episodes.

Photo: David Marc Fischer

STRIKE OVER, THE SHOWS GO ON (MOSTLY)!

With the stagehand strike declared "over" (pending ratification) as of last night, I'm amazed that nearly every performance will go on as scheduled tonight. The single exception seems to be Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, which was supposed to have started previews on November 23.

PICKET TICKETS: RICHARD III

I saw Al Pacino's Looking for Richard at Worldwide Plaza some time ago (you know, when it was the cheap movie house), but I only (finally!) saw Shakepeare's Richard III this month, in the briskly-paced Classic Stage Company production starring (and co-directed by) Michael Cumpsty (most familiar to me from his roles in Copenhagen and Democracy).

I thought the play started on a shaky footing, and I can certainly imagine productions more fully fleshed, both in terms of staging and character development, but the quality of the acting and the strong, centuries-old story won me over by the end. As noted by Charles Isherwood in The New York Times, there's an especially good scene between Cumpsty and Maria Tucci, who plays Queen Elizabeth. Much of the time the play's characters seemed almost like cannon fodder biding their time until Richard doles out their fates (Henry Miller once imagined a Hamlet production along those lines) but in this particular scene there the interplay of their personalities generated genuine and eerie electricity.

WWW

This week's installment of WWW has been pre-empted due to the WGA strike. Instead, we offer this rerun and the following message from screenwriter Irving (Life of Riley) Brecher.



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WWW is a weekly series on Blog About Town. Click here to see other episodes.

Photo: David Marc Fischer

PICKET TICKETS: DYI WILLIAM FINN "TWIN BILL"

A Broadway show that is running despite the strike is the delightful 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, with music and lyrics by the gifted William Finn.

What makes this a special time for Finn and Finn's fans is that Make Me a Song, a revue of his music, is running about a block away from Spelling Bee. The production of this song sampler is a little rough around the edges, but it's a great complement to Spelling Bee, an opportunity to immerse onself in Finn songs from the Falsettos trilogy as well as relatively obscure shows such as A New Brain and Romance in Hard Times, which I regret missing. Plus there are the one-shot numbers. At the performance that I attended, attendees were encouraged to vote for their favorite Finn songs—it was really tough to choose! I hope that the run of this show leads to more productions of Finn's other works, if only so I can catch up with them.

Here's a song that's not in the revue: "Joe Papp" from Elegies: A Song Cycle. The video isn't great, but it's got spirit!



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Photo from Spelling Bee: Joan Marcus

WWW

This week's installment of WWW has been pre-empted due to the WGA strike. Instead, we offer this rerun and the following message (thanks to Dan Radosh for the lead).



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WWW is a weekly series on Blog About Town. Click here to see other episodes.

Photo: David Marc Fischer

PICKET TICKETS: METROPOLITAN OPERA RUSH SEATS

Don't count on seeing The Lion King tonight—that Broadway strike is still in force. But take heart: You can still spend the evening in the company of musical royalty, with even more Julie Taymor!

For a mere $20, you can get primo rush tickets for Taymor's take on the Mozart opera Die Zauberflöte (a.k.a. The Magic Flute) at the Metropolitan Opera.

I honestly can't believe that I continue to push the rush ticket deal at the Met, because the more that people know about it, the harder it is for me and my friends to take advantage of this amazing opportunity, the envy of opera lovers around the world. But here I go again: The rush tickets will go on sale at the Met at 6 pm for the 8 pm curtain, but you should get there early—maybe around 3 pm, to be on the safe side. Think of it as being like TKTS, but more comfortable (you wait indoors) with a better price.

To be frank, this production got a dismissive New York Times review in October, but I'm sure it's worth a try for Taymor's production design as well as the excitement of Diana Damrau's first night as the Queen of the, uh, Night.

The rush tickets are available for performances Mondays through Thursdays. Upcoming rush opportunities include the well-received Le Nozze di Figaro.

PICKET TICKETS: THE RITE OF SPRING PROJECT

Because of the Broadway strike, you can't see Spring Awakening, the coming-of-age musical based on a controversial 1891 play by German playwright Frank Wedekind.

But this afternoon, at 3 pm, you can see The Rite of Spring Project, a remarkable and sorta similar-themed music and dance extravaganza featuring dozens of New York City schoolchildren as well as the Berlin Philharmonic; it's based on the controversial 1913 ballet score by Igor Stravinsky and presented by Carnegie Hall at the United Palace Theater at 175th Street and Broadway.

A vast movie palace that opened in 1930, the venue is an attraction in itself, in very good condition with very comfortable seats and much ornamental detail (see right). For this unusual event, it provides plentiful space for the masses of onstage performers and the massive Berlin Philharmonic, which on this occasion serves as the world's greatest pit band, as one speaker jokingly suggested at last night's premiere.

The first part of the program, Songs: Ritual Rhythms, is the product of a collaboration between the Berlin Philharmonic education team and the schoolchildren, who created texts and songs in response to the "theme of rites and sacrifice" as conveyed in The Rite of Spring. Accompanied by a small group of the Berlin musicians, the young performers were good and gutsy as they performed in a variety of styles. One of the selections reminded me of music on Conjure: Music for the Texts of Ishmael Reed; the overall impact reminded me, in a very good way, of Chuck Mangione's Land of Make Believe. I only wish the texts had been available.

After the intermission and many "thank yous" came the performance of The Rite of Spring, with squadrons of child dancers going through Royston Maldoom's often affecting choreography while the whole orchestra performed seamlessly under Simon Rattle's baton.

The performers received an extended ovation, followed by very loud cheering from the students after the curtain had dropped for the last time. Judging from my recent excursion to a school performance in Hartford, I could imagine how exciting it must have been for the students to prepare and perform the program.

The United Palace Theater is at 175th Street and Broadway, a short block away from the A train stop at 175th Street. The acoustics in the front loge section were excellent.

PICKET TICKETS: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK: THE ADAPTATION

The problem: It's Friday night. And, due to the strike dimming The Great White Way, you can't see the Broadway versions of the movies Hairspray, Legally Blonde, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And you so wanted to see a version of a movie!

The solution: It's child's play. Literally. Because tonight, Anthology Film Archives screens the almost shot-by-shot remake Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation...videotaped and performed by teenagers...mostly in Mississippi...on Betamax...over the course of several years...during the 1980s!

Like some kind of rare archelogical artifact, the tape was more or less forgotten for more than a decade. Then, soon after the turn of the century, its time finally came in the form of a "world premiere" at Austin's Alamo Drafthouse, a "thumbs up" from Steven Spielberg, and a cavalcade of warmly received screenings including some at the Anthology Film Archives, which brought it back this week. With the help of friends who got $10 tickets at 6 pm for the 8 pm screening, I just saw it myself in all of its low fidelity, fell under its hypnotic spell, and greatly enjoyed the Q&A with director-performer Eric Zala and star Chris Zompolos, both very good storytellers with very good stories to tell.

One of the exciting things about watching this work is seeing how creative the low-budget copying can be. With very few resources and no video reference source for a substantial part of the shoot, the filmmaking kids worked their way through this major Hollywood film, coming up with at least some kind of solution for most of the challenges they faced—including the melting people, Myra. The more you learn the backstory, the more you can appreciate the risks and the tenacity involved. For the kids participating in the project—and the adults in their orbits—the effort was akin to that behind the making of Apocalypse Now.

If you want to get in tonight, get in line early! And wear layers so you can stand outside in the cold and be comfortable in the warm and crowded theater.

Click here for more info.

And here's a revealing interview with the filmmakers.



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PICKET TICKETS: MOMA MIA!

Has the Broadway strike shut you out of the global smash hit Mamma Mia? Get over it...and see if you can console yourself over at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), which is hosting some excellent exhibitions through early January 2008.

For those unfamiliar with the museum: If you don't show up during the free admission hours from 4-8 pm on Fridays, normal admission to the museum is crazy high at $20 for adults...but that top price is still much lower than what people usually pony up for Broadway shows. (And membership can offer its own rewards to frequent museumgoers.)

As for what's hot at MOMA (aside from the permanent collection, which is filled with works by Chagall, Gauguin, van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Pollock, Warhol and even some women artists), I've heard great things about the big Seurat Drawings exhibition, but I haven't gotten to it yet. Give yourself lots of time and try to go when the museum is relatively uncrowded, is my advice for that one.

The other major exhibition features the wonderful and, in some cases, very large, sculpture of a relative unknown, Martin Puryear. Scoboco has already covered the two floors of Puryear sculpture in some detail, so I'll limit my own remarks. I loved the use of materials, especially the trees, and Puryear's utilization of tapering, with dwindling lengths seeming to fade into thin air. Anne C drew my attention to some craft and technical issues that I wouldn't have noticed otherwise, including the seemingly gravity-defying wall mounting pictured here, in a shot of a work that you might think bears some resemblance to a snail or a lever or an Untitled, but which is quite obviously either a dinosaur or a Loch Ness Monster.

You can see the online exhibition is here, but the experience of actually moving amidst, around, and above and below the assembled work is very worthwhile. Indeed, the use of the extreme vertical space in the second floor atrium is a possible breakthrough for the museum, and the experience of initially viewing that floor's arrangement from a fifth floor perch, and then observing it from lower vantage points on the way to the second floor, was mindblowing at first and then uneven but still very worthwhile.

Also on the fifth floor is a tiny, well-curated Alexander Calder exhibit including this object—

























Alexander Calder. (American, 1898-1976). Spider. 1939. Painted sheet aluminum, steel rod, and steel wire, 6' 8 1/2" x 7' 4 1/2" x 36 1/2" (203.5 x 224.5 x 92.6 cm). Gift of the artist. © 2007 Estate of Alexander Calder / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

—which is called a spider but which is really a turkey. Or a peacock. Or maybe a chicken.

Online samples are here, but once again attendance has its own rewards and possible surprises. Not only can you watch the mobiles move (Anne C seems to recommend bringing your own straws), but you can also appreciate the cunning placement of the exhibit between displays of Mondrian and Miro works, which have clear links to Calder's colors and shapes.

The more I think about that kind of placement and well-arranged exhibits such as the long gone Full House at the Whitney, the more I think we can (and should) expect to see curator-based museum exhibits in the times ahead. Not just retrospectives of artists or artistic movements, but artful presentations of works by curators able to make original associations that might not be noticed otherwise. (Perhaps gallery expert Eric is already on top of this possible trend.)

Yet another intriguing offering at MOMA is the New York premiere of Arturo Ripstein's Mexican take on Medea, Así es la vida (Such Is Life), introduced tonight by the director. Says the museum: "The barely controlled rage of the screenplay, the intensity of a uniformly excellent cast, and the fearless theatricality of the direction build to towering emotional impact." Sounds about right for Ripstein, a prolific onetime associate of Buñuel.


Previous Picket Ticket: The Glorious Ones


Photo of MOMA: David Marc Fischer

PICKET TICKETS: THE GLORIOUS ONES

The Glorious Ones is a great little musical that's still running at Lincoln Center during the Broadway stagehands strike.

Based on a story by Francine Prose and musicalized by the Tony-winning team Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, The Glorious Ones is a kind of chamber musical that follows the exploits of a colorful band of Italian commedia dell'arte players led by Flaminio Scala, played commandingly by stage veteran Marc Kudisch.

Rounding out the cast are Avenue Q's appropriately named Natalie Venetia Belcon as the sexy and regal Columbina, David Patrick Kelly as the doddering Pantalone, Julyana Soelistyo as the winningly winsome Armanda, John Kassir as the eccentric Dottore, Erin Davie (impressive in Grey Gardens) as the ingenue Isabella, and Jeremy Webb as the dynamic Francesco.

The Glorious Ones, which features bawdy comedy and Felliniesque approximations of period comedy routines is bawdy, strikes me as one of Lincoln Center's more successful literary musicals. Helping considerably is the pacing of director Graciela Daniele, abbeted by the small pit orchestra.

Rightly or wrongly, the show made me think of The Fantasticks. It's somewhat in line with such "on strike" Broadway offerings as A Chorus Line, The Drowsy Chaperone, and Monty Python's Spamalot.

If at all possible, aim for center seats; the sets and staging are largely geared toward the folks in the middle.

Illustration by Jim McMullan

WWW

This week's installment of WWW has been pre-empted due to the WGA strike. Instead, we offer this rerun and this link regarding the WGA and Broadway stagehand strikes.


WWW is a weekly series on Blog About Town. Click here to see other episodes.

Photo: David Marc Fischer

WWW

This week's installment of WWW has been pre-empted due to the WGA strike. Instead, we offer this rerun.

TV is completely changing, the way people are watching is completely changing, and we just want some structure in place to make sure the union is treated fairly. I hope this ends as soon as possible; I’d be more than happy to do SNL this Saturday.

As far as how long we’re willing to strike, the important thing for us to remember is that twenty years ago the writers went on strike for 22 weeks, and as a younger writer I’m a beneficiary of what they went through. But we would all much rather be working!"—Seth Meyers

WWW is a weekly series on Blog About Town. Click here to see other episodes.

Photos: David Marc Fischer