A 'Home' Run

Saturday night I was captivated and clapping while watching the premiere of Home Sweet Home, a new production by the Scandinavian American Theater Company (SATC).

Now I confess, I don’t really know that much about theater, and I went to the show primarily to high-five and support my friend Lisa Pettersson. Okay, and truth be told, being a flirtatious New Yorker and a
Swedish-American myself, I was curious to check out not only the performances of my friend and fellow countryfolk, but also to scope out the talent in the audience and perhaps to see if there were any good-looking Nordic types to wink at during intermission.

That said, all thoughts of frivolous flirtations quickly went out the window as I immediately became engaged by the riveting performance before me.

Home Sweet Home is an incredibly well-acted psychological drama by Danish playwright Andreas Garfield.  The script deals with the cultural upset created by current conflicts and war in the Middle East. The characters are complex and interesting and the drama that unfolds immediately demands the viewer's interest and attention.

This play reveals the traumatic experience of war and the unsympathetic indifference of home as refracted through a Nordic country.  Actor Albert Bendix, who plays the part of returning soldier Cartsten, gives a riveting performance.

Apart from the excellent acting and great script, this play is a must-see from a production standpoint. The set design was so innovative and interesting... I need to applaud set designer Marte Ekhougen, whose innovative use of the space and integration of film into the show was impressive.

The stage, which is filled with boxes, immediately suggests the baggage each character carries in, and the abstracted distortions created by projecting the film onto an uneven cardboard arrangement alludes to the cracks in the spirit carried in the souls and seen in the desperation of all three characters.

I loved the way the space reflected the disillusionment the characters felt and I really enjoyed the conceptual depth in the way the space was constructed.

One of my favorite aspects of living in New York City is how I am constantly being inspired and impressed by the brilliance of my friends and acquaintances. There are those moments here in town when the talent of those I know surpasses even my biggest expectations for them. Lisa Pettersson, whom I had already come to support, caused me to be awed and applauding with genuine stars in my eyes.  Needless to say, I highly recommend checking out this show while you still can. —Review by New York Insider Annika Connor, an artist whose paintings can be seen here.

ESSENTIAL INFO
Home Sweet Home will run through November 28th at the 9th Space at PS 122 (150 First Ave. at E. 9th Street). Tickets are $25.

Can You Tell Me How to Get....

....to Avenue Q? The long-running Broadway show, which dropped its last curtain on the Great White Way in September, has reemerged as an off-Broadway production, taking up residence at the New World Stages (340 West 50th Street). It's a homecoming of sorts for the offbeat musical, which in 2003 began a two-month run off-Broadway (at the Vineyard Theatre on East 15th Street), before taking residence at the John Golden Theatre shortly thereafter.

The comically subversive show, inspired by the characters of Sesame Street, was written by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, friends who have taken the play around the world, most notably to London and Las Vegas. (The show did not do well with Sin City audiences and it closed after a mere six months.)

Regardless, after an Avenue-Q-less month in New York, we're very happy to have the show that gave the world such songs as "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" and "Schadenfreude" back on stage in the city that spawned it.

I'll Get You, My Pretty!

You'd have to believe that the after-party for a Broadway show called "Reasons to Be Pretty" would not be lacking in beautiful people. And sure enough, it wasn't. Neil LaBute's play opened at the Lyceum Theater last night and the stage door was scarcely closed for the night when the gushing critical reviews started pouring in—and buzzing around the post-show bash, which was held at Hudson Terrace. Among the boldface names in attendance included the show's cast members, Marin Ireland, Steven Pasquale, Piper Perabo and Thomas Sadowski, as well as actors Anson Mount (left), Saturday Night Live's Rachel Dratch, Tae Diggs and his pregnant wife, Idina Minzel and Jenny Powers, now starring in the off-Broadway show "Happiness." Apart from winning mad props from the critics, "Reasons to Be Pretty" also deserves praise for its tongue-in-cheek URL: www.doesthisplaymakemelookfat.com. As for the guests at last night's party, the answer to that question was a definitive no.

For more photos, click here.

Family Guy Bows at Carnegie Hall

It was probably the youngest audience Carnegie Hall has hosted in years. Indeed, there was not a gray hair (or blue hair) in sight last evening as the cast of Family Guy took the stage for a live performance of two of the show's most famous episodes. Backed by a forty-piece orchestra, Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, Seth Green, Mila Kunis, Mike Henry and Danny Smith stepped up to stage mics and brought the Griffin family to irresistibly funny life. The delicious irreverence of holding their raunchy show in such a sedate setting was not lost on the cast, who several times expressed glee over the fact. And the sold-out crowd loved every minute, infusing the hall with a raucous energy the likes of which it has rarely (if ever) seen. As psychopathic baby Stewie Griffin might aver, "First stop, Carnegie Hall. Next stop, the world!" For that matter, where will the Griffin family actually pop up next? There's no telling, but if we hear that they've booked a performance at La Scala, we'll know their plans for global domination are truly complete.

"I See Dead Buffalos"

It's a safe bet that buffalo never roamed the island of Manhattan. But don't tell that to David Mamet, the playwright who first brought American Buffalo to Broadway in 1977 and then again in 1983. The highly charged drama, which follows a day in the life of three questionable characters plotting to steal a buffalo nickel, is back on the Great White Way, this time, starring Cedric the Entertainer, John Leguizamo and Haley Joel Osment. Proving that hell hath no fury like a two-bit criminal scorned, the three characters treat one another with equal parts respect, cruelty and distrust, thoroughly plumbing the depths of the tinderbox mind. All three actors deliver highly charged performances, particularly Leguizamo, whose profane energy electrifies the stage. And the man born Cedric Antonio Kyles, who appears here in his Broadway debut, gives his character a healthy quantum of conscience to offset his character's otherwise surly ways. If you've got at least 1,330 nickels to rub together (tickets start at $66.50) and a high tolerance for vulgar language, get yourself to American Buffalo, which opens this evening at the Belasco Theatre. You'll never look at coin-collecting the same way.

For One Night Only, David Reigns

Sir Tim Rice and Alan Menken were visibly moved during a staging of their scarcely known musical King David at New York University's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts last evening. The colorful oratorio, which follows the rise and demise of the Biblical shepherd boy who slayed Goliath, was originally written to be performed in Israel to commemorate the 3,000th birthday of Jerusalem. Although tight timing and snags in the Holy Land led to the scrapping of those plans, the play was picked up by Disney, and in 1997 staged for nine nights as the launch production for the then newly renovated New Amsterdam Theatre. Rice and Menken, icons of the musical theater world, watched gleefully as the students of NYU's Steinhardt School gave performances of a lifetime, with standout turns by Jay Armstrong Johnson as King David, Katharine Heaton as Michal and Shane Quinn as King Saul. As for whether David will yet ascend the throne for an extended stay on Broadway, the answer—to borrow a line from one of the play's catchiest tunes—would seem to be that Rice and Menken are "taking it as it comes."

Drew Lachey, on the Brighter Side of Life

Drew Lachey, Bebe Neuwirth and Cheyenne Jackson were among the headliners appearing in this morning's "Broadway on Broadway" performance, held in the heart of Manhattan. More than 200 of the Great White Way's actors showed up in Times Square, hailing from shows including Avenue Q, Chicago, In the Heights, Spamalot, Xanadu and Young Frankenstein. The free extravaganza, hosted by Lachey, was the seventeenth annual outing for Broadway on Broadway. For fans of big-budget musicals, the show is one of the year's easy-on-the-wallet must-sees. After all, without spending a dime, where else could you find a Greek muse masquerading as an Australian on roller skates in the same space as a medieval knight plucked from the wacky collective genius that is Monty Python?

Spitzer Lampooned

Tonight's Inner Circle performance, a black-tie charity fundraiser held at the New York Hilton, took off the gloves and delved right into this week's political shocker, the Spitzer scandal and resignation. The manic events of the past five days required cast members, who are primarily New York radio and television personalities, to put in long hours both covering the unfolding story and re-writing portions of the script of their show to be up-to-the-minute as details of the tawdry affair were uncovered. Traditionally, the hammy corps of 100 journos creates an annual show to lampoon the sitting mayor. Immediately following the reporters' on-stage antics, the mayor has the chance for a theatrical rebuttal. Last year, Mayor Michael Bloomberg was joined on stage with cast members from Mary Poppins. This year, it was the cast of Xanadu. The fun-spirited give-and-take parry has been going on for more than eighty years. This evening's performance, called Young Mikenstein, a send-up of the Mel Brooks musical currently playing at the New Amsterdam theater, follows the wild campaign to create a monster-style replacement for our lame duck mayor. The Spitzer jokes, however, start early and don't let up. Watch for WCBS Newsradio 880's Rich Lamb as Michael Bloomberg, Glenn Schuck of 1010 WINS as a hilarious and inspired Igor, the CW11's Mary Murphy as a singing and dancing Hillary Clinton and Marvin Scott as NYC schools chancellor Joel Klein, as well as CBS 2's John Slattery as George W. Bush, among others. Photographs courtesy of Marvin Scott.

The Inner Circle

Attended the Inner Circle show at the New York Hilton last night. Good friend Rich Lamb of Newsradio 880 was superb as Mayor Mike Bloomberg, complete with his rendition of "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" The Clash would have been proud. Other standouts included WOR's Shelly Strickler as startruck astronaut Lisa Nowak (costumed in a diaper and a NASA flight suit); and Channel 11 anchor Mary Murphy, who seems to have missed her calling as a tap dancer. After the journalists finished their performance, Mayor Bloomberg himself took to the stage with the cast of Broadway's hit musical "Mary Poppins." The humorous send-up, which focused on Mayor Mike's campaign to make New Yorkers more healthy, featured tunes such as "Just a Spoonful of Transfats (Makes Cholesterol Go Up)" and ended with a rousing rendition of "Brooklynqueensthebronxandstatenislandandmanhattan," sung to the tune of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." The surprise finale was Bloomberg's foisting of an umbrella and rising right off the stage and into the air, declaring he was categorically not running for president (maybe). The Inner Circle---a group of hammy New York journos who perform a two-act play each year that lampoons politics both in New York and on the national scene--is 85 years young in 2007. Photos courtesy of Brian Nielsen. %%showphotos [setid=72157602750589969]%%