April O'Neil comes down out of City Hall as the ace reporter and then walks into the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station. That secret, that the Downtown Brooklyn station is subbing in for City Hall, is at the heart of an upcoming film series at BAM.
"It's a really special spot. When you start at the top and move down the gently sloped ramp, you almost feel like a marble tumbling down, looking at art as you roll by. The slight slant plays with your sense of perspective and grounding."
In early 1991, the composer Alan Menken took a keyboard to St Vincent's hospital in New York to visit his friend and creative partner, the lyricist Howard Ashman. Ashman was in the final stages of Aids-related illness, but was determined to finish his work on Disney's Aladdin.
Under the ABS challenge system, a team begins each game with two challenges. If a player gets an umpire's call overturned, their team retains the challenge. In effect, this means a team has unlimited challenges until they get two wrong.
The entire indoor journey, from entry to elevator to the 100th floor, has been reimagined as a multi-sensory, immersive environment. The overhaul comes via a collaboration between experiential design firm Journey, multimedia studio Moment Factory and NYC-based design outfit SOFTlab.
MarcAurele knew he had to strike while the iron was red-hot, so he got to writing, and in just three short weeks he was bringing the show to life, complete with a number that explored the inherent musicality of that bike scene and another that featured a chorus lauding 'gay hockey players with big butts' as if they were singing a church hymn.
"Rather than a traditional theatre, we are creating a garden of earthly delights. Empyrean is a place of ecstasy, artistry and real interpersonal connection. When the curtain falls, the night has just begun."
The final show I review below got me looks that made me feel like a fish in a bowl. First, the private security at the door had two Valiant rent-a-cops who scowling at me-and only me-with that same 'Give me an excuse!' glare I've gotten from real cops all my life.
Officer Scott was sort of born by accident. He was a character in a sketch I wrote, written for a male actor, but I always would direct to give more Chris Farley energy to the character. Unfortunately, the actor that was supposed to play Officer Scott became sick the day before the show, but as showrunner and writer of the sketch, I figured I'd buy a costume and perform Scott myself.
I landed Oct. 5, and we started work Oct. 6, so it was like jump straight in. And when it's your day off, it's like, 'OK, I just need to shop and clean and relax.' Nearly six months in, the actor is slowly familiarizing himself with New York neighborhood by neighborhood, including the West Village, which he says he recently explored with his girlfriend.
His writing is incredible. The characters are real. There's so much for actors to dig into. To be able to write that way and to connect with people, you're operating on a higher plane.
Kamrooz Aram is everywhere this year, from Mumbai Art Week to the Whitney Biennial, and critic Aruna D'Souza is grateful. She pens a beautiful meditation on his work, reading his abstract paintings as not simply a denunciation of Western modernism nor a reassertion of Islamic visual motifs, but something else entirely - something gestural, exuberant, riotous, and incomparably his own.
"It has been a bucket-list dream of mine to perform on a New York stage, and I couldn't think of a better way to do that than becoming a part of the 11 to Midnight family," Morris said in a statement.
So another word about tickets. They did finally announce single-game tickets were going on sale, but only for games though June. It's not enough to keep season plans limited to those requiring fans to buy more tickets than they can use, feeding the secondary markets which the Mets also get a cut of, but "make-your-own-plan" fans like me who've reliably occupied seats for decades,
Beginning April 21, Jeremy Jordan will step into the role of Bobby Darin in Just in Time, the immersive nightclub musical that quietly became one of last season's surprise hits at Circle in the Square Theatre. Jordan succeeds Jonathan Groff, who plays Darin through March 29, in a production that has turned Circle in the Square into a swinging supper clubcomplete with floor seating, banquettes, and a live band that puts audiences inches from the action.