que pasa new york

By Robbie on January 18, 2010

There's the kind of theater where you put helicopters on stage, or run faucets, or splash blue paint around. There's the kind where 100-year-old bawdy artifacts are unearthed and performed in mincing British accents for dazed picnickers. There's the kind where puppets fuck. Sometimes the audience is spat on.

The kind that the New York City Players specialize in is something else, and their own innovation. It abjures the sensual transfats and goes for the emotional protein -- the dead-on connection between spectator and performer -- that the art of theater is uniquely equipped to provide. I love artists and others who trample the common sense of their craft and press forward, despite every obstacle, with their own extreme version of life. Doesn't it just make New York what it is? I'll be there on Monday, January 25, at St. Paul's Church in Chelsea, playing a benefit for this nationally renowned yet terminally strapped company. It's a country-themed night with grits and so on. More details on the tour bar at right.

The following night, Tuesday the 26th, I'll be back with my friend Jenny at Barbes in Park Slope. If you'd rather see me on the cheap and doing more like the usual thing (for part of the St Paul's show I'll be jamming with some of the actors), then come Tuesday.