Identity Crisis Theater Opens at the Brick in Greenpoint

The Event Included a Rough Draft Festival Preview Coming to LaGuardia 3/11

March 2, 2020 / Brooklyn Neighborhoods / Brooklyn Theater / Brooklyn Blvd NYC.

In early February I attended the opening of a new theater ensemble - Identity Crisis Theater - at the Brick Theater in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn.

The theater group is comprised of three Turkish American artists who will "... feature English translations of works from Turkey, the Balkans, the Middle East and surrounding Mediterranean cultures." Their goal is to develop "... a platform for exploration, conversation, revelation and the celebration of our common humanity."

It was a cold, wet, miserable night outside, as I made my way to the Brick, which is located only a couple of blocks from the G line Metropolitan subway stop. As I stepped inside, the atmosphere changed to warm and dry as I took my place amongst a crowd filled with anticipation. The audience had packed the theater in advance to view performances by some of NYC’s emerging dance, musical and theatrical artists.

I met the Brick Theater management team comprised of Ryan Downey and Theresa Buchheister. This past year they took over the operation of the Brick Theater, after years of working there. They seemed to have the theater production well in hand, as there are events and performances at this warm, rustic Greenpoint Brooklyn theater every week, and quite often every day.

Identity Crisis Theater Presents 'Triggerman' at the Brick Theater in Greenpoint BK

On the stage at the back of the theater, a performance had just begun. The piece was entitled Triggerman and it was about the step-by-step planning of an assassination, alongside the moral struggle of a young man, trying to wrest himself free from the anger and hate, being imposed on him by a few members of his own ethnic tribe.

• CLICK here to read the rest of our report on the Identity Crisis Theater opening night at the Brick Theater in Brooklyn.

Empire State of Mind at Global Citizen Concert in Central Park

Thousands Came Together for the Global Citizen Concert in Central Park Saturday Night

October 1, 2019 / UES & UWS Neighborhoods NYC / Manhattan Things To Do / Manhattan Buzz NYC.

I attended the Global Citizens Concert in Central Park Saturday night. It was a beautiful evening and thousands had come to enjoy the music and performances of famous musicians and groups including Queens, Alicia Keys, H.E.R., Pharrell Williams, John Batiste & Stay Human, Carole King and emcees like Hugh Jackman. And all for a good cause, as Global Citizen seeks to support positive change in society for all people on the planet.

Panorama Music Fest on Randalls Island

Three Day Musical Festival Strikes a Grammy Chord

July 25, 2016 / Randall's Island Manhattan / Music in NYC / Gotham Buzz NYC.

I attended the Panorama Music Festival on Randall's Island this past weekend. The music festival featured dozens of top and second tier bands and musicians with the event starting Friday and ending Sunday night. Some of the music festival headliners included award winning groups like Kendrick, Alabama Shakes and the return of LCD after a ten year hiatus. Panorama also featured a number of other highly regarded, well known groups - many of which are likely to continue gaining recognition.

In the photo at right, vocalist Sza, is performing in the Pavilion at the Panorama Music Festival on Randalls Island on Sunday.

The weather over weekend was a very seasonal hot, with temperatures hitting nearly 100 on Saturday [high 98], before descending into the low 90's on Sunday. But the island breeze coming across the East River on Randall's Island and not-too-high humidity, made strolling around the event campus not only doable, but enjoyable. There was also a public water station where you could refill your water bottle [free] and there was ample shade within the tree filled park.

The crowd dressed for Panorama to beat the heat, more than anything else. This translated into a near beach-like scene for people-watching, with many youthful men and women enjoying the glow of their Adonis-like years. In 1992 there was a gender equality lawsuit, which contested women's right to go topless without being arrested - a right men enjoyed in this country since its founding. More than a decade later, in 2015, panhandlers in Times Square began asserting that right by painting their bare breasts with American flags and other designs, while soliciting tips from resident and tourist passers-by, for the pleasure of viewing them. These 'performance artists' were nicknamed the 'Desnudas'.

NYS and NYC Government officials found a way to reign in this practice - as it was creating quite a stir - by confining the solicitations to specified areas within the Times Square Plaza. Fast forward to 2016 and things continue to evolve, with women now wearing swimsuit / lingerie-like tops as fashion statements, some of which were on display at the Panorama Music Festival.

In the photo at right, a woman sports a fashionable swimsuit / lingerie-like top, at the Panorama Music Festival on Randall's Island.

We'll have a bit more later this summer, including video and a discussion of some of the art on exhibit at the Panorama Music Festival on Randall's Island in NYC.

How We Hear @ Rough Draft Theater Festival

New Play Explores the Changing Nature of our Political Dialogue

April 9, 2018 / Long Island City Neighborhood LIC / LaGuardia Performing Arts Center / Experimental Theater in Queens / Queens Buzz NYC.

Last weekend I had an opportunity to watch one of the new plays performed at the 5th Rough Draft Festival at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center in LIC. The play was entitled How We Hear by Emily Lyon.

It was an exploratory exposition of what how the American national dialogue has changed over the past century and a half [158 years] and it was as much an experience, as it was a performance.

What Lyon did with the next hour and half of our time was an interesting journey through selected excerpts of our national debate. But even more importantly, Lyon took us on an exploratory journey - including some real time processing - of how new forms of mass media, with the incredible proliferation of information venues and access, impacts our ability to have a honest dialogue about important issues facing our society in a way that everyday Americans are able to process.

Lincoln Douglas Debates @ LaGuardia Performing Arts Center

I arrived shortly before the performance began and found a seat not far from the stage. The performance was given a short introduction by Handan Ozbilgin, the Rough Draft Festival Director and shortly thereafter, one of the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 [August 21 - October 15] began. The debates were the first ever between two Senate candidates vying to for a U.S. Senate seat [Illinois]. They became an instant sensation, and became the forerunner of the platform upon which Lincoln would run for president in 1860. It's worth noting that at the time the Senators were elected by state legislatures - not by a direct tally of state citizens' votes.

How We Hear by Emily Lyon @ Rough Draft Festival

While Triney Sandoval, the Hispanic man who played Douglas, didn't resemble Stephen Douglas facially, he was an actor and orator of the first degree, and comported himself as one might imagine Douglas. His elocution and diction were very precise, cadenced and reminiscent of an earlier age. And his Hispanic heritage, in what was - over a century and a half ago - an Anglicized age, seemed purposeful in adding an ethnic layer and some complexity, to what was possibly a simpler time.

Sandoval, as Douglas, talked about the Lecompton Constitution, which was one of the hot issues of the time. The Lecompton Constitution which was a competing, pro-slavery, constitution for the state of Kansas induction into the United States, which also explicitly stated that only white males would have the right to vote.

Ironically, Stephen Douglas, a Democrat, helped the Republicans defeat the pro-slavery constitution by aligning with the other northern Democrats who were against it. The southern Democrats were supportive of it.

States Rights Vs Human Rights: Early American Hypocrisy or Dialectic?

Sandoval, as Douglas, then went on to accuse Lincoln and the Republican Party of that time of being a northern political party - not a national political party like the Democrats were. Douglas then cited excerpts from speeches made by Lincoln which seemed at odds with each other, where it appeared Lincoln appealed to the anti-slavery sentiment while giving speeches in northern cities like Chicago while appealing to the racial prejudice of the south, while in southern Illinois cities like Charleston [which is about the same latitude as St. Louis, Missouri and Kansas City] by stating that he did not support allowing Black men to become whites equals, citing they weren't fit for the role of jurors and what not.

Stephen Douglas was a Democrat, but he wasn't pro-slavery per se. He was for the rights of states to decide for themselves what institutions to create and how they should conduct their business. He noted that all of the Founding Fathers had kept their slaves through the Revolutionary War. And Douglas reminded voters of Lincoln's speech in 1858 in Springfield, Illinois where he said that "A house divided against itself cannot stand." And that one day the United States would either be all slave or all free.

CLICK here to read the rest of our report of the LaGuardia Performing Arts Rough Draft Festival performance of How We Hear.

Comic Con at Javits Center

12th Annual Comic Con Attracts Record Attendance

October 7, 2017 / NYC Neighborhoods & Boroughs / Holidays in NYC / Gotham Buzz NYC.

I attended the twelfth annual Comic Con Javits Center in Midtown Manhattan on Sunday. The weekend long event starts Thursday and celebrates the fictional comic characters primarily created in the U.S.

Comic Con has become a sort of pre-Halloween celebration, wherein families with kids and adults who continue to nurture the creative child inside, come out in full bloom as you can see in the photo at right depicting a couple of super heroines.

Tickets generally sell out before the event, so you should start looking in late August or early September. The show is generally the first weekend in October at the Javits Center. In 2017 185,000 people reportedly attended the show. Foto 2016.