Laughter is the best medicine, so the famous theys say. I would agree; laughing is my favorite activity. And if Old Jews Telling Jokes was a gym, they would be Equinox. Old Jews Telling Jokes works your funny bone, side bone and abs in the most hilarious way. Laugh lines be warned: Off-Broadway has never been funnier.
To view F.A.M.E NYC Editor’s review of Old Jews Telling Jokes, click http://famenycmagazine.com/2012/05/13/make-em-laugh/.
Photo courtesy of Serino/Coyne
With the way this economy is going, we could all use some laughter. Wouldn’t you say?
F.A.M.E NYC can supply you with two tickets for a night of laughter with Old Jews Telling Jokes if you can tell me, who was the New York comedian that insisted that he got “No Respect”.
Comment as much as you like. Every comment increases your chances of winning.
Contest ends on October 5th at midnight. This is a quickie giveaway, so act fast!
GOOD LUCK FAMERS! I JUST LOVE A QUICKIE…DON’T YOU?
Tickets courtesy of Serino Coyne. To learn more about Serino Coyne visit, http://www.serinocoyne.com/.
To learn more about Old Jews Telling Jokes visit, http://oldjewstellingjokesonstage.com/.
Hey FAMERS, how many of you have know what Gefilte Fish is? If you don’t, don’t feel bad, seems most visitors in Times Square don’t know either.
Do you guys remember me telling you about a hilarious new Off-Broadway comedy titled Old Jew Telling Jokes? Well, if you don’t this video below well serve as a reminder of some of the zaniness that is offered up on stage during the show. Recently, OJTJ cast member Audrey Lynn Weston took to Times Square to test people’s knowledge about the delicacy and the responses are funny as H-E-Double hockey sticks!
Old Jew Telling Jokes is billed as the comedy that will make you laugh until you plotz, and I guarantee you will. If you think that clip is funny, then you need to get yourself down to The Westside Theatre and get your laugh on.
But if you keep checking out F.A.M.E NYC, you might just win some tickets for Old Jews Telling Jokes.
To learn more about Old Jews Telling Jokes, visit www.OJTJOnStage.com or check them out on Facebook, Facebook.com/OldJewsTellingJokesOnStage.
Video courtesy of Serino Coyne
Ok, so what happens when three old Jews, one young Jew, a goyim and a pianist are on stage …some of the funniest live theater I ever witnessed that’s what. Old Jews Telling Jokes is a 90-minute laugh fest that provides side-cracking chuckles from beginning to end and proves that laughter is not only the best medicine, it is also a great equalizer.
The concept for the funniest show to open Off-Broadway this year started in 2009 with the launch of a web series titled Old Jews Telling Jokes. The viral sensation was created by Sam Hoffman and produced by Eric Spiegelman and Tim Williams. In 2010, Sam Hoffman and Eric Spiegelman converted Old Jews Telling Jokes or OJTJ to paperback with the subtitle 5000 Years of Funny Bits and Not-So-Kosher Laughs. Like the web series, the book is a treasure chest of jokes and humorous stores contributed by several Jewish funnymen and personalities.
This May, OJTJ makes it debut at the Westside Theatre and let me tell you, your face will hurt from laughter. Old Jews Telling Jokes takes the old school jokes of Jack Benny, Henny Youngman, Mort Saul, Myron Cohen and others who graced the stages of The Catskills’ “Borscht Belt” and entertained millions on television and around the world and gives them a new twist. Humor has been a long standing tradition in Judaism, which dates back to the Torah; OJTJ creates an arc of the Jewish experience in America that begins with birth and childhood and ends with old age and death. Along the way the themes of assimilation, sex before marriage and sex after marriage are also explored. The production isn’t just the retelling of jokes; it also contains a few musical numbers which provide the opportunity for audience participation and poignant monologues that perfectly accentuate the importance of humor in the fabric of not only the Jewish experience, but the human experience.
At the heart of Old Jews Telling Jokes is a sense of celebration. The preservation and reinvention of these jokes are just as much about honoring Jewish conventions as the lighting of the menorah during Hanukkah. For the Jewish members of the audience, the show is more like a family reunion; many of them are familiar with the material and sometimes finish the jokes before the actors can deliver the punch line. For audience members who aren’t Jewish, especially any that may be from Gen Y, the show is just plain funny, and although the themes are skewed from a Jewish perspective, anyone can relate to subject of family or sex. The actors include Marilyn Sokol, Todd Susman, Bill Army, Lenny Wolpe and Audrey Lynn Weston. Each night they take on the task of what I can only describe as linguistic gymnastics, sticking punch lines and musical numbers which can be changed daily. But it’s because of this reason that the show will remain fresh to the actors and the audience.
From the internet – to the pages of a book – to an Off-Broadway stage, Old Jews Telling Jokes has been knockin’ them dead wherever they go, I suspect that the Westside Theatre won’t be any different. The tagline is “You’ll laugh ‘til you plotz.” I didn’t plotz, but I did feel like I was leaving 10 pounds lighter after the crunch session my abs suffered as a result from laughing so hard. Old Jews Telling Jokes is a history lesson, a workout and a ball of laughs all rolled into one fantastic show. Go see it…the joke will be on you if you don’t.
Check out these videos of creators and the cast of Old Jews Telling Jokes:
Photo and videos courtesy of Serino/Coyne
Well, the weather outside isn’t so frightful. But the savings are still delightful. The new Seasons of Savings booklet is out and offers discounts of up to 50% for shows, parking, hotels and attractions around the theater district.
Published twice of year, Seasons of Savings makes Broadway and Off-Broadway more accessible by providing amazing discounts to the hottest happenings in Times Square – the Superbowl is over, pick up a guide, run your fingers through a winter land of savings and warm up with a show.
To learn more or view the booklet, click http://www.seasonofsavings.com/.
Facebook profile updates…Twitter wars…LinkedIn networking…Skype avatars; all evidence of how the virtual world has integrated itself into the so-called “real world” to a degree that it is practically impossible to disconnect from it. Such is the case for Ned, the protagonist for MANGELLA, a hilarious, touching multimedia production presented by Project: Theater.
Ned is the scourge of the cyber world – a hacker terrorizing Asian gambling sites. He and the love of his life Gabriella, his computer that acts more like a possessive girlfriend than a mainframe, spend their day extorting money through solicited network attacks, social networking, watching porn and playing an antiquated PC game. Ned’s hacking pays for his isolated lifestyle as well as the drugs he uses on his father in an unorthodox treatment to try to evoke memories from his dementia-riddled brain, which is the result of multiple strokes. But Ned’s father refuses to believe that his is anyone other than Mangella St. James a fictional black blues legend. Ned’s cruel to be kind treatment of his father borders on insane – his father is the only living link left to his deceased mother whom he adored. He straps his father down to a wheelchair with duct tape and forces him to watch old movies. But one Flag Day, Ned has a surprise for his father and she is much more than either of them bargained for.
Lily, the hooker that shows up at Ned’s door to service his father, brings with her an air of mystery that turns Ned’s whole world upside down. Like a glitch in the Matrix, she reveals to him that not everything is what it seems. She allows him the opportunity for change – to start anew, but her tactics destroys Ned’s virtual existence, which yields tragic results for everyone.
Cheeky…thought-provoking…stylish, Ken Ferrigni penned a script that is ripe for the madness that is pop culture in the 21st century. Director Joe Jung and scenic designers J.J. Bernard and did a masterful job bringing Ned’s reality to life. The cast is equally entertaining. Anthony Manna, who plays the role of Ned, is the epitome of a cyber geek, yet in his coldness, his yearning for love is palpable and heartbreaking. Bob Austin McDonald portrayl of blues great Mangella is a real humdinger. Ali Perlwitz is amazing as Gabriella and like Lily, Hannah Wilson stings. In fact, stole my interest from the very start.
MANGELLA is playing at the Drilling Company, located at 236 West 78th Street, for a limited engagement which has been extended to October 29. I am used to going downtown to witness theatre such as MANGELLA, but I would gladly ride the one train uptown to see awesome experimental theatre like this. If you’re looking for something deliciously macabre to watch this Halloween, I recommend MANGELLA. It is Stephen King and Quentin Tarantino rolled into one. You will not leave disappointed.
Photos: Lee Wexler/ Images for Innovation
When reading the manuscript of a play, the reader can discover a world that does not necessarily appear on stage. Dialogue and most importantly stage directions reveal more about the playwright’s true purpose for writing the play other than applause and a stint on Broadway. Similar to a poem cleverly hidden within a poem, stage directions add texture and inject supplementary life to the work.
No playwright was as detailed with their stage direction as Eugene O’Neil. The legendary dramatist made his first mark on Broadway with Beyond the Horizon, but before O’Neil became a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, he was an experimental writer in the downtown theatre district.
Christopher Loar describes O’Neil as “a failed poet who became a Nobel Prize winning playwright.” Loar is an ensemble member for New York Neo-Futurists Known for Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, a production billed as “an ever-changing attempt to perform 30 Plays in 60 Minutes,” New York Neo-Futurists interject vivacious physicality into live theatre – they are not a theatre group, they are a revolution. As the director of The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O’Neil: Vol. 1, Early/Lost Plays, Christopher Loar accepted the mission of adapting O’Neil’s punctilious stage directions into a production that could stand on its own, separate from the dialogue, scenery and transformation of the actors into the characters. The result is an uproarious free-for-all.
Loar and the ensemble of New Neo-York Futurists deconstruct the instructions of an obsessive control freak and create comedic art. Following the model of Too Much Light, the troupe stages a physical reenactment of seven of O’Neil’s lesser known works. As a narrator, played by Jacquelyn Landgraf describes the action, the ensembles mimic O’Neil’s stage directions with gestures that are over-dramatized and abundant with laughs. There is no way anyone can watch this production and not walk away without having one moment in which they are doubled over in their seats from laughter. Each of these plays deals with intense emotion and somber subject matter, however after New York Neo-Futurists get done with it, it became a vaudeville skit for the new millennium. A red pail doubles for a fire in the Arizona desert; actors with shark fins on their heads imitate circling predators, an ensemble member places a puppet dinosaur over her hand and pretends to coo and cry like a baby, actors smear rouge on their face to display changes in emotion, a pig nose masquerades for an oddly shaped feature– all of it absurd and every bit of it comedic gold.
Overall, The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O’Neil is a 60-minute bacchanalia. It is a brilliant, unique theatre going experience that elevates O’Neil’s work into a new realm all while bringing America’s greatest playwright back to his beginnings. If Benny Hill and Monty Python adopted a group of kids, New York Neo-Futurists would be their rainbow tribe. Hats off to this kooky troupe for developing a new take on a theatre legend.
Photos: Anton Nickel
Every Sunday those who are filled with the spirit, regardless of their denomination, attend church. In the Baptist faith, there is a part of the service called devotion. During this time, parishioners and visitors stand before the congregation and give their testimony, which generally consists of a narration that details the trials and tribulations that they have gone through and how they have overcome them (usually with the assistance of god). I spent season after season of my childhood in church listening to people’s testimonial; none of them were as dynamic as the affirmation I received after watching RENT.
There is no doubt in my mind that Jonathan Larson’s most seminal piece of work was and still is the ultimate testimony of a life lived. The story behind RENT is beyond legendary. The fact that Larson died at 35 of an aortic aneurysm the night before its off-Broadway premiere in 1996 is a detail that epitomized the phrase “life imitating art.” Like the character Angel, who looked after his friends after his death, it seemed as if his spirit departed this earthly plane so that he could be a guide, lifting this production on his shoulders, as he did in life, and ensuring that his labor of love lived on. A labor, and a testimony in itself, Larson wrote RENT as a tribute to the friends he lost from AIDS. And how his tribute has grown, becoming an entity of its own, when the rock opera completed its final Broadway performance on September 7, 2008, it had become the ninth longest-running Broadway. Subsequently, it developed legions of zealous RENTheads, created several incarnations with American and European tours. It even spawned a school edition (which toned down the language and other elements of the show) and a 2005 movie which featured the majority of the original Broadway cast.
Now RENT has returned back to its Off-Broadway roots – full circle for a production that had been touted as the musical that spoke to Generation X the way Hair spoke to those who grew up in the 60s. I have always believed there is a time and season for everything. When RENT made its Broadway debut on April 29, 1996 at Nederlander Theatre, I had no desire to see it, despite the ravings of my colleagues. I never listened to the soundtrack, nor had I watched one scene from its film adaptation. Perhaps it was because I was too much of a rebel back in the 90s to believe anyone had my generation pegged. Perhaps it was because I lost one brother to AIDS in 1988 and another in 1997 and had no desire to return to feelings of despair, hysteria, anger and grief of the AIDS epidemic of the late 80s and early 90s. Perhaps it just was not my time to see it. Suffice to say when I took my seat at New World Stages, I was a true RENT-virgin and what a cherry popping! I sat behind a row of RENTheads who were already singing the songs before the performance started. But once it did, they were right on queue, from the first “Voicemail” to the last. Putting the production within the context of when it originally premiered, I understood how RENT was ahead of its time and definitely ushered in a new age of American musicals, laying out a blueprint that productions like American Idiot and Fela used. What I was not prepared for was the flooding of tears that erupted from my eyes as I stood to give the cast the standing ovation it most definitely deserved.
There is no doubt that RENT is a masterpiece in any incarnation. After I pulled myself together, I went home and immediately scoured the internet to view the movie and whatever videos I could find of the original cast. Despite being overtaken with emotion by this powerful theatrical force of nature, the reviewer in me still needed to make comparisons. Without question the shoes the current cast had to fill were larger than the Grand Canyon. And they do so in an impressive scale, I did not feel as if I had been cheated by not seeing RENT on Broadway or in the movies. The spirit of Jonathan Larson is still present and when they lifted there voices to sing every note, they did so with the sincerest passion to live up to the promise of the music and still make the character their own. They delivered a dose of fabulosity that I will soon not forget.
To wax on about how wonderful RENT is would seem futile and unworthy of what I experienced. Everyone knows it is phenomenal – a tour de force of the digital age. Perhaps the best attempt to sum up RENT’s continual relevance on our culture is to give my testimony. RENT hit me with a direct blow to the heart and as I cried I knew why I never saw this rock opera before. I am a member of the bohemian class. The group I belong to is the underground house community of New York City. Some of us have belonged to this community for decades, others for a few months. Like the protagonists of Larson’s greatest musical production, our struggle has been to find the freedom to be ourselves without judgment from the outside world. Whether it has been The Paradise Garage, Sound Factory Bar, Body & Soul, Shelter or Soulgasm we have given our sweat, blood and spirit to the dance floor, finding our true selves in the bass and treble of the speakers, making connections with people who could only understand us because they were like us. Now my beloved community seems to remain in an in a state of disrepair. I have watched fellow members become ill and die. I have viewed members dismantle precious relationships through petty actions. I have witnessed New York City attack my culture, deeming it unworthy because we do not want to spend hundreds of dollars for bottle service or pose behind a velvet rope. As I watch cast sing “no day but today,” in the final scene, I realized RENT was created during the height of the New York clubbing experience. I began to understand how the mistakes of our past are shaping the consequences of today and if Mimi got a second chance, maybe we would get a second chance too.
RENT is to me what Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On is to my mom and like that great musical work, will always be relevant. Sure, some who go to see it may be in their twenties and can fully comprehend the idea of not selling out. Others may be older and view it with through the reflection of hindsight, recognizing past mistakes and knowing they may have abandoned some principles to pay a mortgage or a child’s school tuition. While the rest, will just hear the wonderful music and lyrics of Jonathan Larson and just be satisfied with that. Because in the end, after you strip away all the back stories the greatest testimony of this rock opera is the music and because of it, RENT will never be evicted from the hearts and minds of anyone who sees it.
Photos: Joan Marcus
When most people think about war, their imaginations tend to lead them to the traditional sense – old and middle-aged men and women in Brooks Brother’s suits sitting in the House chamber making proclamations of war, the president reciting a skillfully prepared address to the American people describing why we must plunge into a conflict, young men and women in fatigues flying off to foreign lands, carrying the fears, pride and sometimes anger of a nation square across their shoulders all while preparing to face death daily. But what if the war is not being waged in humid jungles or blistering deserts, what if the battleground lies within?
A soldier’s job is not to ask why, theirs but to do and die. But what if you cannot relegate yourself to be a weapon of destruction killing on the government’s command? What if the word “why “echoes in your head until the sound replaces a soldier’s instinct to act without question?
Opposing fractions gripping and ripping at one’s soul can be just as deleterious and exhausting as watching for landmines or dodging bullets. Former Lance Corporal Jeff Key was already at war when he was flying off to Iraq to strike as our sword of vengeance for the attacks of 9/11 and liberate our country and indeed the world from terror-mongers like Saddam Hussein. The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy instituted under President Clinton forced a soldier to betray his existence. The propaganda President Bush used to invade Iraq forced a soldier to betray his oath. What to do? Keep a descriptive journal and transform it into a robust, introspective one-man stage production.
There is no doubt that the American public was inundated with images, video streams and commentary from the Iraq War. It was like a soap opera “As the War Turns” or a Sony Playstation videogame, only this version had real casualties. Using photos he took and the illumination of his rhythmical verse, Key’s narrative transports the audience into the Iraq War in a more intimate way than CNN and other network’s daily updates ever did. The Eyes of Babylon is a spellbinding 90-minute monologue that is real soldier’s story instead of a manufactured segment of media. Told with humor and conviction, Key relates a story with his Alabama/Forrest Gump accent that displays pure emotion. He takes the audience on a journey that begins with 9/11 and ends with him coming out as a gay man on CNN. Along this journey Key communicates the feeling of connecting with the universe’s most insignificant creatures, the eroticism of a subtle shared moment with a gay Iraqi man, the joy for simple pleasures such as the soundtrack from Rent that allowed him to mentally venture off from the state he was currently in, the realities of how soldiers shower and move their bowels in combat situations, the brutality of soldiers with a hard on to get their gun off and his growing abhorrence for the war he was sent to.
The words of this warrior poet are as powerful as a M16 with a full clip and no less haunting than a wolf howling at the full moon. I was beyond transfixed; I hung on to every word that flowed from his lips like a recruit swinging on an immense set of monkey bars. Key was my sergeant and it was up to me to follow his guidance and make the links until I had finished the task, feeling better for going through the exercise with him. Key is truthful and is the personification of the Marine term “Semper Fi”. Always faithful, Key demonstrates what it means to be a true patriot all while changing conventional paradigms of the expression. This production is a significant piece of theatre – it is Off-Broadway’s To Hell and Back. Exchanging a rifle and assault vehicle for a pen and stage Key is more formidable. Using his weapon to the fullest, The Eyes of Babylon challenges the status quo, flips them the bird and gives them a salute at the same time. Key is mercenary for those who have known little mercy, for those who are used by this government and forgotten about like cracked egg shells after the omelets has been cooked and you best believe he will go down with his boots on.
The Eyes of Babylon is not just a gay man’s account of his stint in the military during wartime. It is a story every military person can relate to. A person joins the military for different reasons. When he spoke I felt the presence of my friend that gave the ultimate sacrifice in a gun battle in Iraq, a man that joined the military to provide a better life for his two sons, a man whose beautiful face I will never see again. On a personal note, this production was closure for me. I want thank Key for sharing his story. I was so angry upon hearing of my friend’s death, knowing that he lost his life without any of his friends or family around as he made his transition plagued my heart. But after viewing The Eyes of Babylon I realized that he was surrounded with love from his fellow brethren and if he passed serving with anyone like Key, he was never alone. I salute you Jeff Key for a job well done.
Photos courtesy of The Mehadi Foundation
One of the most retold stories of the old west is the account of the events that occurred at the O.K. Corral. It has been the subject of dozens of films, books and documentaries – some historically accurate, while others are unadulterated romantic fantasy. Generally this story is told from the Earp brothers’ perspective, but a new musical gives audiences a glimpse of the harshness of the west from a feminine point of view. I Married Wyatt Earp is based on a book of the same name penned by Glenn G. Boyer and tells the story of Josie Earp (Wyatt’s third wife and widow), Allie Earp (Virgil’s widow), Bess Earp (James’ wife), Mattie Blaylock (Wyatt’s ill-fated second spouse) as well as the events that led up to the famous gunfight.
Life in the west was hard and love was even harder. Josie Marcus is weary of her restrictive life in San Francisco. Refusing to live the existence of an upper-class Jewish woman, the naive young girl finagles her way into becoming a member of a traveling troupe of actors in search of adventure. The troupe travels to Tombstone, where Josie meets a whole horde of personalities and falls in love with Wyatt Earp. Her affair with the married lawman comes off the heels of her break up with Sheriff John Behan and also adds fuel to a rivalry between Behan and Earp. The feud also enlists Wyatt’s brothers and Doc Holiday on Wyatt’s side and the Clanton-McLaury gang on Behan’s. The bad blood felt between these men would spill over in a 30-second gunfight on October 26, 1881. Subsequently, Wyatt and Josie’s affair also rippled into the discentagration of Doc Holliday’s relationship with Kate, his traveling companion, and the ruination of Mattie and Wyatt’s relationship, which also led to Mattie’s descent into addiction and her death from an overdose of laudanum. The production deals with these themes as well as Josie’s guilt over her decisions as an older Josie and Allie recall the past and how that fateful day affected their lives.
I Married Wyatt Earp is being touted as a “creative nonfiction” musical. To retell a story that has been told countless times is a definitely a daunting endeavor. The narration of this famous legend from the wives and girlfriend’s viewpoint is definitely creative, but the creators of I Married Wyatt Earp relied too much on this concept to try to sell the production. It appears the rest of the production had not been fleshed out, so its innovative concept became reduced to a ploy to pull in the audience. While the musical does have some southern fried charm, it lacks the grit that is associated with the old west. It is sort of like Gunfight at the O.K. Corral light, similar to a decaf cup of coffee it has flavor but is deficient of a kick. The cast delivers with the material, but the material could have been more polished. The choreography is mediocre; however the music and lyrics are memorable. “Don’t Blame Me For That,” “Pins and Needles,” “Did Ya Hear” and “Stand Our Ground” are songs that will remain in your head long after the show closes at 59 East 59 Theatres on June 12.
While I do believe this story may have to go back to the proverbial “drawing board” if it wants to take the O.K. Corral to Broadway, I also feel there is enough there to keep an audience with a proclivity for American folklore interested.
Photos: Gerry Goodstein
