Saturday, October 31, 2009

Halloween in NYC

Oh sure, there are the Haunted House tours, the parade in the Village, the tiny trick-or-treaters traipsing from apartment building to brownstone. But the fact is that in NYC, people dress up like its Halloween on any given day, and freaks and ghouls roam free in a marvelous, all-are-welcome-here kinda way. True scariness can be found in the stories of haunted happenings behind the many, many closed doors of this insanity-inducing island. The New York Times put a few together in this article for our spooky amusement. Read at your own risk. Oh, and hope that your pre-war one bedroom isn't one of the fright-infested. 

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Urban Meditation in the Bronx

The  poetry of this piece of travelogue theater will leave you lulled out of space and time. But the power of it is in the now. The adventurous Foundry Theater has taken a step out of the conventional in The Provenance of Beauty, a performance piece set on a bus trip 'round the Bronx. This New York Times review captures the essence of this beautiful, haunting urban meditation. Great theater sometimes does expand outside stage. Kudos to The Foundry for expanding traditional notions of performance space, and doing so with such gentle gusto.