Extensions and Transfers

Well, okay, enough of this tender, Getting To Know Your Comtois malarkey. I've still got a window of time before we start working on Entrenched for the Vampire Cowboys' Saturday Night Saloon and we start work on The Blood Brothers Present...The New Guignol, at which time Jamespeak resumes being a relentless self-promotionacopia.

So, I guess I should take this brief period of time to natter on a bit about some non-personal, non-plugging theatre stuff. Hey, why not?

I need to extend many congratulations to the cast and crew of Viral, which not only got extended (seriously, if you missed it the first time around, consider this your chance at redemption: and especially don't be the douchebag who missed Universal Robots and Viral twice), but just won a FringeNYC Overall Excellence Award for Outstanding Play. Seriously, Mac. Where do you store this growing collection of Fringe awards? You guys must have built an annex to Gideon Central.

Congratufuckinglations, guys. This is great news and well deserved.

You can find more information on the extended dates and get tickets here.

Another very enjoyable yet completely different show that's getting a well deserved extension is Piper McKenzie's production of Trav S.D.'s musical, Willy Nilly: A Musical Exploitation of the Most Far-Out Cult Murders of the Psychedelic Era, which will now be playing at a new venue (The Actors' Playhouse).

Willy Nilly, directed by Jeff Lewonczyk, is quite fun — it's description of being "Charles Manson meets Mad Magazine" is apt — AND (I really cannot stress this enough) features lots of naked pretty people, dudes and chicks alike, including the lovely and unclad co-artistic director of Piper McKenzie, Hope Cartelli. That's right. I ogled the director's wife. What? Hope's got nice knockers.

But enough about my leering at friends and colleagues; let's move on to other things that are unapologetically trashy and silly, such as Willy Nilly itself. Basically, it's a fictionalized musical account of Charles Manson's failed attempt to start a music career and successful attempt at forming a murderous cult. It evokes the psychedelic and campy aesthetic of the '60s without making me want to go on a berserk dick-punching spree. (What is it about hippies that make me want to indiscriminately punch people in the junk? Probably all that "Peace and Love" crap they always blather on about. Fucking hippies.)

The songs are good and amusing. The live band (The Four Hoarses) rocks. The cast (which, in addition to Ms. Cartelli and Mr. S.D., features Becky Byers, Maggie Cino, Michael Criscuolo, Betsy Head, Daryl Lathon, Rich Lovejoy, Mateo Moreno, Avery Pearson, Esther Silberstein, Adam Swiderski and Elizabeth Hope Williams) kicks ass. I laughed loudly many times. It also features the author in drag (though, damn, Trav, you sure do make one ugly-ass woman).

And did I mention it features boobies, wieners and butts? Well, it does. (Seriously, stop looking at me like that.)

So, really: what more could you want?

The same link applies: you can find out more information on the extended dates and get tickets here.

And, in non-Fringe extended news, but once again proving my theory that Boobies, Wieners And Butts = High Quality Theatre (okay, I really should stop at some point), it looks as though one of the best shows I've seen this year, the Amoralists' delightful and engrossing The Pied Pipers of the Lower East Side is moving to Off-Broadway!

This show has been playing like gangbusters for months at PS 122 and due to an insatiable demand is moving over to Theatre 80 St. Marks (at 80 St. Marks Place, the former home of The Pearl Theatre Company) from September 10 through October 5. I gushed about the show here. Congratulations to writer-director Derek Ahonen, the cast and the crew.

You can find out more information here.

So for folks who say that there's no good theatre in New York, here are three upcoming shows proving you way the hell wrong. If you haven't seen these shows, it's not too late. Go see them and show them the love.

But not in a hippie sorta way. 'Cuz seriously, fuck hippies.

Beating up pacifists,

James "Get a Haircut!" Comtois