Aurora Black, Erik Ransom, and Avery Royal in Libertine Idol’s COMING in FringeNYC (Photo credit: Michael Blase)
Reviews Theater

COMING (Libertine Idol Productions): The Battle of Glamageddon hits FringeNYC!

Debra Miller August 9, 2014 No Comments

Self-proclaimed “heir to Sodom and Gomorrah,” the divinely talented writer/ actor/ singer/ musician/ composer/ “disaster in lipstick” Erik Ransom stars in a newly revised version of his 2011 Philadelphia smash hit COMING: A ROCK MUSICAL OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS for FringeNYC.

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Standing on Ceremony
GayFest! Previews Theater

STANDING ON CEREMONY: THE GAY MARRIAGE PLAYS (Quince), GayFest! 2014.

Katelyn Bobek August 7, 2014 No Comments

“What’s really interesting to me is that in just a few years since “Standing on Ceremony” came out, some of the pieces are already ‘period pieces.’ There is, for instance, one piece about two women flying from California to Iowa because marriage is legal in Iowa but not California (it was while Proposition 8 was still making its way through the courts). And the two women are saying things like, ‘Can you believe we live in California and have to fly to Iowa to get married?’ Well that, of course, is no longer the case. So in a way it’s a primer on recent history and an indication of how quickly things change!”

View More STANDING ON CEREMONY: THE GAY MARRIAGE PLAYS (Quince), GayFest! 2014.
Robert Patrick, image by Andrew Adam Caldwell
Features GayFest! Interviews

“What doesn’t kill me makes a great story later”: Interview with Robert Patrick on the birth of Off-Off-Broadway and 50 years of gay theater in America

Henrik Eger August 5, 2014 2 Comments

Robert Patrick, born into a migrant worker’s family in 1937, wrote many plays, songs, poems and stories. According to the Samuel French script company, he was the most produced playwright in New York City in the 1970s. His two most famous plays are Haunted Host and Kennedy’s Children. He currently lives in L.A. and earns a living writing porn reviews.

View More “What doesn’t kill me makes a great story later”: Interview with Robert Patrick on the birth of Off-Off-Broadway and 50 years of gay theater in America
Daniel Talbott
GayFest! Interviews Previews Theater

Playwright on Playwright: Two charming people interview one another

Daniel Talbott and Kathleen Warnock August 4, 2014 No Comments

Daniel Talbott (You Know My Name: A Daniel Talbott Trio) and Kathleen Warnock (Some Are People), two of the playwrights with work in this year’s GayFest!, happen to be old friends and professional colleagues. These two unique personalities interview each other about their participation in Quince Productions’ festival, their writing habits, and a slew of other topics from desserts to dreams.

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Dance Features GayFest! Interviews Previews

Quince Productions’ GayFest! kicks off with HEAD OVER HEELS

Katelyn Bobek July 31, 2014 No Comments

Philadelphia’s first and largest LGBTQ theater festival, GayFest! by Quince Productions, returns this August 5-23 to Plays and Players Skinner Studio. Opening this year’s festival is the The Bang Group’s HEAD OVER HEELS, a high energy mix of concert dance, slapstick, and musical theater in a cabaret setting. Artistic director and choreographer David Parker took time with me to offer some insights into the dance and his New York City dance ensemble’s interests in creating the piece.

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Film Interviews

Just plain weirdness: Coming Soon! Mark Mackner talks about the low-budget film scene in Philadelphia

Shoshanna Green July 23, 2014 1 Comment

Mark Mackner has been making supernatural thrillers in the underground Philly scene for almost 20 years now. His short film STUMP GRINDER has just been released online. He chats with Phindie about his latest release, the Philly independent film scene and his future goals.

View More Just plain weirdness: Coming Soon! Mark Mackner talks about the low-budget film scene in Philadelphia
Deanna Gibson plays one of three witches in the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s MACBETH (Photo credit: Lee A. Butz)
Reviews Theater

MACBETH (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival): A Minimalist Vision

Debra Miller July 23, 2014 No Comments

Director Patrick Mulcahy takes a modernist approach to the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s production of MACBETH, with a 20th-century minimalist aesthetic that compels the audience to focus on the emotions and actions of the characters and the power of the playwright’s language. It’s stark and intense, and also, at times, oddly anachronistic and comical, performed in attire that suggests a peculiar mash-up of wartime Berlin and dance club chic, military and punk.

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