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Nadine Feldman, Author

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theater

In Search of Story #newyorkadventure #theater

November 6, 2015 by admin

A few days ago we were sitting outside at Cafe Orlin, enjoying our weekly “date lunch.” Sitting next to us were two young men talking business. Their voices threatened to drown out our quiet conversation.

As a writer, though, my ears perked up during a brief exchange that sounded like a faint, uncertain gay proposition. “Oooh, I thought. Material.”

About that time, a bicyclist had a confrontation with a car. He seemed more shaken up than injured, though his bike didn’t fare so well. Someone noticed he had dropped his cell phone in the street during the melee, and the cafe customers mustered their voices in unison to tell him.

Stories, stories, stories everywhere. In my daily East Village adventures, they jump out at me from street corners, drop down from the sky, swirl among the fallen autumn leaves. Some are funny, some are sad, all are interesting, and my creative well is filling more and more each day.

We’re always looking for good stories, and that includes those found in the theater. Having visited many times in the last several years since our daughter moved here, we have enjoyed many productions. Over time, though, I’ve grown restless with Broadway, which is forced for economic reasons to play it safe. There are always the shows that poke fun at the Broadway beast, self-conscious musicals that, like Kardashian mirror selfies, get tiresome after the first thousand or so.

Because we’re spending five months in NYC, we are looking for off-Broadway productions, good stories, works in development, the hidden gems of a city with boundless creative energy.

Our first show did not disappoint. Barbeque is a dysfunctional family drama with a big twist that’s revealed just before intermission. It begins with parallel stories of a black family and a white family having barbeques in the park. The barbeques are a subterfuge, though, with the real intention to stage interventions for a drug-addicted sister. The rest of the family members are ill-qualified to conduct the interventions, patterning them from a television show.

At first, I struggled to accept the concept of intervention as fodder for comedy. The story comes across, at first, as more sad than anything, and not funny at all. However, when the cast reveals its twist, things get interesting, and the second half amps up the volume. Our laughter is sometimes painful and often self-conscious…but we laugh nonetheless.

Barbeque, performed at The Public Theater, is quirky, strange, and fun — a worthy first outing in search of good, original work.

Filed Under: New York Adventures Tagged With: NYC, off-Broadway, plays, stories, theater

Friday Random 5

August 9, 2013 by admin

How did it get to be Friday already? Specifically, mid-afternoon on a Friday here in the Pacific Northwest (later for many of you). Thanks to Nancy at A Rural Journal, though, I can offer my Random 5. I’m hoping to be back to a regular blogging routine by September. Have a great weekend!

  1. I have a superpower. It’s the incredible ability to ignore commercials. Hubby will look at me, incensed about some advertisement, and my response is usually, “Huh?” I have no idea what he’s talking about because I shut off my attention. What’s your superpower?
  2. The last few weeks, I’ve been tied up working on the programs for two different theatrical productions. Normally I volunteer on Tuesdays, but I’ve had to put in some long hours lately. Writing material, I can do. Layouts, not so much, though I’m giving it the old college try. Fortunately, this is temporary, as a new person starts September 1, so I get my regular routine back starting…now.
  3. This week I took an exciting next step in my gardening career: I had enough produce to give some away. It wasn’t much, just some plums and tomatoes, but it felt really good.
  4. We’ve had gloom and mist in the mornings all week long. Last night the top of the ferry glided through a cloud, and it looked like a submarine. Unfortunately, I didn’t see it in time to get a good photo, but it was way cool. Trust me. The locals call this month Fogust, and rightly so.
  5. We had our first real party on our deck this past week. Some folks from the neighborhood came over, and we had a great time. Next up: the cast party for Much Ado About Nothing on August 18! I’ve never done much entertaining before, so this is a new adventure for me.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: friday, fun, garden, random, superpowers, theater, theatre

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