just a tease...

edited by Joey Williamson. filmed by some guys in Edinburgh.

more pictures of major award winners

I know you must be sick of it by now, both of you who read this blog, but here are more pictures of us having memorable heart-warming times in Edinburgh. Lynsey, one of our SCAMP street team sent these to me. They warmed my teeny tiny heart.

Here we are at Oloroso the night we opened. The people you don't recognize are Sam from SCAMP (next to Joey), Alex a SCAMP actor (next to me, where he BELONGS!) and Lynsey (between Atticus and Craig).







Craig at the SCAMP Haggis Dinner at The Assembly Rooms. Funny, this is the only picture Lynsey sent from the haggis dinner. Actually, she seemed to have sent along a lot of pictures of Craig...interesting...



And these are at Star Bar after we won our award. See the glint of triumph in our eyes! Or is that just the glint of whisky...

MONDAY NEWS

We saw a lot of AMAZING men in the last couple of weeks, enough to make Joey and I start seriously thinking about making a straight play, something American and classic, just to accomodate all of these stunning men. And whatever Alabama Shakes MFA program is selling, I'm buying. We saw a couple of guys from that school who were absolutely stunning. Their voices are like butter and they have presence and energy and yowza. I'm not usually one to applaud the theater grad school system here, but these guys maybe changed my mind...

Despite seeing fifty or so gorgeous talented wonderful men, we could only choose one for Hippolytus. We are so thrilled to welcome the incredible and talented Joe Curnutte to the cast.



In other news, on Saturday night we participated in...an off-off Broadway dance off. It was part of a fundraiser for Terra Nova, a company I don't know, but they seem like fun people (the leader of the pack did an amazing Jennifer Beals/Flashdance number. He had great legwarmers...). Allison Prouty grabbed me at her show last weekend and asked me if we would like to participate. To which I replied, "Dude. We will mop the floor with the other companies."

Which we would have. If the other companies, well one company in particular, hadn't played dirty. FILTHY.

We were up against Groove Mama, a company that is run by my buddy Kara and another company who I didn't know. We went first and I will say it... Laura Lee, Marissa, Jen, Kim, and Joey rocked hard. They did My Humps from LA FEMME, ammended slightly for girl-on-girl action (we added in a Showgirls reference). They shook their humps and their lumps and the audience went wild. Mando led the cheering. Charles looked flustered and embarassed. They warmed the room for the next performers. I was so proud.

The next group did an acoustic number from their show. They were high energy and fun.

And then Groove Mama came out, looking like the drag queens they are, in low cut dresses, gloves, boas, etc...and they stripped. All the way down to tap pants and pasties. That's right, pasties. And they swung that shit around. They swung it so hard that a certain husband of a certain Groove Mama said he worried they were going to fly right off. And he wasn't talking about the sequined pasties.

They won. Of course they won. They got their tits out. Our intricate well-rehearsed hip hop number with its tongue-in-cheek irony couldn't compare with tits. Hell, Jen even cheered for them. And they used a fan, an idea we will, of course, be stealing.

It wasn't such a harsh loss. I got to bury my face in Kara's boobs. Which was...ahem...nice. And I was reminded of something I have always believed. You can get anything if you get naked. Really. Nudity will always be rewarded in some form, even be it just for having the balls to show the skin. Later an audience member who had cheered for us told us that we shouldn't trust the masses. But I think the masses are the only thing we can trust. It's the only thing I believe in anymore. A group of people cheering for the most gaudy, the most garish, the most terrible, the most wonderful. When the crowd speaks, you listen. And on Saturday night the crowd was saying WE LOVE TITS.

Next time we'll be butt ass naked, let me tell you.

MONDAY NEWS

Just when you think the casting process is over...

The Shalimar is holding replacement auditions for its upcoming production of LA FEMME EST MORTE, a modern-day Phaedra adaptation, directed by Shoshona Currier. Classic and contemporary text are mashed up together in this satire of America's celebrity obsessionin the midst of war.

Seeking:

Hippolytus. Male. Age 18-25. Confident, arrogant yet innocent, celebrity royalty. Seeking very physical actor (boxing and dancing required) who can handle classical text.

Dates:
Rehearsals in June/July in NYC
Performances in August in Edinburgh
Performances in September TBA

Small stipend and travel included.

Please send headshots/resumes to staffing@shalimarproductions.org or mail to:

The Shalimar
15 Broadway Terrace, #2D
New York, NY 10040

Electronic submissions are preferred as auditions will be held very soon.

www.shalimarproductions.org

MONDAY NEWS

a day late. even a couple of weeks late. but here's what I got...

Our Edinburgh venue is CONFIRMED! LA FEMME EST MORTE or Why I Should Not F!%# My Son will be playing the King Dome at the Pleasance at 4pm every day! Mark your calendars!

stirring had a fabulous closing weekend. More on that and new pictures soon.

We finished casting the ladies of the chorus. We're so excited to have Laura Lee and Marissa on board! Also we saw so many amazing women for those roles. It's always helpful to see new actors and we saw a whole bunch, many of whom we will be grabbing for the Minstrel Show.

Speaking of The Minstrel Show, it has been rescheduled for the fall. Look for it before Christmas!

We have major parties coming up! Our first whisky tasting will be on Tuesday May 1st, featuring NINE whiskys and the Highland Park Whisky Brand Ambassador.

And mark your calendars for The PROM on May 12th to be held at the Ukranian National Home on St. Marks. More info coming real soon.

Husband and I went to Dressed to Kilt last night, the pseudo fabulous Scottish party and fashion show. We went with the amazing David Eustace (no one wears a kilt like that man) who photographed us for the Glasgow Herald in 2005, as well as Brian the manager of Public, Charlotte a comedian from Glasgow, Amanda who works for the BBC and the ladies who run Colours Modeling Agency in Glasgow. The event itself was a little boring. Lots of Tartan, not enough food. I was drunk within 12 minutes. The after party at the Pink Elephant was drunken debauchery. None of this really seems like news, you're thinking. Except that I got to meet someone fun and fabulous who now Joey and I are stalking on myspace. I want her to be my friend! Stay tuned for more details...

MONDAY NEWS

Yeah, it's a little late at night for news, but I'm going to do my best.

Joey and Isis and I spent the day auditioning girls for the Edinburgh production of LA FEMME EST MORTE or Why I Should Not F!%# My Son. It was a hardcore day. I think we saw about 60 girls (which is a pretty high number for us). They dance, they sang, we watched.

The only other news is that we maybe are going to get a bigger space in Edinburgh. MAYBE. More shall be revealed.

MONDAY NEWS

• Cast members from The Burg will be hosting HIPSTER SPEED DATING on Saturday March 17th. Yes, that's St. Patrick's Day. The Burg is brilliantly funny and we're so excited to have them. So buy your tickets for HIPSTER SPEED DATING on March 17. Enjoy stirring, have some Brooklyn Brewery beers and find your soulmate! All in one night...

• Our good friend was called "the discovery of the season" by The Times. It's pretty humbling and overwhelming to watch someone dear, someone you've known for years, enjoy such success.

• And the big news...WE'RE HOLDING AUDITIONS FOR LA FEMME!

Shalimar Productions is holding replacement casting for LA FEMME EST MORTE, a modern Phaedra adaptation with music and dance, set in celebrity obsessed America. Rehearsals: May-June (NYC), Performances: July (NYC), August (Edinburgh Scotland), September (TBA).

SEEKING: Chorus- 3 female singer/dancers. Must sing in 3 part harmony. Musical instruments a plus.

Please submit headshot/resumes to staffing@shalimarproductions.org, subject: La Femme; OR to Shalimar Productions, 15 Broadway Terrace, Suite 2D, New York, NY 10040. Auditions March 19, callbacks March 22nd. Equity Showcase Code. EQUITY/NON-EQUITY

Dude, I Saw Her First

Check out the Times Review below. Sound familiar? I do believe The Shalimar did this play this summer. We called it LA FEMME EST MORTE or Why I Should Not F!%# My Son....need proof? Compare our photos (the next four) with their photo...leopard print dress anyone? Anyone?







GREEK TRAGEDY WEARS A NEW, BRASH MASK

By Jonathan Kalb

Published: January 24, 2007

Sophocles’ “Women of Trachis” is packed with sex, gore, desperation and verbal beauty. If it isn’t staged very often, one reason is that the plot hinges on a twist that is hard to swallow today. Why would Deianira, Heracles’ adoring and sensible wife, believe that such a glaringly suspicious character — a centaur that Heracles shot for trying to rape her — would then want to help the couple stay together by giving Deianira a magical love potion?

Hilary McHone

Debargo Sanyal and Heidi Schreck, front, and behind, from left, Jodi Lin, Birgit Huppuch and Rebecca Lingafelter, in “Women of Trachis.”

Readers’ Opinions

Forum: Theater

In Kate E. Ryan’s delightful and perceptive contemporary adaptation, directed by Alice Reagan and produced by Target Margin Theater as part of its Hellenic Laboratory series, obliviousness becomes the play’s central theme, elevated to a kind of hubris. Deianira, played with fabulously distracted lucidity by Heidi Schreck, is a desperate housewife-cum-celebrity-spouse in a sleek, leopard-print dress, who literally itches with longing for her roving-eyed, absentee husband.

The chorus consists of three dreamy, immature young women (Birgit Huppuch, Jodi Lin and Rebecca Lingafelter) in pink dresses and flower bracelets, who drink Diet Coke out of a plastic cooler and react to the increasingly serious situation with twittering, trivialities and bromides. It’s never quite clear why such a smart, worldly queen would surround herself with such airheads, but that problem fades away in the end because the point apparently is that obtuseness, whatever its source, is fatal, particularly to women.

Ms. Ryan is far from the first playwright to update a Greek play with pop songs, casual modern speech and references to things like Xanax and computer games. There’s a special psychological alertness and pungency to this mélange, though, that Ms. Reagan shrewdly strengthens in her superbly cast and infectiously energetic one-hour production.

The two roles deliciously played by Debargo Sanyal — the royal son Hyllus, as a snooty teenager in a golf shirt and hiking boots, and the royal gofer Lichas, as a snide celebrity assistant in white glasses and shoes — are reason enough to see the show.

My one dramaturgical quibble is with the reductive portrayal, in the final scene, of Heracles (Todd d’Amour) dying when the supposed love potion turns out to be poison. Portraying him merely as a bad daddy and a serial adulterer with a secret taste for genital mutilation reads as a cheap shot beside all Ms. Ryan’s other whimsically acute decisions. Luckily, the swipe is fleeting, and never completely drains the ending of its hard-earned gravity.

“Women of Trachis” continues through Feb. 3 at the Ohio Theater, 66 Wooster Street, SoHo; (212) 352-3101.