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Performance Picks: Memes, 4/20 Fun, and More

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THURSDAY

(image via Caveat / Facebook)

Internet Explorers
Thursday, April 18 at Caveat, 9 pm: $10 advance, $12 doors

If you don’t have your eye glued constantly to social media, you might’ve missed that Instagram’s meme-makers have started to non-ironically unionize. It’s undeniable memes are a bigger deal than ever, so it only makes sense there’ll be a live comedy show about them tonight at Caveat, as part of Mark Vigeant’s recurring Internet Explorers show. As tonight is all about memes, Vigilant will be hosting online comic artist Branson Reese and a trio of journalists who report on all things internet (The Atlantic’s Taylor Lorenz, who wrote the aforementioned meme article, plus Buzzfeed’s Katie Notoupoulos and The New York Times’s Amanda Hess). There’ll also be a game of “meme Shark Tank,” where a group of comedians will try to out-meme each other. More →

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Performance Picks: Cannabis Comedy, Grimm Burlesque Tales, and More

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THURSDAY

(image via Brown Privilege Comedy / Facebook)

Brown Privilege Comedy
Thursday, March 21 at Friends and Lovers, 8:30 pm: FREE (donation suggested)

The 39th edition of Saurin Choksi and DJ Sareen’s Brown Privilege Comedy returns to Crown Heights bar Friends and Lovers tonight. As always, the show spotlights some of the best comedians of color the city has to offer, with nary a token white person to be found. This time, they’re bringing along Gibran Saleem, Aminah Imani, Ayanna Dookie, Kevin Iso, and Alex English. After all the jokes have concluded, stick around—DJ Sareen takes the stage and the show becomes a dance party. More →

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Kevin Bacon Worship, Comedy While Jogging, and More Performance Picks

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(image via Fresh Ground Pepper / Facebook)

Fresh Ground Pepper Festival
Now through April 21 at New Ohio Theater, various times, various prices.

If you thought theater festivals just happen during January and in the summer for Fringe, think again, my friend. There is a theater festival happening right now, and I don’t mean that in the theoretical sense. I mean that performance incubator Fresh Ground Pepper’s first-ever festival is actually happening, right now, until April 21. Unlike some theater festivals which just have some plays and some musicals maybe, there’s quite the dose of variety with this one. In addition to new play readings and devised theater showings, here are two late-night comedy evenings curated by everyone’s fave deranged comedian Lorelei Ramirez, a politically-themed “experimental art party,” a day of activities for actual children, and more.

If you’re around tonight, there’ll be readings of Krista Knight’s High Blonde, a play about city planning and accessibility, and Nate Weida and Ben Holbrook’s musical The Church of the 1st Order of Cloud City’s Inaugural Unity Jamboree, which is not about the art space in Williamsburg. More →

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Neutral Milk Cabaret, Butts, and More Performance Picks

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WEDNESDAY

(image via Salty Brine’s Living Record Collection / Facebook)

How Strange It Is
Wednesday, February 7 at Pangea, 7:30 pm: $20 advance, $25 doors

You may have first caught wind of this show back in 2016, when it happened at small East Village venue the Red Room. Whether you did or not, Salty Brine’s cabaret that uniquely puts Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea in a WWII setting has been enjoying an encore run at nearby spot Pangea for the past few weeks. The show is part of his longtime “Living Record Collection” project, in which he performs notable albums in their entirety with a conceptual twist. Past endeavors have included a German cabaret Abbey Road, a Prohibition-era She’s So Unusual, and a sentimental, seafaring rendition of Joni Mitchell’s Blue. Tonight will be the last night of this particular creation, so don’t be a “fool” (ha ha, get it, because that is one of the song titles) and get over there. More →

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Performance Picks: 30-Year Christmas Carol, Queer Vloggers, Gay Hell

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THURSDAY

(image courtesy of A Christmas Carol)

A Christmas Carol Year Five: Home For The Holidays
December 14-18 at Pratt Institute’s Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator, 8 pm or 7 pm: $30

Marriages are technically a commitment for life. The team behind this deconstructed, imaginative, and wacky riff on A Christmas Carol directed by Andrew Neisler and told through the story of a fictional couple has chosen something no less ambitious, particularly for live performance: they will perform a version of this show every year, for thirty years. Now, they’re on their fifth year. Things are changing, but they show no signs of slowing down. So, come on down to whatever a “fashion and design accelerator” is and pay this kind couple (Ryann Weir and Andrew Farmer, who also wrote the piece) a visit. Though Farmer was the writer behind the recent series of spooky subway-centric tales, I assume this show will be more seasonal than spine-chilling. Also, it includes unlimited beer and wine. More →

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Best Chairs in Comedy, Annoyance’s Last Night, and More Performance Picks

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WEDNESDAY

(flyer via The Annoyance)

Holy Fuck Comedy Hour
Wednesday, March 29 at The Annoyance Theater, 10:30 pm: FREE

As we’ve told you previously and with heavy hearts, strange n’ mighty little basement comedy theater The Annoyance is closing at the end of the month. More specifically, it’s the theater’s last night of shows tonight. What better way to send it off than by attending one of the shows The Annoyance is most lauded for, the late-night extravaganza that is the Holy Fuck Comedy Hour. The show assembles a strong assortment of comedians from different pockets of the NYC scene and asks them to write characters, scenes, songs, and more in only one week and then perform their creations with no rehearsal. And if you’re looking for even more chuckles, there will be three different improv shows happening earlier in the evening.

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Something ‘Terrifying’ and Four More Performance Picks

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WEDNESDAY

(image via Maude Gun / Facebook)

Maude Night #4
Wednesday, March 15 at Muchmore’s, 9 pm: $5-7 suggested donation

This is decidedly not the UCB showcase, but a queer/femme/POC space for variety performance and expression helmed by witchy, culty performance-art band Maude Gun. The lineup includes “Mountain Moving Witch of the West Coast” Carissa Matsushima, “Ritualistic Serotonin Poem Witch” Tara Jayakar, “Nose Bleeding Drama Queen Healer” Holly Simple, and a closing piece by Maude Gun themselves. Though it is the name of their band, they seem to be rather generous with the term “maude,” referring to their booked performers and potentially everyone in the room by the moniker. In the event description is a reminder: “let’s mind our pronouns! (call everyone a MAUDE if you’re lost)” More →

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Performance Picks: Western Wildness, 2-Year Anniversaries, Bits N’ Buddy Holly

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WEDNESDAY

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Wednesday With Westerns!
Wednesday August 24, 7 pm at City Reliquary; $7.
The City Reliquary, a tiny, quirky wonderland of a museum, will be the location for this western art party this evening. Gallop amongst NYC memorabilia, but don’t get too distracted, as there will be plenty to do on the frontier. Selections include the chance to get your own Wanted poster painted by artist Omer Gal, experimental Japanese movement genre butoh done with a Texas twist, line dancing, a hog-tying contest, theatrical happenings, ghostly songs, wandering Western characters, and surely much else. If you have the gall to come in a Western-themed costume (god forbid nobody mistake you for a lost Republican on the way there), you’ll be greeted with a free shot of tequila or whiskey. As the cow/boy creature on the poster proclaims so proudly, “Be a REAL cowboy like me!” Darn tootin’.

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Backstage at a Fest That’s ‘Experimenting With the Idea of Experimental Theater’

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Last week, we gave you the heads up about Exponential Festival, a cavalcade of local productions that are “all experimental and strange in nature, but in a way that’s experimenting with the idea of experimental theater,” according to founder Theresa Buchheister. With the fest continuing through Sunday, we checked in to see how it’s going. Watch our video for a taste of the shows at The Brick, Cloud City, The Silent Barn and The Bushwick Starr.

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