The Deep Dish Cabaret
By Danielle Sonnenberg
At Deep Dish Cabaret, Stephen Kosloff invites audiences to his roaming cabaret staged in private lofts. This performance is a cultural response to productions that feel increasingly overproduced. Kosloff wants to make audiences feel comfortable and excited again about watching live performances. He is very aware that private space breeds intimacy. Every show is new, different, and exciting. "Seeing it in a private loft gives it a surreptitious feel, like you are evading the Gestapo, although there is nothing illegal about it." said Kosloff. The show has been running for three and half years. "It’s not just entertainment to me. It’s about bringing people together," said Kosloff.
The 54th Deep Dish Cabaret Show begins with an opening night performance on Thursday, June 17 on Canal between Wooster and Greene. In The Apartment, Kari O’Donnell invites audiences into her Upper-East-Side railroad style apartment to get a private look inside the life of Sam who has REM behavioral disorder. The performance, a combination of theatre and dance is set to a soundtrack that ranges from The Beatles to Nine-Inch Nails.
The audience becomes implicated in the performance because of the intimate space. When they enter the apartment they hear a woman in a bathroom singing. "So far we have only had one audience member use the bathroom while our singing siren performs a cappella under red light in the shower. The line tends to form after the performance." At another part of the performance the character Dirty Girl is playfully pushing the door as if it is another character aloft to the nervous audience member behind it.
Kari says, "The Apartment is a voyeuristic experience for the audience. It is a peek inside the characters’ apartment and state of mind which is familiar, vulnerable and exciting to be in." This show was performed in the summer of 2003.
O’Donnell is currently at work on her second site-specific experience again combining dance and theater. This one will take place in a movie theater where Sam is held unconscious once again by her REM Behavioral Disorder. This time Sam is falling asleep at the movies to face the strange and the beautiful as she acts out her wildest dream yet. The stage is the movie house where O’Donnell sets still and moving images, artifacts and people affecting Sam. She invites the viewer to become a voyeur to the intimate and theatrical situation unfolding. "PICTURE is a show where still and moving images collide with dance/theater to surround the audience in a site-specific experience more vivid than a dream because it’s real. PICTURE SHOW takes the action on the big screen and puts it in the seat next to you," says O’Donnell. It will be coming to a theater in October 2004. Please call 917-847-3992 for more information.
At The Last Supper audiences are thrown off from the very beginning when they enter Ed Schmidt’s Park Slope apartment through his basement. He claims there are IRS problems. At another part of the show he selects a woman from the audience and tells her that he will kiss her passionately on the lips. These elements of surprise are much of the show as the script, which claims it’s about women serving Jesus his last meal.
The main idea behind the show is for the audience to trust him. Ed says, "What is surly lacking in theatre is a truly communal experience. The audience either has a decision to resist or trust me that I will lead them some worthwhile place." This show has ended however; Ed is currently working on another show that will be done next year. For more info contact Ed at info@thelastsupper.info
Since October 2002, Jade Esteban Estrada has been performing his one act musical out of people’s homes. His show ICON Lesbian and Gay History of The World, Vol.1. presents the history of gay and Lesbian people as told through Sappho, Michelangelo, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Rivera and Ellen DeGeneres. This show has been performed in apartments in Brooklyn, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, Washington Heights, and Midtown Manhattan. The most people that can attend are fifty people including standing room.
Jade sees a large increase in people attending shows in private homes because of the rising theatre prices and because people enjoy the intimacy private residences brings. He says, "People enjoy watching performances in peoples’ homes because the smaller space gives them benefits that a larger space wouldn’t give them like actually being able to be part of the show." Jade lets the members of the audience in on the show, when the various characters relates to audience members not as observers but rather as participants of the performance. Jade leaves the stage area to sit with audience as if they are his friends instead of audience members. For example, Ellen DeGeneres speaks to them as if they are members of the press when she is giving a press conference after she first publicly came out. If people aren’t familiar with their history, Sylvia Rivera will get offended and educate them. Oscar Wilde will speak to everyone, in a vaudevillian way. "Wherever you perform becomes a holy place, whether it is a subway, school lunch room, or a stage," says Jade. The next show is June 12 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. There is no charge. The show starts at 9pm. The show is seventy five minutes long. The address is 468 60th street. People must call 212-561-0493 for reservations. There is a maximum of fifty people. Jade’s website is www.IconsVolume1.com.
Noir choreographed by Noemie Lafrance is set inside a parking lot and audiences view the performance through the windshields of parked cars. The performance is inspired by 1940’s American film noir. After audience members purchase tickets they walk through the dimly-lit garage unescorted. The piece begins as they take their seats in the cars and the sound is already being transmitted by the car radios. There is no beginning to the piece, instead the performers gradually make appearances while the piece seamlessly evolves in a completes scenography. There is a juxtaposition between the real space and the stylized action that creation the illusion of an event that is taking place both in reality and in fiction.
The piece is performed by five couples and examines the language of love and suspense in the narrative of dance. The audience is magically transported as the dancers float in and out of the darkness. The dramatic lighting by Thomas Dunn produces the monochromatic effect of black and white films with only the bare skin of the dancers as the visible color. Brooks Williams is the creator of the chilling sound score transmitted through the cars’ radios.
Noemie Lefrance is the artistic direction of Sens production that created the concept, choreography, and costume designer. Sens Production is a non-profit organization that creates and produces site-specific dance performances that engage audiences in spatial participation. They want to heighten audience’s perception of their environment by presenting live performances that emphasizes contact and interaction in public spaces. The performance ends up being an intimate and unpredictable experience. It is being performed from May 5-22, on Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 and 9:30 pm. The show is at the Delancey & Essex Municipal Parking Garage at 105 Essex St in Lower East Side, Manhattan. The price is $30 for front seats and $20 for back seats (cars provided) and $15 for students and seniors. For more information go to, www.sensproduction.org.
