Tag: New York City
NYU-SCPS Playwriting I begins Tuesday 6/5
by Jefe Von Stanley on May.16, 2012, under New York City, Theatre
My 8-week summer course for adults, Playwriting I: The Fundamentals at NYU School of Continuing & Professional Studies begins on Tuesday 6/5. This noncredit, ungraded, evening lecture and writing workshop covers the exact same dramatic writing and theatre history content I teach to matriculated undergrad students in my similar 3-credit, full semester courses at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and Drexel University Westphal College of Media Arts & Design in Philadelphia, only it’s much more affordable. You will write a lot, you will learn a lot, you will have fun. Learn more and enroll.
NYU SCPS Playwriting I Begins 2/8/12
by Jefe Von Stanley on Jan.28, 2012, under New York City, Theatre
My 10-week spring semester course for adults, Playwriting I: The Fundamentals at NYU School of Continuing & Professional Studies begins on Wednesday 2/8. This noncredit, ungraded lecture and playwriting workshop covers the exact same dramatic writing and theatre history content I teach to matriculated undergrad students in my similar 3-credit, full semester courses at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and now also at Drexel University Westphal College of Media Arts & Design in Philadelphia, only it’s much more affordable. You will write a lot, you will learn a lot, you will have fun. Learn more and enroll.
See you there.
Rachel Corrie’s Ghost Gets Her Day in Court
by Jefe Von Stanley on Mar.17, 2010, under Books and Literature, Journalism, New York City, Politics, Theatre
Originally posted 3/10/10 by jefevonstanley on MediaElites.com.
Rachel Corrie
Theatre changes nothing, but at least it changes that. The BBC reports that the Rachel Corrie murder trial is finally underway in Israel. Well, okay, it’s a civil suit but still. Never heard of her?
Seven years ago, idealistic human rights activist Rachel Corrie, a Seattle native, was killed by an Israeli bulldozer on the Gaza Strip. Four years ago this month, the US premiere of the play based on Corrie’s poignant if naive political and philosophical ruminations, My Name is Rachel Corrie, was canceled by New York Theatre Workshop. The play, pieced together by actor Alan “Severus Snape” Rickman and Guardian editor Katharine Viner, had had a successful run in London in 2005.
NYTW’s PR nightmare began when conflicting reasons were given for the cancellation. Had they merely postponed it due to scheduling difficulties, or was it canceled because they’d consulted with New York City religious leaders who’d insisted the play was anti-Semitic and incendiary so they chickened out of premiering it? Hard to believe; after all, this was the organization that brought us Shopping and Fucking. Then again that play featured Philip Seymour Hoffman, so if he was bugged by the cancellation (see below) then maybe something was up after all.
Continued here – http://mediaelites.com/2010/03/10/rachel-corries-ghost-gets-her-day-in-court.
Roll Over, Fat Albert, Tell Charlie Brown the News. ’70s R&B meets kids’ animation
by Jefe Von Stanley on Mar.11, 2010, under Film, New York City, TV
Originally posted 3/4/10 by jefevonstanley on MediaElites.com.
Mark Stansberry's hoping Puddin can bring home the bacon.
So I’m on the 3 train yesterday morning creeping towards Brooklyn when a guy comes on around Chambers Street with, “Excuse me ladies and gentlemen…” which I would have immediately tuned out except he was right in front of me. Turns out he’s not soliciting donations nor is he part of a haggard, hat-passing do-wop quartet. He’s an animator and filmmaker. No wonder he’s broke.
He explains that he’s created a “kid and family friendly” cartoon called Puddin, (“Pictured here,” he said, gesturing grandly to his professionally silk-screened Puddin t-shirt), about a little girl growing up in Brooklyn in the early ’70s. He’s got a duffle bag full of DVDs containing six brief episodes, “and these are not flash animations, these are not computer generated, they are hand drawn by my colleagues and me. Over 25,000 hand drawings…” This filmmaker-huckster’s name is Mark Stansberry.
Long story short I dug up a Washington and bought one of the Stansberry-autographed Ghett-O-Gram Films (yes) discs and checked it out. Continued at http://mediaelites.com/2010/03/04/roll-over-fat-albert-tell-charlie-brown-the-news-70s-rb-meets-childrens-animation-in-puddin/
Unheavenly Host
by Jefe Von Stanley on Feb.12, 2010, under New York City
SNACKERS WILL BE EXCOMMUNICATED. A hilarious Yelp review reminds tourists that Manhattan’s the kind of place where even a charity thrift store can be elitist, and that between-meal snacks should be avoided. I don’t know about the resta yous but I’m stickin’ wit Goodwill.
Angel Street Thrift Shop
“Beware the moronic staff
Beware the snooty staff who think they work in Bloomingdale’s, or that they own all this stuff and wish you’d leave quickly. It’s a THRIFT STORE, people. Wake up. I’ve lived near it for years and have liked shopping there knowing about the social programs they support, and have tolerated the silly little staff, but really, lose the attitude, today you went too far. You’d think their motto might be Love Thy Neighbor, but Berate Thy Neighbor or Loathe Thy Neighbor would be more appropriate. Won’t be back after my experience today; there are many other charities in the city who don’t try to gouge me on the prices, don’t shower me with pretense, and don’t yell and pitch a bitch fit because I dropped some nuts, SOME NUTS (egad!) onto their DOORMAT an inch from the front door, had the kindness and maturity unusual in New York (most people would have walked on out and thought nothing of it) to go let them know I’d spilled some nuts on their mat -
‘Guys? Sorry, I made a little mess up here.’
Middle-aged bitch comes over and stares down his nose at the nuts on the doormat, then stares down his nose at me, rolls his eyes, and walks away, presumably to get a broom.
‘Do you want some help cleaning it up?’ I offer, this clearly being a two-second cleanup job, and hey, I felt bad about making someone else have to clean up my spilled nuts from their doormat.
‘No. That’s why you shouldn’t bring food into a store,’ he added smugly, on the verge of a full-on hissy fit. Golly thanks, Mom. Get parental on your customer; way to get repeat business and spread good word of mouth.
‘Well, now, I did look before I came in and there’s no sign saying Please No Food or Drink,’ I pointed out, because if I’d seen a sign I certainly would have put away my nuts before this man got a look at them.
‘You shouldn’t need a sign. It’s courtesy.’ Oh, now the customer who sought out someone to point out his spill and offer to help clean it up himself is not courteous but DISCOURTEOUS. Brilliant answer. You’re batting a thousand with the customer service skills, bud.
‘Oh, like you’ve never eaten food in a store before!’ I yelled. I was done being polite. ‘It’s on a mat an inch from the door! You open up the door and you shake it out, it’ll take two seconds, I even offered to do it myself!’ No response. I stormed out. You know what else stormed out the door with me? My money, my partner’s money, my friends’ money, and my neighbors’ money.
Way to go, coolio! Golly, you must be the MANAGER! Neato! You’re so IMPORTANT.
- Pros: only occasionally will you find something worthwhile here
- Cons: pretentious prices, snooty staff”
The Cache Too Scary for Geocaching.com
by Jefe Von Stanley on Oct.31, 2007, under New York City, What's Really Going On
You can log your find at terracaching.com and navicache.com where it’s listed as The Ghoul-Haunted Woodland of Weir. Enjoy.
Starting GPS Coordinates:
N40 47.635
W73 57.515
The Ghoul-Haunted Woodland of Weir
Paths, math, hills, lovesick forest muggles
Halloween puzzle cache in Central Park, New York City
Original Contents:
Vampire blood
Spooky tattoos
Pirate eye patch
The Best of Poe comic book
EEK! Spiders!
The Spirit of Geocaching Geocoin (registered at geocaching.com and now working its way south) – This miniature Ouija board & planchette geocoin was a birthday gift from Pia to Jeff. We asked a real Ouija board where its little buddy here would like to travel, with the plan that after it gets there we’ll take a vacation to that country and retrieve it. A spirit named R-U-T-H enthusiastically told us it should go to L-A-K-E C-H-A-P-A-L-A, M-E-X-I-C-O (no joke) in the state of J-A-L-I-S-C-O near Guadalajara. Swear to God. We’d never heard of this lake, never would have occurred to us in a million years but we immediately reached for the world atlas, found it, it sounds great. Ruth told us she used to live there and that we’ll love it. She even “talked” on the Ouija board in Spanish sometimes. We checked on geocaching.com and see that there are indeed two caches there, Blockhouse and El Arbol Grande, so either of those caches is this coin’s final destination. As soon as it arrives there we’re Jalisco bound. Thanks, Ruth (whoever, whatever and wherever you are).
Description:
The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere–
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir-
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
A sign of the end.
Now that the proper mood has been set you may begin. Once at the starting point on the edge of Central Park’s North Woods, your journey to the dark side begins by facing the compass direction of the freezing waters where Shelley’s monster met his demise. Now start with the Number of a Man and subtract the number of lines in Ulalume, the number of people present at the Last Supper, the number of Salemites hanged, (Don’t Fear) The Reaper’s place on the list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and the two-digit year of Orenthal’s murder acquittal.
Now project a waypoint that many degrees, and the number of feet equal to the date of the Medusa sculpture at Korkyra. Forget straight lines. Tread carefully through the ghoul-haunted woodland. Beware false turns and remember that only vampires cannot cross running water (not so lovesick zombies so be stealthy and remember that the trees have eyes, especially in warm weather). You will soon arrive at Satan’s Table, an ideal spot for a human sacrifice (or lunch).
The path to your final destination.
From here, face the Land of Nod. Project a waypoint using the two-digit year of the theft of Charlie Chaplin’s coffin for degrees, and the year of St. Moses the Black’s martyrdom for feet. This will lead you to Beelzebub’s Boulder.
Tread 3 grave lengths to your spooky reward.
Happy Halloween,
JeffandPia
10/31/07
Beelzebub's Boulder.
View from Beelzebub's Boulder.
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[images via The Exorcist and Jeff & Pia]
Devil Women: Beyond the Date From Hell
by Jefe Von Stanley on Jun.30, 2003, under Books and Literature, Film, Journalism, New York City, Politics
In 2001 I abandoned a long and serious relationship largely over my career aspirations in the arts and lack of desire to move to Westchester and have a child anytime soon, and left the sanity of my Brooklyn home to crash on the couch of my uncle Joey in the Chelsea neighborhoo of Manhattan. Two years into being single again I often quipped to friends that I was going to write a one-man show called This is a Date? I Thought You Were Gay, the title a reference to the tragic punchline I received at the end of the first date I went on after ending a seven-year relationship.
I admit that to the untrained newcomer to Manhattan I might have appeared that way — I was in my 30s, childless, living in Chelsea, and a playwright. The date had been with a beautiful blond religion professor from Pennsylvania, and it had gone down in the great timeline of my petty existence as The Date From Hell. Everybody is destined for one. There, that was mine. Dating could only get better from there on out.
Well, I don’t know what’s worse than Hell among the world’s religions, but whatever that place is called, it’s the place from whence my two-headed demon dog of a night out emerged. The prelude to my courtship Armageddon had begun two weeks before.
A casting director friend was in town from LA and had a gathering at a Hell’s Kitchen watering hole known for its theatrical clientele and its dark history as a former Irish mafia hangout in which a gangster once rolled a freshly severed human head down the bar. This particular gathering would no doubt be full of bloodthirsty networkers not at all shy about serving as their own publicists, myself among them. We’re in show biz. It’s part of the job in this racket filled with desperate freelancers. Within 30 seconds of my being seated next to an attractive, intelligent-looking, cheerful woman sipping a glass of white wine, she had introduced herself and, without my prompting, she had immediately launched into the reason for her giddiness. “I’m a director and my first movie’s about to be released!” She was trying to impress me and I’ll admit it worked. I was impressed. She explained that it was a movie about the garment industry, a field in which she had worked in the past. She was writing what she knew. I liked that.
I also liked the fact that she had a head on her shoulders and she was hot. I explained that for the past few years my focus had been on playwriting because I was having some success there, but that I’d gone to film school, dammit. I wanted to make a movie, too. One of my screenplays had been optioned by a small but successful indy production company in New York, and funding was being sought. I eagerly shared all of this with her, and in a flurry we chattered our bios happily away at each other; where we’d gone to film school, what brought us to this particular gathering, whether we were LA types or committed NY types. She put herself firmly in the LA camp. I was NYC through and through but had enjoyed my short stays in LA to pitch my wares at the studios. The more we talked, the physically closer we got, frequently leaning into one another. I bought her a drink. Neither of us moved from our spots for the next two hours.
Now, in a situation like this, a fine line quickly develops between networking and flirting, between genuine attraction and a desire to get ahead. I knew my attraction was genuine. I was getting that butterfly feeling in my stomach, a good (continue reading…)
