Stick Fly (In honor of its closing)

What's family without dysfunction, affairs, aggravation, sibling rivalry, separation and, of course, a whole lot of secrets?

Stick Fly was a representation of all of these. It dealt with self preservation and remembering who you are as an individual no matter what your family says or does. It was a reminder that our family isn't necessarily what defines us, contrary to what many believe.

Stick Fly is filled with people struggling to find out their true identities.

Rosie Benton, Mekhi Phifer, Tracie Thoms, Ruben Santiago Hudson,
Dulé Hill and Condola Rashad

Beginning with the father, always struggling with the fact that he will forever live beneath his wife's father. He felt so powerless and inferior that he needed to sleep with the maid to feel like a "man". Then there was his perfect, rich, plastic surgeon son, so unconcerned with who he was as long as he had money and his waspy girlfriend. There was the younger son who was constantly struggling to figure out what he wanted to do, and of course, once he did, he was thought of as a joke by his father. There was the waspy girlfriend who was so unvalued by her boyfriend and was using him because he was black to make her parents mad. There was the younger son's girlfriend who grew up poor and unrecognized by her famous and successful father who completely denied her existence.

And then there was Cheryl (Played by Condola Rashad. INCREDIBLE). Cheryl was the maid's daughter. She grew up without a father. She was always out of place, going to predominantly white and rich prep schools and always being one of the few African Americans, as well as the only poor one. She was the only character that could cope with family, that understood that we are independent of our families, that they don't necessarily define us. When her mother calls to tell her that the man Cheryl works for is her father, she confronts him. He does nothing. In response to this, she merely utters, "Well that sucked."

She didn't dwell on her misfortune, she accepted that shit happens and she always just let life go on.

The Submission

Have you ever been to a show that really tugs at your heart strings? One that makes you reevaluate yourself and your environment? One that sticks in your head, lines ringing in your ears, inescapable concepts that continually haunt you? What about a show about ignorance, racism and homophobia all at the same time? Have you ever left a theatre afraid to speak? afraid of what it is you were gonna say? with a sense of self-awareness that you had never felt before? trying to mull over what it was you just saw while your head was still spinning?

One of most incredible, astounding, indescribable shows I've ever scene. The Submission was a theatre experience that I had never had before. It's beyond anything that I can describe, but I'll try to do so anyway.

Unfortunately, this show closed a while back so none of you will have the chance to see it for a while, so hopefully none of you will be upset at my complete spoilers.


Before I tell you all what this was about, I sorta just wanted to state the obvious. The whole cast was absolutely phenomenal. Jonathan Groff was in this show. The sweetest Broadway actor I've ever met. Honestly. He was swarmed by fans after this draining performance and still posed for a picture and the end of it all. :)

My friend Vera, Jonathan Groff and Me

Fan girl moment over. Time to get serious.

This play was about a "very white" and "very gay" playwright who submits a play to a festival and gets chosen. The problem is, he submitted it as a black woman because of the sensitive subject matter of the play and didn't want to be accused of being racist. To avoid any issues of this kind, the playwright hires an actress to play the "playwright". With his ultimate intention of getting his play produced, the playwright completely disregards the feelings of the woman he hired, his boyfriend and his best friend. His play is found out to be about a black family in the projects filled with racial stereotypes, and when asked by the woman to take the N word out of one scene in which it is said 37 times, he blatantly refuses. His argument is that his being gay and discriminated against is the same as racism and that he can say what he wants in his play because he knows how it feels. The two decide that at opening night of the play at which the playwright is asked to say a few words, the woman he hired will reveal to the audience that he was the true playwright. When things don't go according to plan and she does not reveal to the audience that he was the true playwright, he loses it and fights with her. After yelling about all the unresolved issues that the two had between them over the course of the show, she screams, "F****t!" and he retaliates, "N****r!"

The play ends with the playwright sitting in Starbucks a few weeks later. He gets a phone call, assumed to be someone asking him out on a date. He's asked about what type food he wants for that night. The call ends with him saying, "Ew, no. Isn't that Pakistani? Let's go somewhere normal."

Until that last line you side with him. You pity him, until you realize that he's just another ignoramus.

I'm still trying to gather my thoughts on this play, thinking about it too much keeps my head spinning.
It was an incredible reminder of what each and every one of us is capable of as well was how powerfully something can be expressed through art.

The Normal Heart

As I walked silently out of the Golden Theatre, I thought about what I was going to write for this post. Normally I discuss the incredible cast, the synopsis, the stage door. However, this phenomenal play is far above that.

Once a show ends, many normally start talking and mingling with the rest of the audience. Not this time. After the applause everyone walked slowly in silence, which was broken by the many people still in tears.

This play is about the AIDS epidemic, or I should say, the beginning of it. "Please know that everything that happened in The Normal Heart actually happened" Larry Kramer writes in the letter that was passed out as everyone was leaving the theatre. This play is about the fight for the many gays to gain recognition from the government. It's about people not giving a damn about this disease when it was still believed to reside only in gay communities. It's about family. It's about denial. It's about ignorance. It's about love, finding it, and having it taken away from you.

Most of all, this play is about recognition. Recognition for the terror that our fellow human beings went through in the early 80s and recognition for the fact that AIDs is still a plague today, though many people fail to refer to it as such.


".....Please know that AIDS is a worldwide plague.

       Please know that no country in the world, including this one, especially this one, has ever called it a plague, or acknowledged it as a plague, or dealt with it as a plague. 

       Please know that there is no cure. 

       Please know that after all this time the amount of money being spent to find a cure is still miniscule, still almost invisible, still impossible to locate in any national health budget, and still totally uncoordinated.

       Please know that here in America case numbers continue to rise in every category. In much of the rest of the world—Russia, India, Southeast Asia, Africa—the numbers of the infected and the dying are so grotesquely high they are rarely acknowledged. 

       Please know that all efforts at prevention and education continue their unending record of abject failure.

      Please know that there is no one in charge of this plague. This is a war for which there is no general and for which there has never been a general. How can you win a war with no one in charge? 

      Please know that beginning with Ronald Reagan (who would not say the word 'AIDS' publicly for seven years), every single president has said nothing and done nothing, or in the case of the current president, says the right things and then doesn’t do them. 

      Please know that most medications for HIV/AIDS are inhumanly expensive and that government funding for the poor to obtain them is dwindling and often unavailable. 

      Please know that pharmaceutical companies are among the most evil and greedy nightmares ever loosed on humankind. What 'research' they embark upon is calculated only toward finding newer drugs to keep us, just barely, from dying, but not to make us better or, god forbid, cured. 

      Please know that an awful lot of people have needlessly died and will continue to needlessly die because of any and all of the above. 

      Please know that the world has suffered at the very least some 75 million infections and 35 million deaths. When the action of the play that you have just seen begins, there were 41.

      I have never seen such wrongs as this plague, in all its guises, represents, and continues to say about us all." - Larry Kramer, excerpt from the letter that was handed out.

The words of this play are still ringing in my ears, and so they should. Beyond the fact that play itself was incredibly well done, it is a true story. I did not live through that time period. I really knew little about the terror that so many people went through at that time. And though I'm sure I still understand little about the constant fear, hurt and loss that so many went through, I think this play gave me a little taste. 

This will be my last post for a while. I'm going away for the summer, but when I come back I can promise posts on Memphis, The Motherfucker with the Hat and Hair!

Bengal Tiger in the Baghdad Zoo

For some reason, I always think of Robin Williams as that guy from RV, that incredibly stupid movie that I saw on a plane once. I think that was the first time I saw him in a movie, something I am slightly ashamed of. Still, since then I have watched a lot of his other work to learn that he is not "that guy from that stupid movie that time" but an amazing actor. Mostly I learned this from his phenomenal performance in Good Will Hunting, one of my favorite films. And then I saw him on Broadway.

One of my favorite things to do is see screen actors come to Broadway, to see an actor that you know from somewhere in a completely different setting. And honestly, Robin Williams was great as the Bengal Tiger in the Baghdad Zoo.

Bengal Tiger was a play about the current war in Iraq and how it has affected everyone there, the soldiers, the civilians and of course, the Bengal Tiger. It was told, for the most part anyway, from the perspective of this tiger who died and is now on his path of redemption so he can escape the terror of the world around him. Throughout his path of redemption he encounters various people and situations only to have his final epiphany and the end of the show.

Robin Williams as the Bengal tiger

Honestly, I think the show was incredibly clever. First, the overall premise, the chaos of the war interpreted through various people's stories, and mainly based around the death of this tiger. Everything, down to the last word was just smart. Even at those moments when you started laughing because of the show's comedic outlet, right afterwards you were left thinking. I left the theatre lacking my usual stage door excitement/"let's meet the actors" mood, but more of just wandering around thinking about what it was I just saw.

And I find it fascinating when a relevant and controversial topic is used to create some art form. It really shows our ability to understand and cope with various problems in any way we know how.

GUEST POST: The Importance of Being Earnest

A play that jokes about a now defunct system of social class, yet still manages to resonate a hilarious chord with its audience, is truly one worth seeing. The production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest by the Roundabout Theater Company is not only sidesplittingly funny, but still manages to remain poignant and relevant over a century after it was penned. 

A Tony winning Brian Bedford (and aptly so might I add) reigns supreme as Lady Augusta Bracknell, a rank obsessed mother whose approval is necessary to facilitate the marriage of several key couples. Meanwhile, the exploration of the utility, as well as function, of truth in modern society ranges from absurd rhapsodizing to hard-hitting mantras that leave the viewer pondering what exactly is the importance of being earnest. 

Accompanied by breathtaking sets and a sublime cast, The Importance of Being Earnest is aggressive in its perfection: it grabs you from the very beginning and never relinquishes your attention, despite two intermissions. This flawless production will leave you speechless, tears coursing down your cheeks as a result of intense laughter. If you are going to see one play this summer, make it The Importance of Being Earnest.


This incredibly written review is by Penina Kessler. When she becomes a published and renowned theatre critic, the best in all New York, all of you can say you read her very first here!


... I don't think I'll have the audacity to ever write again because I know that I will never be able to measure up to her amazing skills.

Equus. The experience of a lifetime.

As promised, here is my recollection of my experience at Equus. It was a mere three years ago that my mother had taken me to see this show. She of course had the knowledge that Daniel Radcliffe was fully nude for parts of the play but really had little idea of what the context of said nude scene was and how it would scar a seventh grader.

The play was incredible, even to someone who lacked the intellectual capacity to truly understand what was going on. At first it was a sort of an "OMG It's Harry Potter!" feeling, but after a few scenes, I was brought into the despair and disturbance of Allan Strang's mind. For those of you who don't really know what it's about, just to clarify, it is not Dan Radcliffe just screwing a horse. It's the story of a boy who blinded six horses and his series of sessions with his psychologist to try to understand what brought about his rash actions.

Side Note: the psychologist was played by Richard Griffiths (Uncle Vernon anyone?)

Sadly, in the performance I saw, the psychologist was played by Bill Buell. Don't get me wrong, Bill Buell was phenomenal (to the best of my memory, I was really young back then) but I was really looking forward to seeing the chemistry between Richard Griffiths and Dan Radcliffe, whom he knows well, not to mention that plays the role of the evil Uncle who despises Harry in the Harry Potter series. Obviously in this performance he takes on a much more supportive role in respect to Daniel's character.

And now, the nude scene. I obviously was anticipating this from the beginning. I, however, was not anticipating it being in the context of an extremely intimate and intense sex scene. Still, that was not the part that scarred me. It was the endless yelling of "I put it in!" by Daniel Radcliffe while sitting completely naked on top of a completely naked girl for what seemed like an hour. It was his running around on stage for another endless amount of time, still full-frontal, "stabbing" horses (aka a bunch of guys in strangely tight suits with horse heads on their heads.

My mom and I then left the theatre for a car ride that was destined to be long and awkward, and my mom simply said "Well that was intense."

And enough of all that unnecessary drama. Thinking back to that night now, it really wasn't a big deal. Those few moments really enhanced the performance and the show was incredible. I can't help but gain so much respect for Daniel Radcliffe who did this role for his Broadway debut and risked his entire reputation if the role hadn't been played so well. Incredible.

And for anyone out there who has never read this play, you really should. And so what if you don't get the whole "Dan naked" experience, the play is a good enough read on its own.