twi-ny recommended events

TICKET ALERT: LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2016

Jonathan Pryce will play Shylock in Shakespeare’s Globe production of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE at Lincoln Center Festival this summer (photo by Manuel Harden)

Multiple venues at Lincoln Center
July 13-31, $30-$125
Tickets on sale now
www.lincolncenterfestival.org

For twenty years, one of the highlights of every summer arts season has been the Lincoln Center Festival, and 2016 is no exception, with another stellar lineup of dance, music, opera, and theater from around the globe. The festival begins with six presentations by Japan’s Kanze Noh Theatre at the Rose Theater in Jazz at Lincoln Center. Led by Grand Master Kiyokazu Kanze, the troupe, which rarely ventures outside its home country, will perform Okina with Kanze’s son, Saburota, and Hagoromo on July 13, Sumida Gawa, Busshi, and Shakkyo on July 14, Hagoromo, Kaki Yamabushi, and Sumida Gawa on July 15, Okina and Aoi No Ue on July 16 at 1:30, Hagoromo, Busshi, and Aoi No Ue on July 16 at 7:30, and Okina and Shakkyo on July 17. From July 13 to 16 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater, visual artist Jennifer Wen Ma directs composer Huang Ruo’s Ming Dynasty romantic opera, Paradise Interrupted. Japan’s Takarazuka Revue will bring “All That Jazz” and more to the David H. Koch Theater July 20–24 with an all-female version of Chicago, with a rotating cast, lyrics in Japanese, and Bob Fosse’s original choreography. Shakespeare’s Globe, which recently staged the marvelous Broadway double shot of Twelfth Night and Richard III, will make its Lincoln Center debut July 20–24 at the Rose Theater with Jonathan Pryce in The Merchant of Venice, directed by Jonathan Munby. British company 1927 reinvents a traditional tale in Golem, incorporating animation, puppetry, crazy set design and costumes, and general absurdity July 26–31 at the Lynch.

Japan’s Takarazuka Revue will present an all-female version of CHICAGO at Lincoln Center Festival (photo by Maiko Miagawa and Nobuhiko Hikichi)

The National Ballet of Canada waltzes into the Koch Theater July 28–31 with Tony winner Christopher Wheeldon’s unique take on The Winter’s Tale, featuring music by Joby Talbot, scenic design by Tony winner Bob Crowley, and silk effects by Basil Twist. In addition, Goran Bregović’s Wedding and Funeral Orchestra marches into David Geffen Hall July 15–16; Reich/Reverberations pays tribute to Steve Reich July 16, 19, and 21 with Sō Percussion, Ensemble Signal, and JACK Quartet; C.I.C.T. / Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord’s version of Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme goes for laughs July 20–24 at the Lynch, directed by Denis Podalydès and with choreography by Kaori Ito; musicians Wang Li and Wu Wei team up on July 23 at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse; and a few days later Sō Percussion’s Trilogy takes over the Penthouse, with Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting playing works by Reich, Dessner, and Lang on July 28, Xenakis, Ergun, and Trueman on July 29, and Cage, Lansky, and Mackey on July 30. There are various special ticket packages that can save you between twenty and thirty-five percent if you go for multiple shows, but those deals are going fast.

BRIGHT STAR

Carmen Cusack belts away on moving set in dazzling Broadway debut in BRIGHT STAR (photo by Nick Stokes)

Cort Theatre
138 West 48th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 26, $45 – $115
brightstarmusical.com

The opening number of the new Steve Martin and Edie Brickell musical, Bright Star, takes a chance right from the start, putting its cards on the table as Alice Murphy (Carmen Cusack) declares, “If you knew my story / My heaven and hell / If you knew my story / You’d have a good story to tell.” It turns out that Bright Star does have a pretty good story to tell, for the most part, and it does so with an intoxicating homey style and sweet sense of humor. The fairy-tale-like narrative, with its fair share of darkness, shifts between the 1920s and 1940s in North Carolina. In 1945, Billy Cane (AJ Shively) has returned home from the war with a jump in his step but is saddened to learn from his father (Stephen Bogardus) that his mother has recently passed away. Determined to become a writer, Billy has been sending his stories to his childhood friend Margo Crawford (Hannah Elless), who owns the local bookstore. Now grown up, she has taken a more romantic interest in Billy, who is oblivious to her desires; he decides to move to Asheville to try to get his writing published in the prestigious Asheville Southern Journal, which will be no easy feat, as it is run by notoriously difficult editor Alice Murphy and her two gatekeepers, the snarky and sarcastic Daryl Ames (Jeff Blumenkrantz) and the sexy and alluring Lucy Grant (Emily Padgett). When Billy first arrives at the company, Daryl tells him that the New Yorker wanted to steal Miss Murphy away, but Lucy notes that the dour editor wanted to stay in North Carolina. “That’s good!” Billy cries out. “Not for young tadpoles like you,” Daryl says. Lucy adds, “She once made Ernest Hemingway cry. He lay right there, banged his fists on the floor, and sobbed.” Billy asks, “Why?” to which Lucy replies, “He used the word ‘their’ as a singular pronoun.” The story then jumps back to sixteen-year-old Alice (Cusack) in 1923 and her flirtation with twenty-year-old Jimmy Ray Dobbs (Paul Alexander Nolan), the hunky son of Mayor Josiah Dobbs (Michael Mulheren). But the mayor, a big-time businessman of the Old South, has other plans for his son, preparing to marry him off to help the company. However, Jimmy Ray wants to go to college and experience the world outside Zebulon. “You can’t expect the future to be just like the past / You haven’t got a clue, sir, please try to understand,” Jimmy Ray sings. “When I stood tall, side by side with your grandpa / There was just nothing at all we couldn’t do,” his father responds. Soon the two main plots merge, leading to a surprise conclusion that is not quite as shocking as it thinks it is but is heart-wrenching nonetheless.

Part of band spends entire show in mobile cabin in musical by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell (photo by Nick Stokes)

Actor, musician, novelist, comedian, and playwright Martin (Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Shopgirl) and folk-rock musician Brickell — billing themselves as the new Steve and Edie — collaborated on the music and story, inspired by an actual event; Martin wrote the book, while Brickell wrote the lyrics. (The musical was initially based on their 2013 album, Love Has Come from You, but went through major changes, leading to their 2015 follow-up, So Familiar, which includes their versions of many of the songs that made the final show.) Director Walter Bobbie (Chicago, Venus in Fur) and choreographer Josh Rhodes (Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, It Shoulda Been You) make fantastic use of Eugene Lee’s (Wicked) rustic set, an open cabin (reminiscent of the one at the start of The Jerk) where four members of the band (Michael Pearce, Bennett Sullivan, Rob Berman, Martha McConnell) play and which gets moved around as the setting changes to the offices of the Asheville Southern Journal, Margo’s bookstore, Mayor Dobbs’s residence, and the Shiny Penny bar. Occasionally a model train passes overhead when a character is traveling. Cusack is sensational in her Broadway debut, going back and forth between the young Alice to the older Miss Murphy with wit and elegance, singing with a vibrant, evocative voice and infectious confidence. The show works best when the music follows more of an Americana roots and bluegrass style, which is especially embraced by Nolan (Jesus Christ Superstar, Doctor Zhivago); his duets with Cusack are the musical highlights of the production. The weak link is the dull subplot about Billy’s desire to be a writer, with Shively (La Cage aux Folles, February House) too straitlaced to keep things interesting, lacking any edge, and Martin can get a little too erudite with his literary barbs. In addition to the musicians in the cabin, there are more up top on either side of the stage; Peter Asher’s music direction and August Eriksmoen’s orchestrations mostly work, although the Shiny Penny scene, featuring the ensemble song “Another Round,” is a disaster in every which way. (And why did they have to use glasses with tops on them, making it look ridiculous when characters apparently take a big drink but the same amount of liquid is still clearly visible in their glass?) Stephen Lee Anderson (The Iceman Cometh, The Kentucky Cycle) does a fine turn as Alice’s Bible-thumping father, and Mulheren (Spider-Man, Kiss Me, Kate) gives the mayor a Big Daddy–like presence. “Should’ve raised you with a firmer hand,” Daddy Murphy sings to his daughter in a strong number. For a show partially about writing, Bright Star would have benefited by being edited with a firmer hand, but it’s still an entertaining musical with supreme moments.

(On April 12, Martin and Brickell will be at the Upper West Side Barnes & Noble at 86th St. & Lexington Ave. for a discussion with Asher and a CD signing of So Familiar; priority seating will be given to attendees who purchase the disc there.)

JAPAN SINGS! THE JAPANESE MUSICAL FILM: SINGING LOVEBIRDS

Oharu (Haruyo Ichikawa) finds herself caught between Lord Minezawa (Dick Mine) and Reisaburō (Chiezō Kataoka) in SINGING LOVEBIRDS

SINGING LOVEBIRDS (OSHIDORI UTAGASSEN) (鴛鴦歌合戦) (Masahiro Makino, 1939)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Tuesday, April 12, 7:00
Festival runs April 8-23
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

In the 1930s, on the cusp of WWII, Japan was in the process of creating its own cinematic musical genre. One of the all-time classics is the wonderful Singing Lovebirds, a period romantic rectangle set in the days of the samurai. Oharu (Haruyo Ichikawa) is in love with handsome ronin Reisaburō (Chiezō Kataoka), but he is also being pursued by the wealthy and vain Otomi (Tomiko Hattori) and the merchant’s daughter, Fujio (Fujiko Fukamizu), who has been promised to him. Meanwhile, Lord Minezawa (jazz singer Dick Mine) has set his sights on Oharu and plans to get to her through her father, Kyōsai Shimura (Takashi Shimura), a former samurai who now paints umbrellas and spends all of his minuscule earnings collecting antiques. “It’s love at first sight for me with this beautiful young woman,” Lord Minezawa sings about Oharu before telling his underlings, “Someone, go buy her for me.” But Oharu’s love is not for sale. Directed by Masahiro Makino, the son of Japanese film pioneer Shōzō Makino, Singing Lovebirds is utterly charming from start to finish, primarily because it knows exactly what it is and doesn’t try to be anything else, throwing in a few sly self-references for good measure.

A romantic rectangle is at the center of Masahiro Makino’s charming 1939 musical, SINGING LOVEBIRDS

Made in a mere two weeks while Kataoka was ill and needed a break from another movie Masahiro Makino was making — he tended to make films rather quickly, compiling a resume of more than 250 works between 1926 and 1972 — Singing Lovebirds features a basic but cute script by Koji Edogawa, playful choreography by Reijiro Adachi, a wide-ranging score by Tokujirō Ōkubo, silly but fun lyrics by Kinya Shimada, and black-and-white cinematography by Kazuo Miyagawa, who would go on to shoot seminal films by Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujirō Ozu, and Kon Ichikawa. There are fab touches throughout the film, from the comic-relief group of men who follow Otomi around, professing their love, to the field of umbrellas made by Kyōsai that resembles a mural by Takashi Murakami, to a musical number sung by Lord Minezawa in which the musicians are clearly not playing the instruments that can be heard on the soundtrack. And of course, it’s also worth it just to hear the great Takashi Shimura, who appeared in so many classic Kurosawa films, sing, although he doesn’t dance. Singing Lovebirds might not have tremendous depth, primarily focusing on money and greed, love and honesty, but the umbrellas do serve as clever metaphors for the many different shades of humanity, for places to hide, and for ways of seeking protection from a world that can be both harsh and beautiful. Singing Lovebirds is screening April 12 at 7:00 as part of Japan Society’s 2016 Globus Film Series “Japan Sings! The Japanese Musical Film,” which continues through April 23 with such other musicals as Tomu Uchida’s Twilight Saloon, Kihachi Okamoto’s Oh, Bomb, Nagisa Oshima’s Sing a Song of Sex, and Tetsuya Nakashima’s Memories of Matsuko.

EDM ANTHEMS — FRENCH TOUCH ON FILM: THE VIRGIN SUICIDES & A TRIP TO THE MOON

Georges Méliès’s A TRIP TO THE MOON is part of unusual double feature at FIAF

THE VIRGIN SUICIDES (Sofia Coppola, 1999) and A TRIP TO THE MOON (Georges Méliès, 1902)
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, April 12, $14, 4:00 & 7:30
Series continues Tuesdays through April 26
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org

FIAF’s CinéSalon series includes an unusual double feature that doesn’t seem to make sense as part of “EDM Anthems: French Touch on Film,” which began with Daft Punk Unchained and previously screened Mia Hansen-Løve’s Eden, a fictionalized journey into the start of the electronic dance movement scene. But as it turns out, the 2010 restoration of Georges Méliès’s 1902 classic, A Trip to the Moon (“Le Voyage dans la Lune”), one of the most influential films ever made, and Sofia Coppola’s 1999 adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’s debut novel, The Virgin Suicides, have something key in common: Both feature soundtracks by French electronica duo Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, better known as Air. A Trip to the Moon is an early example of narrative storytelling and, specifically, science fiction, a fifteen-minute adventure that goes from an Astronomic Club meeting of scientists to the moon, pushing the boundaries of cinema. Méliès himself plays Professor Barbenfouillis, who leads a contingent of five men (entertainers Victor André, Delpierre, Farjaux, Kelm, and Brunnet) into space, guiding their self-built capsule directly, and famously, into the eye of the man in the moon. Once there, the men, sans space suits or oxygen tanks, do battle with the Selenites before attempting to return home. Inspired by the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, Méliès creates a world that is a kind of mash-up of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, with fanciful characters, hallucinogenic scenes, and a robust color scheme; of course, those films came later, but the books were in print by 1900. Air’s score, which includes vocalizations, lends the proceedings a, dare we say, trippy atmosphere.

A family is torn apart by tragedy in THE VIRGIN SUICIDES

A family is torn apart by tragedy in Sofia Coppola’s THE VIRGIN SUICIDES

The Virgin Suicides, which traces the downfall of a suburban Michigan family in the 1970s, is chock-full of period songs, with well-known tunes by Heart, the Hollies, Carole King, Styx, Todd Rundgren, 10CC, the Bee Gees, and ELO all over the film. But it’s Air’s score that gives it added emotional depth, from tender piano lines that evoke Pink Floyd and late-era Beatles to rowdier, synth-and-drum-heavy moments to mournful dirges and hypnotic, spacey sojourns. In the film, nerdy math teacher Ronald Lisbon (James Woods) and his wife (Kathleen Turner) are raising five teenage girls, Therese (Leslie Hayman), Mary (A. J. Cook), Bonnie (Chelse Swain), Lux (Kirsten Dunst), and Cecilia (Hanna R. Hall). As the tale begins, Cecilia is rushed to the hospital after attempting suicide. “What are you doing here, honey? You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets,” her doctor says, to which she responds, looking directly into the camera, “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl.” On her next try, Cecilia succeeds in killing herself, leading Mrs. Lisbon to become stiflingly overprotective and domineering. But she starts losing control of her daughters when high school hunk Trip Fontaine (Josh Hartnett) falls hard for Lux. Coppola (Lost in Translation, The Bling Ring) shows a sure hand in her directorial debut, marvelously capturing small-town teen angst, even if things go a bit haywire in the latter stages. The film is narrated by Giovanni Ribisi and also stars Jonathan Tucker, Noah Shebib, Anthony DeSimone, Lee Kagan, and Robert Schwartzman as a group of boys who are rather obsessed with the sisters in different ways. There are also cameos by Scott Glenn as a priest, Danny DeVito as a psychiatrist, and Michael Paré as the adult Trip, and look for a pre-Star Wars Hayden Christensen as Jake Hill Conley. In an interview with Dazed in conjunction with the fifteen-year anniversary of The Virgin Suicides, Godin noted, “I really hated being a teenager. It was a pretty horrible time, and although I had good friends, I am so happy to be out of that time. . . . I definitely brought that to the film score, this idea of not being loved enough.” You can show your love for A Trip to the Moon and The Virgin Suicides at FIAF on April 12 at 4:00 & 7:30; the later screening will be introduced by DJ SuperJaimie.

DAVID DUCHOVNY IN CONVERSATION WITH BILL GOLDSTEIN

David Duchovny holds up his brand-new novel on Twitter for all to see

Who: David Duchovny and Bill Goldstein
What: Reading, discussion, and signing of Bucky F*cking Dent (FSG, April 5, $26)
Where: Barnes & Noble Union Square, 33 East 17th St., 212-253-0810
When: Tuesday, April 12, free, 7:00
Why: “Mr. Peanut needed help. He had the dimpled gray-beige peanut torso, insect stick legs, and bad eyesight. In one eye, at least. No balls to speak of, sexless, a eunuch, and he couldn’t see or walk without the use of a cane. Help that dude. And why the top hat? He’s asking for it.” So actor, author, director, and musician David Duchovny, the X-Files star who played a novelist in the Showtime series Californication for seven seasons, writes on the first page of his second book, Bucky F*cking Dent, the follow-up to his debut, Holy Cow (now available in trade paperback), both of which reference baseball in their titles, for those not familiar with Yankees lore. On April 12, Duchovny will be at the B&N at Union Square, speaking with Bill Goldstein, book reviewer for NBC and other outlets. The event begins at 7:00; priority seating will be given to attendees who purchase the new novel. Shortly after his book tour, Duchovny will be heading to Europe for eleven May gigs in support of his 2015 album, Hell or Highwater.

WORDPLAY: MATTHIAS BUCHINGER’S DRAWINGS FROM THE COLLECTION OF RICKY JAY

Matthias Buchinger, “Ten Commandments, personalized to John Thomson and family, merchant of Edinburgh,” ink on vellum, 1723 (collection of Ricky Jay)

The Met Fifth Avenue
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Robert Wood Johnson Jr. Gallery, Gallery 690, second floor
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
Daily through April 11, recommended admission $12-$25
212-535-7710
www.metmuseum.org
www.rickyjay.com

Amid all the excitement over the opening of the Met Breuer in the old Whitney space, it was possible to overlook what was going on at the museum’s longtime home base, now known as the Met Fifth Avenue. But it would be a shame if you missed “Wordplay: Matthias Buchinger’s Drawings from the Collection of Ricky Jay,” on view through April 11. In fact, you might have missed it even if you’ve been to the Met since January 8, when it opened in the long hallway gallery on the second floor. Magician, actor, curator, writer, consultant, television host, and conjurer Ricky Jay has been collecting works by the extraordinary German artist and performer Matthias Buchinger (1674–1739) for decades; nineteen pieces by Buchinger are included in the exhibition, alongside drawings, engravings, lithographs, etchings, books, and prints by Jasper Johns, Louise Bourgeois, Glenn Ligon, Cy Twombly, and various seventeenth- and eighteenth-century artists, placing Buchinger’s oeuvre in historical, artistic, and thematic context. Known as the Greatest German Living and the Little Man of Nuremberg, Buchinger was born in 1674 without hands, feet, or thighs, as he often noted on his works along with his signature. He reached only twenty-nine inches tall but led quite a life, marrying four times and having at least fourteen children by eight women before his death in 1739. Using the stumps of his arms, he created amazingly intricate drawings, from coats of arms to family trees to depictions of the Ten Commandments to portraits, incorporating calligraphy and micography, the latter an exquisitely detailed writing form in which tiny lines are actually made up of words. The Met provides magnifying glasses so you can fully experience such intricate works as “Ten Commandments, personalized to John Thomson and family, merchant of Edinburgh,” “Buchinger Family Tree,” “Coat of Arms, Norwich,” and the breathtaking pen and ink on vellum “Portrait of Queen Anne,” containing text from the Book of Kings, written even in the curls of her hair.

Anonymous, “Portrait of Matthias Buchinger,” engraving, 1707 (collection of Ricky Jay)

A relentless self-promoter, Buchinger described himself thusly: “This Little Man performs such wonders as have never been done by any but himself. He plays on various sorts of music to admiration, [such] as the hautboy, [a] strange flute in consort with the bagpipe, dulcimer and trumpet; and designs to make machines to play on almost all sorts of music. He is no less eminent for writing, drawing of coats of arms, and pictures to the life, with a pen; he also plays at cards and dice, performs tricks with cups and balls, corn and live birds; and plays at skittles or nine-pins to a great nicety, with several other performances, to the general satisfaction of all spectators.” The exhibition’s centerpiece is a gorgeous 1705 portrait of Buchinger, dressed in regal clothing, standing next to a writing desk and a rifle, a window behind him looking into the vast world beyond. Another highlight is Elias Baeck’s 1710 “Portrait of Matthias Buchinger Surrounded by Thirteen Vignettes,” celebrating all the different entertainments he performed. The show reveals that he was not alone; there are also portraits of several other artists from around the same time period who did not have arms or legs, including Thomas Inglefield, Johanna Sophia Liebschern, and Johannes Wynistorff, in addition to printed announcements of the skills of Miss Beffin and Martha Anne Honeywell. Even the title of the catalog, by Jay, is a treat: Matthias Buchinger: “The Greatest German Living”: By Ricky Jay, Whose Peregrinations in Search of the “Little Man of Nuremberg” are herein Revealed. A far-too-early 1722 elegy written for Buchinger states: “Buckinger’s gone, and quit this earthly Stage, / Who was the only Wonder of this Age; / This little Worthy, inwardly compleat, / His Soul inspired with celestial Heat, / Perform’d his Wonders with such artful Grace, / You’d judge him one of more than humane Race.” This exhibition displays his wonder and grace, as well as his fascinating humanity.

LOOK AT US NOW, MOTHER!

Gayle Kirschenbaum delves into her love-hate relationship with her mother in compelling, often agonizing documentary

LOOK AT US NOW, MOTHER! (Gayle Kirschenbaum, 2015)
Village East Cinemas
181-189 Second Ave. at 12th St.
Opens Friday, April 8
212-529-6799
lookatusnowmother.com
www.villageeastcinema.com

“Am I ever going to be able to understand, forgive, and cherish my mother, before time runs out?” filmmaker Gayle Kirschenbaum asks at the beginning of her debut feature documentary, Look at Us Now, Mother! In the film, Kirschenbaum, who previously made the cable hit A Dog’s Life: A Dogamentary and the film festival short My Nose, about her mother’s extreme dislike of her daughter’s nose — and which Kirschenbaum is currently attempting to turn into a full feature, The Bigger Version — spends eighty-four minutes detailing her relationship with her mother, Mildred Abramowitz Kirschenbaum, which was more than rocky from the day Gayle was born, when Mildred, who clearly expected and wanted another boy to join her two older sons, got a baby girl instead. Gayle brings together old home movies, travel footage, visits to a pair of therapists and a plastic surgeon, and interviews with her two brothers and her mother’s friends and first cousins to paint a not-too-pretty picture of Mildred, who lives in Boca Raton and has been putting Gayle down and blaming her since the very beginning. In the film, Mildred claims that she has no idea why her daughter is complaining now, although on one therapist visit, she does admit to at least one Mommie Dearest moment. It’s often painful to watch as Gayle, who wrote, directed, and produced the film in addition to editing it with Alex Keipper and shooting it with Steven Gladstone, relives much of the psychological and emotional torture she experienced at the hands of her parents, primarily her mother, who continues to be nasty, rude, uncaring, and disapproving, even if Mildred doesn’t admit it and even if, deep down, she truly loves her daughter. “We are now off to go to see a therapist,” Mildred says at one point. “We’re going to find out what’s wrong with Gayle’s relationship with me.”

The trauma Gayle suffered is palpable throughout the film as her mother never lets up, unwilling to share her feelings or face up to the harm she inflicted on Gayle, who has never married and has no children. Gayle, who goes deep into her family history, merely wants a mother’s love, but there is too often none to be had. In her director’s statement, Kirschenbaum explains, “I never expected to make such a deeply personal film. I had spent most of my career behind the camera telling other people’s stories, but it soon became apparent that the highly charged relationship I had with my mother and its transformation from hate to love was a story I had to tell.” And it’s a story that everyone can relate to, no matter your relationship with your mother — whom you are likely to call as soon as the film is over. Look at Us Now, Mother! is playing April 8-14 at Village East Cinema, with some serious Q&A sessions following many of the screenings throughout the run, including discussions with both Gayle and Mildred Kirschenbaum, therapist Lois Braverman, Rabbi Aaron Raskin, nonviolent communication instructor Dr. Clara Moisello, psychiatrist Dr. Anthony Stern, associate producer Jessica Phillips, filmmaker and teacher Laszlo Santha, and mindfulness and yoga teacher Shoshana Perry.