twi-ny recommended events

WONDER OF WONDERS: A CULTURAL HISTORY OF FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

Who: Drama critic and author Alisa Solomon
What: Theatre for a New Audience’s Open Books Series 2015
Where: Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Pl. between Fulton St. & Lafayette Ave., 212-229-2819
When: Monday, March 23, free with advance RSVP, 7:00
Why: Theatre for a New Audience’s Open Books series continues with Alisa Solomon presenting her book Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof (Picador, September 2014), an engaging analysis of one of Broadway’s most popular musicals ever, which was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film. “As the first work of American popular culture to recall life in a shtetl — the Eastern European market towns with large Jewish populations — Fiddler felt tender, elegiac, even holy,” Solomon writes in the introduction. “It arrived just ahead of (and helped to instigate) the American roots movement. It was added to multicultural curricula and studied by students across the country in Jewish history units, as if Fiddler were an artifact unearthed from a destroyed world rather than a big-story musical assembled by showbiz professionals.” The free evening will include a conversation between Solomon and moderator Jonathan Kalb, an audience Q&A, a book signing, complimentary food and drink, and a meet-and-greet with Solomon.

REGULAR EINSTEIN / LAZY LIONS RECORD RELEASE SHOW

Regular Einstein is back with first album since 1999

The Rock Shop
249 Fourth Ave., Brooklyn
Friday, March 20, $7-$10, 8:00
718-230-5740
www.therockshopny.com

Two of the smartest bands around will be at the Rock Shop in Brooklyn on Friday night, March 20, one of them celebrating its first record in more than fifteen years, the other debuting its first full-length. There’s a good reason why we asked Paula Carino to play at our tenth anniversary party at Fontana’s in 2011; she kicks some real ass. The Brooklyn-based singer, guitarist, and songwriter, who has released such well-received solo albums as Aquacade and Open on Sunday, is back with her first band, Regular Einstein (Seven Deadly Songs, Robots Helping Robots), and is about to release the record she’s always been destined to make, Chimp Haven. On the twelve-track release, Carino’s voice is sharper than ever, perfectly in tune with her quick-witted, incisive lyrics about difficult love, the pains and pleasures of self-awareness, and searching for one’s place in the world. “I’m stumbling on all my lines / I fumbled the soliloquy / I wanted to pretend I’m fine / So you would not think ill of me / Cuz when you come back into town / I become a clumsy liar / I’m an amateur production of / A Streetcar Named Desire,” she sings on “Bad Actor,” going on to reference Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, Madonna, and other Hollywood thespians. On “Never Saw It Coming” she admits, “I would always skip ahead / No one crying, no one dead / So I never saw it coming.” Featuring original Einsteiners David Benjoya on guitar and keyboards and Andy Mattina on bass, with Nancy Polstein, who joined the band in 2010, on drums, Regular Einstein sounds fresh and bursting with life on the record, which features pristine production from Love Camp 7’s Dann Baker as the band shifts from power pop to postpunk to 1960s jangle, with nods to the Kinks, the Pretenders, the Beatles, and the Ramones. How can you not love a group that declares, “From Forest Hills to Jamaica Bay / Flushing our sunny side away.” Chimp Haven, which boasts cover art by primate Cody from Save the Chimps, is a whirlwind of a record, a burst of sweet, infectious energy from one of New York City’s most underrated talents.

Lazy Lions will be at Rock Shop celebrating release of debut record

“Believe me / The good times are coming soon / The good times are here,” Carino sings on the jazz-blues charmer “The Good Times.” The bad times are here as well, as portrayed on Lazy Lions’ darker but no less brainy When Dreaming Lets You Down. . . . “Crapped out once again / Fate’s made fools of wiser men / Even the best umbrellas will complain / After weeks and weeks of heavy rain / ’Cause when the wind comes in and starts to slap / The feather’s right out of your cap / The sharpest knife can’t make the cut / You might as well sew your pockets shut,” Jim Allen sings on “Let the Bad Times Roll,” one of twelve tracks that delve into the colder aspects of life and love, feeling right on target during this brutal winter. “Jesus, it’s freezing out here,” he adds later. Singer, keyboardist, and chief songwriter Allen, guitarist Robert Sorkin, bassist Anne-Marie Stehn, and drummer Sean McMorris pay homage to Elvis Costello, Robert Gordon, Joe Jackson, Squeeze, and Graham Parker on the album, with Allen’s deep-throated voice front and center in the mix. “Did you ever feel the winter’s bite?” he asks over a soaring organ on “February.” Meanwhile, for Lazy Lions, it’s not always mind over matter; “The heart hasn’t spoken / Because the head still hasn’t gotten all the facts,” Allen explains on the honky-tonkin’ “Tiny Little Cracks.” The band certainly has its facts when it comes to crafting astute pop songs, making When Dreaming Lets You Down… a canny debut. At the Rock Shop, Regular Einstein goes on at 10:00, followed by Lazy Lions at 11:00; the evening opens with Brooklyn punks Tanuki Suit.

FREE CLASSIC SMASHBURGER DAY

Smashburger will open its doors in the Financial District on March 18 with free burgers (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Smashburger
136 William St. between Fulton & John Sts.
Wednesday, March 18, free, 10:00 am – 10:00 pm
646-666-0814
smashburger.com

Denver-based Smashburger is hitting New York City as it opens a series of eateries, including on DeKalb Ave. in Brooklyn and West Thirty-Third St. in Manhattan. On Wednesday, March 18, Smashburger will celebrate the opening of its Financial District restaurant, on William St., by giving out free Classic Smashburgers all day long. What makes this burgery different from all the others? Well, here they smash, sear, and season each 100% certified angus beef patty to order. The Classic comes with lettuce, tomato, pickle, red onion, and cheese; you can check out the full menu here.

HAMILTON

Lin-Manuel Miranda turns Alexander Hamilton into a hip-hop star in rousing musical at the Public (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Public Theater, Newman Theater
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 3, $120
212-967-7555
www.publictheater.org
www.hamiltonbroadway.com

Six years ago, the Public Theater turned the seventh president of the United States into a rock star in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, a breakthrough show that later transferred to Broadway. Now the Public, best known for its Shakespeare productions, has done it again with Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s thrilling hip-hop bio-musical about another founding father, Alexander Hamilton. The same month that Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson opened at the Public, Miranda was at the White House for “An Evening of Poetry, Music & the Spoken Word,” at which he premiered a song from The Hamilton Mixtape, which he called “a concept album about the life of someone I think embodies hip-hop, Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton. You laugh, but it’s true! He was born a penniless orphan in St. Croix of illegitimate birth, became George Washington’s right-hand man, became Treasury secretary, caught beef with every other founding father, and all on the strength of his writing.” Inspired by Ron Chernow’s massive 2004 biography of Hamilton, Miranda tells the story of Hamilton’s dramatic rise and fall as the determinedly ambitious orphan seeks to make a difference in the world. Miranda, whose In the Heights won Tonys for Best Musical and Best Score in 2008, once again teams with director Thomas Kail, choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, and musical director and orchestrator Alex Lacamoire, with Miranda playing the title character with charm and gusto. On his journey, Hamilton meets up with future nemesis Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.), the very serious General George Washington (Christopher Jackson), the fun-loving Marquis de Lafayette (Daveed Diggs), the dubious Thomas Jefferson (Diggs) and his dour protégé, James Madison (Okieriete Onaodowan), and the beautiful sisters Eliza and Angelica Schuyler (Phillipa Soo and Renée Elise Goldsberry, respectively), both of whom he has the hots for. Miranda follows Hamilton’s ascent as a major player in the American Revolution, a rise that is ultimately thwarted by sexual blackmail and a duel with Burr.

Thomas Jefferson (Daveed Diggs) and Alexander Hamilton (Lin-Manuel Miranda) engage in a rap battle in HAMILTON (photo by Joan Marcus)

Hamilton explodes from the opening number, in which Miranda and company set the stage for what is to come, from Miranda’s almost-too-cool lyrics to David Korins’s wood-heavy set with a revolving center, from Paul Tazewell’s pristine period costumes to Lacamoire’s splendid orchestrations. “The ten-dollar founding father without a father / Got a lot farther by working a lot harder / By being a lot smarter / By being a self-starter,” Miranda declares. Miranda, who has also won an Emmy and a Grammy, glistens as Hamilton, eschewing any attempt to try to look like him — instead, he sports a mustache, goatee, and long black hair, sometimes put up in a ponytail — in favor of reaching deep inside to find what made the founding father tick. The show has several memorable set pieces, including a rap battle between Jefferson and Hamilton, a call for women’s rights led by the Schuyler sisters, and hysterical musical soliloquys by Jonathan Groff as King George that evoke The Rocky Horror Show. Exhilarating, endlessly energetic, and, yes, even educational, Hamilton is following in the footsteps of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, moving to Broadway on July 13. Advance tickets for the Public run are sold out, but a limited number of twenty-dollar seats are available through a daily lottery in the lobby.

ALBERT MAYSLES TRIBUTE AND MAYSLES DOCUMENTARY CENTER OPEN HOUSE

The life and career of Albert Maysles will be celebrated on March 22 at the Maysles Documentary Center

Maysles Documentary Center
343 Lenox Ave./Malcolm X Blvd. between 127th & 128th Sts.
Sunday, March 22, free with advance registration, 11:00 am – 11:00 pm
maysles.org

In the 1960s and ’70s, Albert Maysles, his brother, David, and Charlotte Zwerin changed the face of documentary filmmaking and cinéma vérité with such genre-redefining works as What’s Happening! The Beatles in the USA, Salesman, Gimme Shelter, and Grey Gardens, breaking down the fourth wall as they photographed their subjects. “As a documentarian I happily place my fate and faith in reality,” Albert explained. “It is my caretaker, the provider of subjects, themes, experiences — all endowed with the power of truth and the romance of discovery. And the closer I adhere to reality the more honest and authentic my tales. After all, knowledge of the real world is exactly what we need to better understand and therefore possibly to love one another. It’s my way of making the world a better place.” David passed away in January 1987 at the age of fifty-five, Zwerin died in 2004 at seventy-two, and now Albert has left us, saying farewell on March 5 at the age of eighty-eight, having helped make the world a better place. Of course, his legacy lives on, in the works of so many other documentarians, from Errol Morris to Andrew Jarecki, as well as with the film center that bears his name, the Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem. On Sunday, March 22, the MDC will host an all-day tribute to its legendary founder with an open house, screenings, and special introductions; admission is free with advance registration. The celebration begins at 11:00 with the 1965 short Meet Marlon Brando, 1964’s What’s Happening! The Beatles in the USA, and a reception. Other programs include With Love from Truman and Salesman at 2:00, Ozawa and Muhammad and Larry at 5:00, and Running Fence, Cut Piece, Salvador Dali’s Fantastic Dream, and excerpts from Muhammad and Larry and Iris at 8:00. “Remember, as a documentarian you are an observer, an author but not a director, a discoverer, not a controller,” Maysles said in describing his craft. “Don’t worry that your presence with the camera will change things. Not if you’re confident you belong there and understand that in your favor is that of the two instincts, to disclose or to keep a secret, the stronger is to disclose.” He changed things indeed.

ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE 2015

St. Patrick’s Day features the wearing of the green up Fifth Ave. (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Who: More than 150,000 marchers and two million spectators
What: 254th annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade
Where: Fifth Ave. from 44th to 79th Sts.
When: Tuesday, March 17, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
Why: Grand Marshal H.E. Timothy Cardinal Dolan will lead the 254th annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade up Fifth Ave. on Tuesday, March 17, joined by more than 150 bands, military and political dignitaries, and a tribute to the Fighting 69th, but not Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is once again boycotting because he believes the parade is still not inclusive enough of gays; he did march in the St. Pat’s for All parade March 1 in Queens, which featured grand marshals Kerry Kennedy and Brían F. O’Byrne. H.E. Dolan’s participation has been met with controversy from the other side, because this year the parade is allowing some gays to march in the parade with their own banner. “I haven’t been in this much hot water since I made the comment, right after I arrived as your archbishop five-and-a-half years ago, that Stan Musial — my boyhood hero of my hometown St. Louis Cardinals — was a much better ballplayer than Joe DiMaggio!” the archbishop writes on the Archdiocese of New York website. “Catholic teaching is clear: ‘being Gay’ is not a sin, nor contrary to God’s revealed morals. Homosexual actions are — as are any sexual relations outside of the lifelong, faithful, loving, lifegiving bond of a man and woman in marriage — a moral teaching grounded in the Bible, reflected in nature, and faithfully taught by the Church. So, while actions are immoral, identity is not! In fact, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, people with same-sex attraction are God’s children, deserving dignity and respect, never to be treated with discrimination or injustice.” As always, if you dare stop by any of the myriad Irish pubs in Midtown, you’re liable to experience a pipe and drum corps or two making their way around the many tables filled with lovely pints of Guinness.

WIM WENDERS: PINA (IN 3-D)

PINA is a 3-D celebration of seminal choreographer Pina Bausch and Tanztheater Wuppertal

PINA: DANCE, DANCE, OTHERWISE WE ARE LOST (Wim Wenders, 2011)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Monday, March 16, 6:30, and Tuesday, March 17, 6:45
Series runs March 2-17
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.pina-film.de

Back in 2004, in reviewing Pina Bausch’s Fur Die Kinder von Gesern, Heute und Morgen (For the Children of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow) at BAM, we wrote, “You don’t have to be a dance fan to love the always engaging Pina Bausch.” The same holds true for Wim Wenders’s loving 3-D documentary, Pina. The longtime director of Tanztheater Wuppertal, German choreographer Bausch created uniquely entertaining pieces for more than thirty years, combining a playful visual language with a ribald sense of humor, cutting-edge staging, diverse music, and a stellar cast of men and women of varying ages and body sizes, resulting in a new kind of dance theater. A friend of hers for more than twenty years, Wenders (Wings of Desire, Paris, Texas) was collaborating with Bausch on a film when she suddenly died of cancer in 2009 at the age of sixty-eight, two days before rehearsal shooting was to begin. Wenders decided to proceed, making a film for Pina instead of with her. Using the latest 3-D technology, including a specially developed camera rig mounted on a crane, Wenders invites audiences onstage as he captures thrilling, intimate performances of several of Bausch’s seminal works, 1975’s Le Sacre du printemps, 1978’s Café Müller, 1978 and 2000’s Kontakthof (Contact Zone), 2002’s Fur Die Kinder, and 2006’s Vollmond (Full Moon), which were selected by Bausch and Wenders together.

Wim Wenders’s PINA takes to the streets of Wuppertal, Germany

The dancers seem to be more motivated than ever, reveling in Bausch’s building, repetitive vocabulary of movement and discussing how she inspired them with just a few words. As a bonus, Wenders includes footage of Bausch dancing Café Müller. Some members of the company also dance personal memories on the streets, in a factory, and aboard a monorail in and around Wuppertal. Pina is not a biopic; Wenders does not delve into Bausch’s personal life or have random talking heads discuss her contribution to the world. Instead, he focuses on how she used movement to celebrate humanity and get the most out of the men, women, and children who worked with her. In the September 2009 memorial ceremony held for Bausch at the Wuppertal Opera House, Wenders said, “I would like to ask all of you, finally, to cherish this treasure of Pina’s gaze. . . . appreciating that you knew Pina, that we all knew her gaze and were fortunate enough to experience such a priceless gift.” With Pina, which was nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar, Wenders has given us a beautiful gift, a wonderful tribute to his great friend. Pina is screening in 3-D on March 16 & 17 as the sixteen-day Wim Wenders retrospective concludes at MoMA; there is also still time to catch such other Wenders works as Alice in the Cities, Tokyo-Ga, The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, Buena Vista Social Club, and lesser-known shorts and early films.