this week in music

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

Hugh Panaro and Sara Jean Ford lead the current cast of Broadway’s PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

Majestic Theatre
247 West 44th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tickets: $26.50 – $226.50
www.thephantomoftheopera.com

On January 26, 1988, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s London smash, opened on the Great White Way, presented by Cameron Mackintosh and the Really Useful Theatre Company and directed by Hal Prince. On November 29 of this year, PHANTOM, which won seven Tonys, including Best Musical, staged its 9,500th performance, extending its record as the longest running show in Broadway history. And having seen its latest incarnation on December 28, we can’t for the life of us figure out how. The two-and-a-half-hour spectacle is far from spectacular; it’s poorly paced, has plot holes you could crash a giant chandelier through, and contains not a single memorable song. The sets are adequate at best, the performances Gilbert & Sullivan-lite. The current cast features Hugh Panaro as the fourteenth Phantom, Sean McLaughlin as Raoul (we saw Paul A. Schaeffer, who usually plays the marksman), Sara Jean Ford as Christine (sharing the role each week with Marni Raab), and Liz McCartney as Carlotta, but they are hamstrung by Charles Hart’s lyrics, Richard Stilgoe’s book, Sir Andrew’s music, and the generally uninspiring staging and sets. Gaston Leroux’s 1909-10 serialized novel about a mysterious figure haunting the Paris Opera House has been turned into numerous films and plays, but it’s a shame that this dreary operetta is the one that seems to have most captured the public’s imagination.

EASY STREET — NYE

Dixon Place
161 A Chrystie St. between Rivington & Delancey Sts.
Friday, December 31, $20, 9:00
212-219-0736
www.dixonplace.org

There’s plenty of good reason why this intimate New Year’s Eve party is for twenty-one and older only. Organized by cabaret kaiser Earl Dax and visual artist Liz Liguori, Easy Street at Dixon Place will feature avant-garde performance artist Penny Arcade and John (HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH) Cameron (SHORTBUS) Mitchell in addition to Glenn Marla, Carol Lipnik, Enid Ellen, Billy Pelt, and Will Larche. DJs Tusk, K!O, and Gant Johnson will keep things thumping, along with contributions from costume designer Machine (Pussy-on-My-Shoulder) Dazzle and designer Diego Montoya. Dixon Place is calling it “low-key . . . with the requisite glitz and glam,” so be ready for anything. Tickets are only twenty bucks, so it’s also one of the most affordable gatherings in town.

THE BOOTLEGGERS’ BALL

Irondale Performing Arts Center
85 South Oxford St., Fort Greene
Friday, December 31, $20-$35
www.geminiandscorpio.com

Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh and Larisa Fuchs, better known as Miss Gemini and Miss Scorpio, know how to throw parties. Throughout the year they put together unique, themed events in unusual locations, and they’ve got another crazy one planned for New Year’s Eve. “The contraband has been ordered, authorities paid off, and performers lined up for a New Year’s Eve speakeasy ball in a historic former church with soaring ceilings and wraparound balcony,” they explain on their website. “Expect the intimacy of a daring cabaret mixed with the intrigue of a vintage costumed ball, expansiveness of a warehouse dance party, excitement of live brass, a splash of fine cocktails, and just a dash of illicit adventure and unpredictable moments.” The party will feature the Dixieland steamboat soul of Roosevelt Dime, the circus-gypsy parlor-jazz of the Drunkard’s Wife, the saucy dance moves of Zahra Hashemian, the vintage visuals of Sebastian Patane Masuelli, and the awesome aerial stunts of Marisa Maffia and Dana Abrassart as well as music, dance, burlesque, magic, and numerology from Spiff Wiegand, Renata and Irina Kom, Kinetic Architecture, Crooked Disco DJs, Painteresse Elysabeth, Marcy Currier, Katelan Foisy, and others, hosted by GD Falksen. The dress code is “depression glamour, evening ball on the Titanic, hobo formal, desperation derring-do,” ensuring what should be a very different kind of New Year’s Eve spectacular.

COIL 2011

Amanda Loulaki and Short Mean Lady’s I AM SAYING GOODNIGHT bows down to morning coffee at 2011 COIL festival

Performance Space 122 (and other venues)
150 First Ave. at Ninth St.
January 5-15, $20 per performance, $55 passport for any five shows, $100 for any ten shows
www.ps122.org

The sixth annual COIL festival of contemporary experimental dance and theater runs January 5-15, consisting of ten shows at PS122 and seven at offsite venues, several of which are return hits or will continue past COIL. Audience members can become part of Kim Noble’s will and go home with a container of his sperm in KIM NOBLE WILL DIE. Annie Dorsen’s HELLO HI THERE filters the 1971 Michel Foucault / Noam Chomsky debate through a chatbot to create new, improvised dialogues every night. The BodyCartography Project, which re-created a nuclear holocaust at PS122 in February 2010, turns its attention on the human body for SYMPTOM. In STORIES LEFT TO TELL, Ain Gordon, Kathleen Chalfant, Hazelle Goodman, and Bob Holman perform excerpts from classic and unpublished texts by Spalding Gray. Jack Ferver brings back his recent success RUMBLE GHOST, which combines the horror film POLTERGEIST with a group therapy session. Travis Chamberlain’s site-adaptive GREEN EYES takes Tennessee Williams to the Hudson Hotel, while Radiohole melds Douglas Sirk with John Milton at the Collapsible Hole. THEM, the intense collaboration between director Ishmael Houston-Jones, guitarist Chris Cochrane, and writer Dennis Cooper, returns for three performances at the Abrons Arts Center, while Palissimo kicks off its PAINTED BIRD trilogy with BASTARD at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Tickets for most shows are $20, with a $55 passport for any five productions and $100 for ten.

TIM MONAGHAN BENEFIT CONCERT

Tonight’s benefit concert at Zebulon raises funds for Tim Monaghan, who has been in intensive care for two weeks after terrible accident

Zebulon
258 Wythe Ave. between Metropolitan Ave. & North Third St.
Monday, December 27, 8:30
718-218-6934
www.zebuloncafeconcert.com
www.facebook.com/pages/Tims-Fund-Page

Tonight fellow Golem members Annette Ezekiel Kogan, Curtis Hasselbring, and Taylor Bergren-Chrisman will team up with Russian-born, Amsterdam-based master accordionist Alec Kopyt, Yuval Lion of Pink Noise, Sway Machinery leader Jeremiah Lockwood, DJ Spacedog, and others to raise funds for Golem drummer Tim Monaghan, who suffered a terrible accident on December 13 and is still in intensive care, battling trauma to his brain and skull but has just started talking, which is a great sign. Monaghan, who also has played with Girls in Trouble, has no insurance, so his friends and family have set up the Tim Monaghan Fund and have put together tonight’s klezmer concert, which will go on despite the weather.
free,

UNDER THE RADAR 2011

GOB SQUAD’S KITCHEN (YOU’VE NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD) will be at La Mama January 6-8 during the seventh annual Under the Radar festival (photo by David Baltzer)

The Public Theater (and other venues)
425 Lafayette St. between East Fourth St. & Astor Pl.
January 5-16, $15-$30
212-967-7555
www.undertheradarfestival.com

The seventh annual Under the Radar: A Festival Tracking New Theater from Around the World features nineteen international productions, from the United States’ AMERIVILLE and LIVING IN EXILE to Belgium’s BONANZA, from Italy’s TOO LATE! ANTIGONE (CONTEST #2) to France’s VICE VERSA, from the UK’s THE INTERMINABLE SUICIDE OF GREGORY CHURCH to Slovenia/Latvia’s SHOW YOUR FACE! Several works investigate the nature of theater itself, including Vladimir Shcherban’s BEING HAROLD PINTER and Barry McGovern’s WATT BY SAMUEL BECKETT, while others feature such behind-the-scenes theater favorites as director JoAnne Akalaitis helming Nora York’s JUMP, about Sarah Bernhardt in Sardou’s TOSCA; Suzan-Lori Parks’s free WATCH ME WORK, in which the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright will literally work on her next project in the lobby of the Public Theater; and writer Taylor Mac’s THE WALK ACROSS AMERICA FOR MOTHER EARTH, a collaboration with the Talking Band that documents a cross-country antinuclear protest march. Other highlights include Reggie Watts’s multimedia collaboration with playwright Tommy Smith and journalist Brendan Kiley, DUTCH A/V; 2boys.tv’s PHOBOPHILIA, in which audiences will witness an interrogation in a secret location; and CORRESPONDENCES, a dance-theater piece in which Haitian/Malian Kettly Noël and South African Nelisiwe Xaba meet in person after having written to each other for a long time. While the Public Theater is home base for Under the Radar, there are also productions scheduled for HERE Arts Center, La MaMa, Dixon Place, the Abrons Arts Center, St. Ann’s Warehouse, and the Robert Moss Theater, in addition to several postshow discussions, a two-day symposium, festival lounges at the Chinatown Brasserie, and other special events.

G&S FEST: THE MIKADO

The annual G&S Fest at Symphony Space features THE MIKADO to welcome in the new year

Symphony Space, Peter Jay Sharp Theatre
2537 Broadway at 97th St.
December 29 – January 2, $32-$92
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org
www.nygasp.org

Since the 1970s, the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players have been honoring the legacy of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan by staging productions of such familiar works as H.M.S. PINAFORE, THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE, and THE GONDOLIERS as well as such lesser-known musicals as THE GRAND DUKE, RUDDIGORE, and THE ROSE OF PERSIA, at such locations as the B’nai Jeshurun Community Center and the Staten Island Ferry before settling in at Symphony Space on Upper Broadway. Their New York season began with UTOPIA, LIMITED in November and THE YEOMEN OF THE GUARD earlier this month and continues this week with special performances of THE MIKADO, Gilbert & Sullivan’s 1885 opera set in Japan featuring such tunes as “A Wand’ring Minstrel I,” “Three Little Maids from School Are We,” and “On a Tree by a River.” December 29 is Bring Your Grandparents Day, with postshow backstage tours; a Savoy Dialogue with cast and crew takes place before the December 30 show; a New Year’s Gala is scheduled for December 31, with Champagne at intermission and a cast party afterward; and the Family Overture on New Year’s Day will include a free musical introduction to THE MIKADO. NYGASP will be back at Symphony Space on March 20 for TRIAL BY JURY / G&S à la Carte and May 22 for a G&S Sing-Along.