this week in lectures, signings, panel discussions, workshops, and Q&As

APPROVAL JUNKIE

Faith Salie shares her quest for approval in one-woman show (photo by Daniel Rader)

APPROVAL JUNKIE
Audible Theatre’s Minetta Lane Theatre
18 Minetta Lane between Sixth Ave. and MacDougal St.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 12, $46-$56
www.audible.com

In her one-woman show, Approval Junkie, actress, author, and television and radio correspondent Faith Salie explains that when she would share a personal or professional success with her father, he would say, “I’m impressed, but not surprised.” I was impressed and surprised by how much I enjoyed the monologue, in which Salie details her lifelong quest for approval, from being an anorexic Georgia high school beauty and talent show contestant to auditioning for acting parts to getting married and wanting to have children. She also admits to being an applause junkie. “I’m half a century old, and I give a ton of fucks that you’re sitting at my feet,” she tells the audience. “Y’all came to the theater. And I’m pretty sure you’re wearing pants. And I hope you’re smiling behind those masks.”

Salie, an Emmy winner who appears regularly on NPR’s Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! and CBS Sunday Morning, is charming and likable — and brutally honest. She talks about some intensely private moments, but as much as she’s after our approval, she takes a humble, self-deprecating approach, telling a story that, in many ways, could be about any woman, although she acknowledges her significant privilege. She doesn’t brag about her accomplishments or look for sympathy for her failures; she just wants us to enjoy ourselves and, hopefully, learn about how we don’t need to search for approval ourselves around every corner.

Faith Salie accepts approval on opening night of Approval Junkie (photo by Daniel Rader)

The show is adapted from her book of the same name, which has two different subtitles: Adventures in Caring Too Much for the hardcover, My Heartfelt (and Occasionally Inappropriate) Quest to Please Just About Everyone, and Ultimately Myself for the paperback and ebook. For ninety minutes, Salie, in a lovely dark blue jumpsuit and beige heels (the costume is by Ivan Ingermann), walks across Jack Magaw’s spare set, which features a central platform, two small speakers where she sometimes sits, and a stained-glass-like backdrop of abstract geometric shapes on which video and animation are occasionally projected. Salie shares funny and moving stories about going to an Ayurvedic Healing Center in a Sarasota, Florida, strip mall to exorcise the darkness out of her in order to please her wasband (what she calls her ex-husband); being retweeted by Hillary Clinton and Mandy Patinkin; her desperation to look good at her divorce hearing; and attempting to be a hit on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox program. She remembers that early in her career, she took vocal lessons from acting coach Lesly Kahn, who asked her, “Why aren’t you as pretty as I want you to be?” She answers now, “I don’t know — I’m not as pretty as I want me to be.”

Directed by actor and producer Amanda Watkins, the play — which continues at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre through December 12, after which an Audible audio recording will be available — has a warm, welcoming atmosphere. Even when lines fall flat, and a bunch do, Salie proceeds, okay with that momentary lack of approval. Except for the animation at the beginning and end, the projections are random and inconsistent; you’ll find yourself time and again thinking something will be shown when nothing is. And that’s okay too.

It’s all bookended by tales about Shel Silverstein’s classic children’s book The Giving Tree (Salie calls the titular tree “the ultimate woodland approval junkie”) and Salie’s friendship with 104-year-old Ruth Rosner, a journey from childhood to old age. Describing Rosner’s sudden fame from Salie’s television profile of her, Salie says, “We all want to sit at the feet of someone with a century of wisdom and hear that once you get old enough, you stop striving, you figure it all out. You have, as the kids say, ‘zero fucks to give.’ But it doesn’t work that way. It feels too good to take a bow.” In this case, Salie has our approval, and she can take a well-deserved bow. (Salie will be taking part in an Audible Theater online 92Y conversation about Approval Junkie with writer and comic Josh Gondelman on November 30 at 7:00.)

JOHN SIMS RESIDENCY — 2020: (DI)VISIONS OF AMERICA

John Sims speaks out in multimedia presentations at La MaMa

Who: John Sims
What: Five-day multidisciplinary residency
Where: The Ellen Stewart Theatre, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
When: December 1-5, pay what you can $10-$60
Why: Conceptual artist and activist John Sims has been working on the multimedia project Recoloration Proclamation for two decades; it is now ready to be unveiled at La Mama, where the Detroit native is the 2021 artist-in-residence. From December 1 to 5, Sims will present six programs hitting on topical issues involving race, slavery, the Confederacy, police brutality, and inequalities that came to light during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The residency kicks off December 1 at 7:00 with an installation viewing and artist talk featuring the AfroDixieRemixes Listening Session — fourteen different Black versions of “Dixie” — and the world’s largest AfroConfederate flag, followed December 2 at 7:00 (and December 5 at 2:00) with a film screening of Recoloration Proclamation. On December 3, 4, and 5 at 7:00, Sims will take part in live performances of 2020: (Di)Visions of America. It all forms a unique self-portrait of the artist as well as a multidisciplinary look at the mind-set of contemporary America as Sims seeks redemption and rebirth through peace, liberty, and justice.

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER WINTER SEASON 2021

Robert Battle’s new For Four is part of his tenth anniversary celebration at Ailey (photo by Christopher Duggan)

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER
New York City Center
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
December 1-19, $29-$159
212-581-1212
www.alvinailey.org
www.nycitycenter.org

If you weren’t following Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater during the pandemic lockdown, you missed out on some of the best virtual presentations of the last twenty months, from online conversations, “Dancer Diaries,” and “Ailey Up Close” talks to archival performances available on Ailey All Access and brand-new works created over Zoom and outdoors. Among the highlights were a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Alvin Ailey’s Cry, members of the Ailey company, Ailey II, and the Ailey School taking on artistic director Robert Battle’s The Hunt, a special filmed edition of Revelations Reimagined, and excerpts from Camille A. Brown’s City of Rain, Rennie Harris’s Lazarus, Judith Jamison’s Divining, and Jamar Roberts’s Ode in addition to Roberts’s exhilarating outdoor work A Jam Session for Troubling Times.

The Manhattan-based troupe, with new members Lloyd A. Boyd III, Caroline T. Dartey, Ashley Kaylynn Green, and Ashley Mayeux, is now back in person for its annual season at City Center, running December 1 to 19. In past years, AAADT has bid farewell to retiring dancers Linda Celeste Sims (now assistant to the rehearsal director) and Matthew Rushing (now associate artistic director) and longtime associate artistic director Masazumi Chaya; the winter run is centered around Bessie winner Roberts’s final performance, as he turns his attention to serving as AAADT’s resident choreographer. On December 9, Roberts will dance his last solo, You Are the Golden Hour That Would Soon Evanesce, with pianist Jason Moran playing his song “Only the Shadow Knows (Honey)” live; the evening also includes the world premiere of Roberts’s Holding Space, which was first seen virtually during the pandemic. Set to an electronic score by Canadian musician Tim Hecker, the piece features an onstage open cube that Roberts calls “a metaphor for many things: quarantine, being confined in a small space — if you were to, let’s say, look at an apartment building and you see the window and you see different people living in the apartment building, but the cube was sort of like taking a magnifying glass and going deeper into just one apartment unit and seeing what that experience is like, experiencing one person out of the whole.”

At City Center, AAADT will also present the in-person world premiere of Battle’s For Four, previously seen only online, with music by Wynton Marsalis. There will be new productions of Ailey’s 1976 Pas de Duke, restaged by Rushing and rehearsal director Ronni Favors, comprising five solos and duets set to songs by Duke Ellington; Reflections in D, Ailey’s 1963 solo restaged by Jamison; The River, Ailey’s thirty-four-minute 1970 opus with an original score by Ellington, restaged by Rushing, Favors, and Clifton Brown; and Battle’s Unfold, a 2007 duet set to Leontyne Price’s rendition of Gustave Charpentier’s “Depuis Le Jour,” restaged by Ailey dancer Kanji Segawa.

AAADT celebrates Battle’s tenth anniversary as artistic director with an evening consisting of Mass, Ella, In/Side, For Four, Unfold, Takademe, and the finale from Love Stories. Also on the schedule are Lazarus, Cry, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s Shelter, Aszure Barton’s BUSK, and Ailey’s Blues Suite and Memoria, divided into such programs as “New Works,” “All Ailey,” “50 Years of Cry,” and “Ailey & Ellington.” As always, the Saturday matinees will be followed by a Q&A with members of the company.

Seeing Ailey on its home stage at City Center is a rite of passage, something all New Yorkers must experience; just don’t be surprised when it becomes an annual December sojourn.

ESN: SONGS FROM THE KITCHEN — CHANUKAH EDITION!

Lorin Sklamberg, Sarah Gordon, and Frank London celebrate a Yiddish Chanukah with food and music

Who: Sir Frank London, Lorin Sklamberg, Sarah Gordon
What: Streaming Chanukah event
Where: National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene online
When: November 28 – December 6, free (donations accepted)
Why: Named for the Yiddish word for eat, “essen,” National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s ESN series combines cooking and music. It now turns to the Festival of Lights for a special presentation available on demand November 28 through December 6. The show, in English and Yiddish, features ESN creators Frank London and Lorin Sklamberg of the Klezmatics and fourth-generation Yiddish singer Sarah Mina Gordon sharing holiday music and cooking demonstrations. Directed and edited by Stephanie Lynne Mason and Adam B. Shapiro, “Songs from the Kitchen — Chanukah Edition!” will feature latkes, syrniki, varenikes, banya pontschkes, and schmaltz and gribnenes alongside fun, festive tunes.

SHINE A LIGHT ON ANTISEMITISM

Who: David Broza, the Maccabeats, the Christian Cultural Center Choir, Eboni K. Williams, more
What: Public menorah lighting
Where: Times Square at Forty-Third St.
When: Monday, November 29, free, 5:30
Why: On November 29, the second night of Chanukah, the UJA, JCRC, AJC, and ADL are coming together for Shine a Light, a holiday menorah lighting in Times Square, focusing on antisemitism in America and around the world. The event will be emceed by Eboni K. Williams and feature live performances by David Broza, the Maccabeats, the Christian Cultural Center Choir, and others along with messages from public officials. In order to “Dispel the Darkness,” everyone is encouraged to bring their own light to shine on hope and justice and fight against bigotry and hate. The initiative, which is taking place across the country during the Festival of Lights, was started “to raise awareness of antisemitism, share educational resources, empower individuals to stand against Jew hatred, and mitigate ignorance.”

YIN YUE DANCE COMPANY: RIPPLE

Yin Yue Dance Company presents gorgeous new work at 92nd St. Y and online (photo by Richard Termine)

Who: Yin Yue Dance Company
What: Streaming performance and discussion
Where: 92Y online
When: November 19-21, $15
Why: Yin Yue Dance Company’s Ripple is one of the most gorgeous works I’ve seen during the pandemic — from the comfort of my apartment, where I’ve watched hundreds over the last twenty months. The thirty-six-minute piece was filmed live in front of an audience on November 18 at Kaufmann Concert Hall as part of the 92nd St. Y’s Mainstage Series. The world premiere, featuring Kristalyn Gill, Jordan Lang, Grace Whitworth, Nat Wilson, and Yin Yue performing on a dark stage, was essentially developed over the previous five days, and the company didn’t even meet in person in full until the dress rehearsal on the day of the show, when Yin was still finalizing the choreography.

Yin Yue leads her company in streaming performance (photo by Paul B. Goode)

You wouldn’t know it from how beautifully the work flows from one section to the next, highlighted by a dramatic solo by Yin, confined to an oval spotlight, her arms alternately reaching out and cradling herself. The music ranges from romantically cinematic to a pulsating electronic score, along with some spoken text, as the dancers form duets and trios, coming together for several emotional passages, bathed occasionally in blue, then red. If you’ve been reluctant to watch dance onscreen, Ripple is a great place to start. The performance is followed by a discussion with the dancers moderated by Harkness director Taryn Kaschock Russell.

On December 6, Yin (A Trace of Inevitability, A Glimpse Inside a Shared Story) will be at the Guggenheim to receive the Harkness Promise Award along with Alethea Pace at the sixty-fourth annual 2021 Dance Magazine Awards, which will be livestreamed. The Mainstage Series continues December 16–19 with Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia with special guests, February 24–27 with Baye & Asa and Passion Fruit Dance Company, and March 3–6 with Caleb Teicher and Conrad Tao.

IN THE SOUTHERN BREEZE

Four Black men from different times meet in unusual circumstances in Mansa Ra’s In the Southern Breeze

IN THE SOUTHERN BREEZE
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater
224 Waverly Pl.
Wednesday – Monday through December 12, $40 in person or livestreamed
www.rattlestick.org

The central section of Mansa Ra’s In the Southern Breeze, which opened last night at Rattlestick, is a compelling fever dream in which four Black men from different time periods meet in a kind of bardo, trying to make sense of their existential situation. Unfortunately, that narrative is framed by a moralizing, didactic story involving a contemporary Black man (Allan K. Washington) literally at the end of his rope, as he considers hanging himself, suffering from severe depression because of pandemic isolation and systemic racism in America.

“It’s so stressful being black. And I don’t mean in some hypothetical way,” he says. The confinement of lockdown is also getting to him. “I honestly have no idea what’s gonna happen anymore. It’s been a while since I’ve interacted with people. Like a super long time. I was already depressed before the ’rona. Everybody was freaking out about quarantine cooped up with nowhere to go. But I was glad. I finally had a real excuse for not leaving my apartment. I know a lot about isolation. It feels like the walls are closing in around you. All day. And all night.”

While he contemplates his fate (offstage), a barefoot man in tatters enters. Madison (Charles Browning) is a runaway slave, just trying to stay alive while looking for his wife. He is soon joined by Lazarus (Victor Williams), a sharecropper who wants to know where his family is. Next, a Black Panther named Hue (Biko Eisen-Martin) arrives, calling out desperately for his wife. And finally, gay activist Tony (Travis Raeburn) shows up fresh from a protest march. As a group they represent such societal ills as racism, homophobia, injustice, inequality, and disenfranchisement, in search of their identity, separated from their wives and children as so many Black men have been throughout the history of the United States. “Unnatural fo’ a man to be taken ’way from his family. Just unnatural,” Madison says. It is critical to note that there are no women in the play; they exist on the periphery, longed-for sources of strength and ancestral continuity. Emmie Finckel’s set is a series of ever-smaller white-framed doorways on lush green grass, the promise of freedom closing fast.

In the Southern Breeze looks at loneliness, depression, racism, and isolation

Earnestly directed by Christopher D. Betts, In the Southern Breeze’s frame story ends up feeling like a cliched diatribe of platitudes lacking dramatic nuance; what the man is experiencing is horrific, something that no one should have to endure, but it comes off as more of an intense therapy session. A rant about holes, from the noose to anal sex to the planet Saturn, feels forced and unnecessary. The body of the play is powerful; Mansa Ra (fka Jiréh Breon Holder) should have more faith in his audience. For example, there is a moment near the end that could have made a memorable conclusion, but instead the narrative extends with a coda that plots out too easy a path for what is a complicated future. One of the smartest choices is to never show an actual noose, serving as a potent metaphor for what has lurked dangerously for centuries.

In her essay “Moral Inhabitants,” which influenced Mansa Ra, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison writes, “Our past is bleak. Our future dim. But I am not reasonable. A reasonable man adjusts to his environment. And unreasonable man does not. All progress, therefore, depends on the unreasonable man. I prefer not to adjust to my environment. I refuse the prison of ‘I’ and choose the open spaces of ‘we.’” In the Southern Breeze works best when it deals with the “we” as opposed to the “I.”

In conjunction with the seventy-five-minute play, which runs through December 12 (both at the theater and streaming live) and is presented in partnership with Black Boys Do Theater, the Boys’ Club of New York, the Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Rattlestick is hosting a series of community talks, on November 22 at 5:00 (on Zoom, before the livestream, about safe and private spaces), November 28 at 4:00 (an in-person postshow discussion exploring the intersection of mental health and the political and social climate), and December 6 at 5:00 (on Zoom, before the livestream).