(le) poisson rouge
158 Bleecker St.
Sunday, February 28, $10 in advance, $15 at the door, 5:30
212-505-4474
www.bigquizthing.com
www.lepoissonrouge.com
Just how good is your knowledge of Oscar history? How do you do every year in your Oscar pool? You can test your skill on Sunday night, when the Big Quiz Thing hosts its fourth annual Academy Award–themed multimedia team trivia competition. The Big Oscars Quiz Thing will take place at (le) poisson rouge in Greenwich Village, leading right into the actual Oscars telecast, which will be broadcast live at the club on large screens, starting with the red carpet; Quizmaster EdP will keep the trivia questions coming during the Oscars show. Among the giveaways you’ll be trying to win are passes to On Location Tours, an Intro to Improv class at the PIT, Insomnia cookies to make sure you stay awake for what is always a rather long ceremony, a membership to (le) poisson rouge, screening passes to Videology, passes to the Broadway Comedy Club, and tickets to Scott’s Pizza Tours. Here’s one question to get you going, and remember, no cheating: Who was the youngest actor to ever win an Oscar?
In Exposed, visual artist Beth B, who got her start in the 1970s underground scene in New York City, invites viewers into the inner world of burlesque, going behind the scenes with eight current performers who share intimate details about their lives and their shows. Beth B (Two Small Bodies, An Unlikely Terrorist), who wrote, directed, produced, edited (with Keith Reamer), and photographed (with Dan Karlok) the seventy-six-minute documentary, goes backstage at such New York venues as the Slipper Room, Le Poisson Rouge, the Cutting Room, Dixon Place, P.S. 122, Galapagos Art Space, and Coney Island’s Sideshows by the Seashore as burlesque performers discuss issues of gender, control, freedom, disabilities, power, nudity, femininity, personal and professional identity, and more. “What the world projects as normal, it’s just such an illusion, it’s such a fantasy,” Bunny Love says, “and I love that fantasy.” UK comedian and cabaret performer Mat Fraser, who was born with “flippers” for hands, explains, “If you can make them laugh and make a political point that fuels your outrage, all the better.” And Rose Wood adds, “I’ve tried to present my audience with an indelible picture of the body seen in another way, seen in a way that’s different than they see themselves. They have ideas of what’s normal — what a man does, what a woman does, what a heterosexual does, what a gay person does — and I try to present them with another way of seeing the body.” Among the other performers who share their stories are Tigger!, who uses burlesque as a kind of sexual political theater; Dirty Martini, who pays tribute to such early stars of the wordless art form as Dixie Evans and Vickie Lynn; Bambi the Mermaid, who produces Coney Island’s popular Burlesque at the Beach series; Julie Atlas Muz, who honors Pina Bausch in her performance art; and World Famous *BOB*, who points out, “I never lie to people. People would say, ‘Are you a man or a woman?’ And I would say yes. That quick wit was something that I learned from my drag family, that quick wit, that ability to turn anything that hurts you inside into something that’s funny.”