Six performances - January 24, 25, 31 February 1, 7, 8 2009 Saturdays @8PM & Sundays @3PM
Tickets $15 - $10 for students & seniors
Ticketing by Theatermania.com - 212-352-3101 or 1-866-811-4111
@Penny Templeton Studio, 261 W. 35th Street Suite 304 NY NY
email: tickets@mergatroyd.org
Please note: this video contains explicit language.
Also note that this monologue does not appear in the play MR. BLACK but rather is a separate work, written to promote the show (due to Actors' Equity rules.)
Last two STRESS plays - Personal Jesus and Pooh Story
Personal Jesus
Pooh Story
Saturday, January 17, 2009
The latest rehearsal pix
Fox Force Five rehearsal
Happily Married rehearsal
Stage Diving rehearsal
Thursday, January 15, 2009
rehearsal pix: MR. BLACK
Nick Fondulis & Lynsey Buckelew
Nick Fondulis & Lynsey Buckelew
Nick Fondulis & Mike Selkirk
Nick Fondulis
rehearsal pix: THE HELICOPTER
Mike Selkirk & Lori Kee
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Crain's "Stress and the City"
The financial crisis drove Robert Lovenheim out of town. Last week, after six years in an Upper West Side luxury rental, he packed up and moved with his wife to rural Pennsylvania. The idea of paying $6,000 a month to live in a city he thinks is spiraling downward was just too risky for the Internet entrepreneur.
“We're only seeing the beginning of what's a real downturn, and things could get really bad here,” he says.
A palpable fear has descended on the city as New Yorkers face the prospect of the worst economic decline since the Great Depression. On therapists' couches and the subway, at school drop-off and the gym, and even on Facebook, anxiety reigns. With layoffs mounting, bonuses shrinking and the city and state facing severe budget gaps, angst over what the future might bring is commonplace. New Yorkers are popping sleeping pills and making nightly calculations about how long their money will last.
It should be noted that Mergatroyd Productions came up with the title STRESS AND THE CITY last May, well before Crains used it.
City Room: Lining Up for Obama and Spider-Man
Hundreds of people were standing in cold weather on a Midtown Manhattan street on Wednesday morning to get copies of Marvel Comics’s special Spider-Man comic book, in which the superhero meets Barack Obama, who is featured on the cover.
We had a great rehearsal today of THE B WORD - check out the pix. More to come soon...
Lynsey Buckelew, Lori Kee and Nick Fondulis
Lori Kee and Lynsey Buckelew
Mike Selkirk
Lori Kee and Phoebe Summersquash
Lori Kee
Saturday, January 10, 2009
In the news: the other "Pooh story"
IN THE 80 years that have passed since AA Milne last wrote about him, generations of young readers must have wondered what happened to Winnie the Pooh and his young owner. In October, they will be able to find out, the publishers Egmont announced yesterday, with the publication of the first authorised sequel to Milne's books, Return to Hundred Acre Wood.
The book will be published simultaneously in the United States and is expected to be available in 50 languages. Unless JK Rowling suddenly decides to write a new book, it will almost certainly be the biggest event in children's publishing this year.
The Winnie the Pooh franchise is a massive business for Disney, which acquired the rights to it in 1961. According to some estimates, the franchise is worth $1.5 billion (£980 million) – more than for Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto and Goofy combined. More at the Scotsman
I don't think Walt Disney would approve of what happens to Pooh in our POOH STORY.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
ny metro subway map
Monday, January 5, 2009
New York Magazine's "Reasons to Love New York"
Because Every Once In a While, There Is Dancing in the Streets They were dancing up in Harlem. Down in Union Square. Can’t forget Fort Greene. There was swingin', swayin', and boom boxes playin'. To be in New York on the night of November 4, 2008, just after 11 p.m., when the presidential election was called for Barack Obama, was to be reminded that our streets are made for expressions of spontaneous joy. Despite the forces that atomize our lives more all the time, the urge to take to the streets remains deep. Sometimes people are propelled by anger, as after a controversial shooting; sometimes the gravitational pull is shock and sorrow, as it was when thousands gathered to grieve and debate in parks after September 11.
Strong winds, frigid temperatures and blowing snow froze celebrators from around the world as they ushered in 2009 in New York's Times Square on Wednesday night. Revelers in New York braved freezing conditions and snow to see in the New Year.
The estimated 100 million viewers tuning into the televised event nationwide may be grateful they stayed home as temperatures dropped into the teens at midnight and heavy winds made it feel like single-digit weather.
Despite a winter weather advisory in effect for much of the day in New York and well into the celebrations, at least 1 million people were expected to crowd Times Square, according to the Times Square Alliance.
On Thursday, J. D. Salinger turns 90. There probably won't be a party, or if there is we'll never know. For more than 50 years Mr. Salinger has lived in seclusion in the small town of Cornish, N.H. For a while it used to be a journalistic sport for newspapers and magazines to send reporters up to Cornish in hopes of a sighting, or at least a quotation from a garrulous local, but Mr. Salinger hasn't been photographed in decades now and the neighbors have all clammed up. He’s been so secretive he makes Thomas Pynchon seem like a gadabout.
Mr. Salinger's disappearing act has succeeded so well, in fact, that it may be hard for readers who aren't middle-aged to appreciate what a sensation he once caused. With its very first sentence, his novel "The Catcher in the Rye," which came out in 1951, introduced a brand-new voice in American writing, and it quickly became a cult book, a rite of passage for the brainy and disaffected. "Nine Stories," published two years later, made Mr. Salinger a darling of the critics as well, for the way it dismantled the traditional architecture of the short story and replaced it with one in which a story could turn on a tiny shift of mood or tone.
In the 1960s, though, when he was at the peak of his fame, Mr. Salinger went silent. "Franny and Zooey," a collection of two long stories about the fictional Glass family, came out in 1961; two more long stories about the Glasses, "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" and "Seymour: An Introduction," appeared together in book form in 1963. The last work of Mr. Salinger's to appear in print was "Hapworth 16, 1924," a short story that took up most of the June 19, 1965, issue of The New Yorker. In the '70s he stopped giving interviews, and in the late '80s he went all the way to the Supreme Court to block the British critic Ian Hamilton from quoting his letters in a biography.
Wednesday One-Liners Keep Things on Track Conductor: This is an express, uptown C train. You heard right: an express C train. Next stop: 125th Street. If you need local service on the Upper West Side, please transfer across the platform to the D, as in "Daddy done did it" or B, as in "bad boy Bobby Brown" train.
--C train, 59th St
Conductor: This is a Brooklyn bound B train. Like bitch.
--B train
Conductor: We are currently being held in the station because of some other A train fucking us all over.
--Uptown A train
Overheard by: la di da
Conductor: Never give up on life. Keep hope alive. This is 30th Avenue.
--N train, Astoria
Overheard by: trying to shake off a Red Lobster feast
Conductor: Thank you for riding the C train and remember: smile and the world smiles with you.
--C train
Overheard by: NYGirlieGirl
Conductor: You can switch to the A train across the platform. However, I would much rather you stay on this train.
--Downtown C train, 14th St
Overheard by: alxie
Conductor: This train is very crowded. If you cannot fit, please step back and wait for the next train. If you manage to get onto this very crowded train, look at the person next to you and tell them, "Howdy!"
--Queens bound F train
Conductor: Step in and stand clear of the good news.
--F train, 34th St
Overheard by: prairiesquid
Conductor: Hello, and welcome to the mobile sauna bath.
--A train
Overheard by: english dude
Conductor: This is 175th Street. This is an A train to...This is an A train to... to nothing! Hey, does anyone know where we're going?
--A train, 175th St
Overheard by: Brown Eyed Girl
Conductor: All right, there's a 3 train across the platform. Hurry up and make your connection, people. Get to steppin', get to steppin'!
--1 train, Times Square
Conductor, angrily: Yo, stand clear o' the closing doors o' my choo-choo!
Welcome to the STRESS AND THE CITY blog. News and items of interest concerning this show, or the City (NYC) will be posted here.
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Fox Force Five
Is Emily New York enough to get into Fox Force Five? Maybe crazy coked-up Jackie can help, in her own way.
Personal Jesus
Mellow Jesus and Angry Jesus answer prayers - that are mutually exclusive. Only the power of a Zen koan can help them now.
Pooh Story
Two people. One sane, one not. A bench in Central Park. A story about a Bear of Very Little Brain. A parody of a classic American play.
Stage Diving
Stephanie's Mom has come along to a concert with her, which is bad enough, but then Mom wants to relive the Clash's 1981 London Calling tour by diving off the stage.
The B Word
Gerry and Sandy bicker about the dangers of city playgrounds and prejudice until some bad kids come by and steal their skateboards.
Mr. Black
Mr. Black has vowed to protect all abused creatures on Earth. His girlfriend is concerned where this will lead.
Happily Married
Kelly has had a crush on Ted, a cartoonist, for a long time. Now she has a chance to tell him what Hannah, his wife has been up to when she was supposed to be rehearsing.
The Helicopter
Helen and Bob are so intent on learning who will be promoted that they don't pay attention to the unfolding tragedy downtown until Helen learns her daughter is involved.
