Wendy R. Williams
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Greetings Theater Lovers,
This month I want to give
a big shout out to The New Dodger Stages at
340 West 50th Street (Worldwide Plaza). The
New Dodger Stages opened in August 2004 and
it is fast becoming one of NYC’s hottest
venues for theater.
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NDS features five luxurious performance
spaces (not a bad seat in the house) and has a terminally
cool and sexy lobby with a great little bar at the
bottom of the two-story escalator. And last but
not least, The New Dodger Stages boasts lots of
bathroom stalls.
I have recently seen three shows
at the New Dodger Stages: the fun Musical of
Musicals (see my review in the theater review
section), Modern Orthodox and Pieces
of Ass. And I am planning on trying to catch
Altar Boys. Hmm ... I wonder if Altar
Boys will land smack dab in the middle of the
raunchiness spectrum between Modern Orthodox
and Pieces of Ass - as in, not as straight-laced
as Modern but not as racy as Pieces.
Maybe, I’ll let you know next month.
First Modern Orthodox:
Modern Orthodox was written by Daniel Goldfarb
and stars Amir Arison, J. Anthony Crane, Gretchen
Egolf and Jenn Harris. The original cast of Craig
Bierko, Molly Ringwald (John Hughes’s 80’s
muse) and Jason Biggs (American Pie) has
gone on to do whatever-original-casts-do-after-they-leave-a-show-and-we-are-
really-not-sure-why.
Modern Orthodox is the
story of a clash between a couple of secular (shall
we say ersatz?) Jews and the Orthodox diamond salesman
they reluctantly befriend. I laughed all the way
through the show, but I did not catch half the jokes
that the yarmulke-wearing audience members caught.
They were in hysterics. And Modern Orthodox
boasts an incredible jewel of an actress, Jenn Harris,
who plays the Orthodox girlfriend, Rachel. Ms. Harris
has amazing comic timing and she brought down the
house every time she uttered a line. Everyone should
go see this show just to see Ms. Harris, she is
that good.
Pieces of Ass
And then I saw Pieces of Ass,
a smart stylish show which features beautiful women
performing monologues about how men view them as
... well, pieces of ass. Some of the monologues
were very funny and compelling and others were just
cute. After all, listening to a pretty young girl
sum up the story of her life (in less than five
minutes) is never really boring. One of the most
compelling monologues was delivered by Catherine
Hickland (Nine Lives). Ms. Hickland tells
the story of her marriages (David Hasselhoff was
one), her soap opera career and how she became determined
to become a singer and managed to get cast as Fantine
in Les Miserables. Ms. Hickland looked
great and brought down the audience when she told
us that she is now forty-nine years old.
So for a fun night out on the town, check out a show at The New Dodger Stages. It is a perfect place for commuters to catch a show, get a quick drink afterwards in the lobby bar and still catch the train home to the burbs.
Rock on!
Wendy
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