To all MouseMuseians (a new term I’ve conjured up for all followers of things MouseMuse and lovers of the well told tale) - We are about to embark on a new season of Storytelling that should bring our audiences to the floor, either with tears or laughter.  Three evenings of entertainment at the Fairfield Museum and Historic Center.  Three additional evenings at the Gaelic Club in Fairfield.  Shows, produced by MouseMuse, of a slightly different tale, at the Bijou Theatre in Bridgeport.  Over 50 storytellers will grace the stages in the coming months and weave their tales of love or lust, travail and travel, work, non-work, mistakes, blunders, histories, comedic encounters and, who knows, perhaps alien adventures.  Like a story strapped to the hood of an Indy race car, we fine tune the engine, coach the driver, check the oil, fill the tank and set them loose.  We never know exactly who’s coming in first, who might have a technical problem, or even bump into the guardrail along the telling. 10 minute bursts of insight, passion, escape, and hilarity.  Join us as we set forth on six months in a row of storytelling extravaganza!

"Real Stories. Real People," Theatrical Programs Chosen by MouseMuse

The Bijou Theatre has maintained its history on the outside, but oh wow on the inside, it's tricked out to deliver entertainment, libations and a wowie experience from cabaret table or theater seats. You decide where you sit.

"I  was born in a trunk/In the Princess Theatre in Pocatella, Idaho/It was during a matinee." That's Judy Garland's story in "A Star is Born." We are giving birth to stars and a start in Bridgeport, Ct. For the Bijou Theatre.

MouseMuse is proud to announce is official alliance with The Bijou Theatre www. thebijoutheatre.com We will be producing three shows in 2012 at that wonderful venue starting on September  29, with Jill Jaysen's spectacular ensemble, mostly local cast, from  her exclusive, "Under the Covers, Where our Voices Have Been  Hiding." That show premiered in Westport to sell-out crowds last year.

The shows that MouseMuse and The Bijou Theatre conceptualized  could be called "spoken word," but in an effort to let the audience know that these shows are all true stories, riveting because they're from real life, hilarious because they're human, and poignant because they touch the core of truth in all of us, we called it something other than STORYTELLING—our flagship shows are more like the "Moth." People get up and they tell it like it is. Yes, we do make sure the telling is not offensive, takes ten minutes or less, but those shows are never repeated nor can they really travel. They're in the moment. They're reality TV in a refined form, for your life. Certainly not the Karsdashians, (unless you want to fess up?).

These shows are entities that we bring in from outside, that have been constructed from reality and had proven stage-worthy.

The shows are, at this point, performed and acted by the authors themselves.  Some have required inspired direction, such as Jill Jaysen's "Under the Covers Where Our Voices Have Been Hiding,"

It is a highwire act of innovative entertainment that's very different from our flagship unrehearsed but Ina and Bill vetted for excitement and entertainment programs.

Our first three shows are fully fleshed out pieces that you might see at a fringe festival or at other classical stage venues that handle more than conventional  on-script performances.

Keep looking for what's coming up on our partners page and events pages. Summer ends tomorrow and welcome to the next season of expanding programming for MouseMuse Productions.

We finished up our Summer StoryMasters Jam at TWO BOOTS with a smash hit from 4 very different storytellers, plus 3 from the audience who wowed us ---prizes were awarded to Miguel Villanueva, 3 place, (dinner at TWO BOOTS-- Harry Gambardella, a bottle of red wine, and Liz Wachsler, a gift basket with tickets to the Bijou Theater.

TWO BOOTS a perfect place to let lose, throw down a beer, or a club soda if you want, and then kvell from the pizza which is rated best in the state.

We loved it there and will be back next summer with storytelling. Meanwhile we will be working to plan some small scale writer and singer/songwriter solo acts for emerging artists at TWO BOOTS in the winter when we are in Fairfield. See our events.
www.mousemuse.com

Well, who knew? Here in our no-cheese allowed household, (an ironic twist for a mouse to be allergic to cheese) we went to TWO BOOTS OF BRIDGEPORT for our first Summer Storymaster's jam in June and what did was discover? They have incredible pizza with non-dairy cheese. Plus they have gluten free pizza. That was unexpected. The crowd of 40 people turned out on a rainy Tuesday, and we immediately set to the task of entertaining them, feeding them with po-boys, fried calamari, excellent salads, hamburgers, fries fried in the great tradition of French fries. Hey, if you're going to eat fried, eat good fried. We are all for hedonism 10 percent of the time.

July 10 brings us back there again. We've got our ambient music with guitarist Steven Epstein and vocalist Paula Darlington onstage. We have a trivia contest for the audience, a show with four veteran storytellers and contest for the three minute storytellers we pick from the hat. Nice prizes from local merchants.

The Joy of Cooking, or recipes gone awry, dinner tables that turned on you, and all things that can happen when you break bread with others.

The Masters 

I (Ina Chadwick) am telling a story about the time we were invited to a Baptism for an boy named Epstein far down in Kentucky-Derby-monied aristocracy.
Joe Limone's father was the lenient one in the family. He had only one rule at the table, no soda. Wonder how long it took to break that rule? Show up, find out.
Paddy Jarit and his wife sat down with another couple at an all inclusive resort and from dinner to dinner they miscommunicated because they spoke different languages.
Gina Ludlow nearly wound up eaten alive at a ceremonial table in Africa. The predatory animals were the last ones she was afraid of.

Great drinks, Great fun. Kicky and relaxed for the summer.

We are back in serious mode at Fairfield Museum and History Center in October. http://www.fairfieldhistory.org/

Yesterday, we found the fountain of youth. Oh, we have found it before and always in a different place because the fountain moves to where the real estate is affordable for the next generation. In New York City the fountain is gushing in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Once upon a time it splashed on me in Washington Square Park in Greenwich  Village, then in Soho and then in TriBeCa. The Meatpacking District had a brief loan of the fountain as has Hell's Kitchen. But a trek over the Williamsburg Bridge dumped us smack into the middle of what felt like New Orleans. Dilapidated old shingled row houses with ten names on the buzzer system, auto repair yards, factories turning into edgy galleries, rock and heavy metal music clubs that used to be in Manhattan. Coffee bars to the max. Thrift shops galore. Bodegas, boutiques and bodies with piercings and tattoos that look great on them now. Boots and purple hair. I love it.
Sitting in an outdoor garden at a Thai restaurant on the densely populated-with- eateries- street, Bedford, we watched young mothers with strollers walk by, young women proud of their pregnant  bellies tighly showing  in spandex. Dogs, dogs, youth culture dogs for the City life. Small and quick on their hilarious low feet, dachshunds, pugs, and various forms of mutts that all resembled Jack Russell Terriers.
To make "my" husband ecstatic it takes used vinyl record stores that allow you to queue up  the turntables and listen before you purchase, but not for the dollar table selections I liked. They're too scratched, but the nostalgia of the label is worth simply singing the songs in your head.
The elixir of youth permeates even the restaurants where the owners of a lovely cafe seemed too young to have earned a 24 for food from Zagat. We started for home after the Friday exodus to the country would've been over. Magic happened. The sun was setting behind the skyline of Manhattan and we were passing on the East River side at the East River Park in Williamsburg. A parking spot opened and we pulled in and jumped out as fast as we could to make the sky corals and grey flumes of clouds a reality for a picture. Sunset was happening fast.
A boy, a flawless looking young man carrying a skateboard, was also standing and watching in awe. He offered to take our picture. As the lights began to twinkle across the river in the high rises, our young man told us he'd just come back to Brooklyn that day. He had been living in Los Angeles. This sunset scene was what he'd longed to see again. He'd had a place on  Hollywood and Vine and was trying to make his way up the fame ladder with a band. He was a drummer, but when they lead singer

broke up with him, he left the band. He loved New York for its direct cautions to artists. He questioned Hollywood's tendency to say "they'll call you back," but then never do. New Yorkers say "No thanks and goodbye. You know where you stand."
The beautiful young man introduced himself as Ethan and asked us if we had had dinner yet? We had, but we wished we could've absorbed more of  Ethan's luminescence. We talked him into exploring Rome and Paris because he'd never been out of the country.  But he loved Cities. He was thinking of Indonesia first. We said, " view America from familiar cultures first." He asked for a hug. We stood talking with Ethan, who was of Italian descent, in the dark as they locked the gates to East River Park.  We walked toward our luxury car, our  hard earned money in mainstream careers made me wistful. We both chose a safer path after our dreams in the arts paid off in passion, but not in true sustenance,  as we moved into family mode.
Goodbye, Ethan, we both sighed. We had exchanged personal contact information. You brought us a drop of the new fountain of youth. We will savor it.

...has very smart, very flattering things to say about the Mouse House, and the article on us in their Sunday issue is definitely worth a good read. A few trivial fact twisters, but a damned good article that portrays MouseMuse intent with soul. You can find it here.

We took ourselves into Manhattan yesterday for a dose of the hurried life, complete with angst about finding a free parking spot. We strategized to start on the upper East side and wind up at the Gertrude Stein Collection exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and then at a jazz/dinner club, "Smoke" on 105th and Broadway. The gods of parking were with us when we easily slid into a street spot at 91st and Fifth. A nice walk on a day that unexpectedly turned out to be beautiful.
Great signage on the Frick Museum undergoing a renovation and cordoned off with mesh and yellow banners. "Like everyone else living on Fifth Avenue, we are having 'a little work done.'" As we made our way toward the Stein collections, we lingered briefly in the Egyptian hallway to read some of the stories on the Egyptian murals---centuries of agricultural tales illustrated on papyrus. Was it true that the slave who scattered the grain was taller than the slave who tamped the soil down over it? Did the goddess who received the urn after the gods of rain invoked the opening of the heavens truly tower over all of the smaller people around her? That was ancient storytelling---pictures of reality they shared for historical reasons and personal communication.
Onward to the Stein collections. Now, I have a feeling I wouldn't have liked Gertrude. While I appreciate many of the artists she supported and nurtured, the collection is wonderfully annotated, and the writers have cautiously depicted the vicious feuds and killer ambitions of both the collectors and their chattel, the starving artists, ex patriots. Storytelling for me as a non-visual artist who has listened in personally on the "making" or "breaking" of a career in the fine arts (I had a boyfriend who was a powerful art critic) felt all too venal and self aggrandizing. The Steins were intellectuals and didn't have to work for the bread on their tables. If you didn't interest Gertrude, you may as well have become a shoemaker in Paris in the early 1900s. As you read between the lines near each grouping of paintings, see what you think. The paintings become so alive with the story, but so does their not so passionate motivation for each painting. Long live commercial value!

Yes, after riding around for a half an hour toward our jazz club we found a street parking spot on 108th and West End. Great teeny club, a jewel. Sat close to our neighbors on both sides. Ate like a queen. Listened to "Jimmy Cobb" recreate Miles Davis "Kind of Blue." Blue periods for painters and musicians, but for us, it was a rosy day.

Memorial Day weekend is four days of no day. Friday, May 25, was like a Sunday. My husband had the day off so he hung around, a mixed bag of his neatness dogging my desire to just hang out ( in my robe) on the big chair in the living room, while he traipsed by heavy-footed with a few loads of laundry. The footsteps were to let me know that he was the only one doing household chores.
We both had meetings late in the day, separately. But at night it felt like Sunday because we had no plan. We grazed on leftovers. We'd had plans with family that fell apart when it turned out we'd all said "yes" without checking our calendars. Getting 6 people together for a family gathering is not like the old days when you knew that Sundays were for family. On Saturday, we did one of our favorite things--- viewing, not buying, fine antiques in the Stamford group antique shops on Canal street. We congratulated ourselves for not spending a penny, but I did wish we were just starting our lives togethet and could absorb a whole new collection of mid-century modern into our ecclectic but over-filled house.
In the evening we sat under the awning at Sunset Grille with friends for whom it took six months to clear this date. We walked Washington street in Norwalk after dinner looking for a vibe' and much to our dismay, it doesn't feel like it's thriving. We did manage a dance at a BBQ place with a band in the back, but that really needed more people on a Saturday night to call it a happening. Even Compo Beach was marginally sparse on Sunday. Quatro Pazzi in Fairfield was packed at 6:30. Great buzz there. Mother-in-law with us. Enough said.

Monday, my husband drove the Hippie Van for WPKN for the Westport Memorial Day parade. Afterwards he came home and slept. I read the newspapers all day thinking it was Sunday. I nearly forgot that I had our radio show--- fourth Monday of the month. Look for the archive www.wpkn.org later this eeek. At 11pm up in the studio, and finally for me, I knew what day it was. Bill Bosch and I had never done radio together before and as usual we were an easy team. Steve di Costanzo, our host on Radio Base Camp is a terrific programmer, avid listener too.
It's Tuesday, but feels like Monday of the first day of summer and after four Sundays, please recommend how to start my day with weekday verve.

Leave Town & Country for an Evening

Repost with addendum. We have been playing to capacity at TWO BOOTS of BRIDGEPORT. Now, coming, other programs using real life experiences as their core. http://thebijoutheatre.com/blog/

MAY 23, 2012

Today is an important day for Mousemuse. We are hitting the streets of Bridgeport's ambitious revival district at Bijou Square. Once upon a time, Manhattanhites winced about attending cutting edge arts events in what was called "alphabet city." Now, they have to lineup for tickets to cutting edge entertainment or theater that doesn't cost $175 a ticket like Broadway, but is just as thought provoking.

Yes, in Westport we've embraced the arts. But the emerging artists have little or no center to simply gather. Restaurants are sprouting again in Westport. Gorgeous women and magazine men. Good hype and vibe at the Spotted Horse late at night. Then where to? A rock band at the Duck? Maybe. A little upstairs music at a couple of places. Jazz Jam at WAC in folding chairs with a plastic glass of wine? No ambience, but sometimes exciting if you could walk there and feel the "club" vibe.

But how about a little culture? Are the art galleries planning to stay open. Is our town Madison Avenue? Is Westport ever going to properly develop a venue with a stage. Town Hall has the auditorium, and a black box theater that's privately run, but budget constraints are real as Westport focuses in on our gem of an educational system.

How did Brooklyn and SoHo and Alphabet City develop into vibrant places? Cheap real estate and someone with vision. Lots of someones. Youth could afford to live there and work there. Later they'd move out to the burbs and wonder why they felt "dead."

We are so insular we've forgotten to look a few (metaphoric) blocks up the road. That's where Bridgeport has, for the past ten years, been quietly putting its future in the hands of artistic visionaries like Phil Kuchma. The Kuchma Corporation has put its money and passion behind the redevelopment of Bijou Square. Kuchma and MouseMuse are meeting on Friday, May 25th. MouseMuse and Kuchma's team are heading into a momentous time. If you stop thinking of Bridgeport as if it is Hell's Kitchen, (and you know that Hell's Kitchen is now unaffordable) you will realize that it's a city much closer to you than New York, some of the best places like Two Boots and the Bijou were recruited by Kuchma to start up a quality arts community. It's an opportunity for our fans to not only dine out with the swells, but an opportunity to get real, and to generate ideas.

Remember those lightweight aluminum fold up chairs with plastic mesh web strips we used to hang on a hook in the garage?  Every summer we'd drag tme out to either a lawn event or to the beach. Sure they used to fray at the edges and then rust, but with a new roll of webbing they were as good as new.

Enter the first generation of snazzy chairs that were sturdy enough to hold not only our widening bottoms but bottles and glasses fit in the side pouches or tray tables on the  arms. Only a tornado could blow away those new chairs introduced into the leisure market in the 1980s.

They came in their own cases and packed up as small as a full sized beach umbrella. You'd sling the case over your arm and trek uphill or downhill until you settled on your patch of land and began to reassemble them? Sturdy little buggers they were. Taut and tough like an army cot. After low back-breaking sling-ass evening at the beach or Tanglewood, the engineer types helped the non-mechanical people fold and slide the chairs back into its own nifty neat sleeve. They only weighed as much as a few golf clubs, but they weren't unsightly when not in use like the cheapo, low-tech old chairs were.

Thirty more years of portable chair engineering has taken us to every convenience you'd want in a chair. Canopies, tables, footrests. Every year another chair item to make a trip to outdoors a pleasure. Before we knew it, the chairs had gotten almost as heavy as carrying a sailboat boom on your shoulder.  I secretly craved my mother-inlaw's ten dollar aluminum rusted chairs from the 1950s. She gave them to me when she moved.

We gave away our high tech chairs and went in search of something lightweight, ugly and low tech. This 2012 summer scene at Compo Beach?  Mostly aluminum plastic webbed chairs?  Maybe it's not necessary to put engineering minds into creating a luxury portable chair with so many bells and whistles, ones that by sheer weight alone could deter you from taking them out of the car. Maybe those chairs are better off in an RV.

 

A couple of audience members approached some of the mouse volunteers and asked for the recipes from the Landmark Academy event. It's ironic that Siobhan Powers who runs the Landmark Pre-School gave me the basics of this very simple chicken dish that I'll detail in Mouse News.  The salad dressing? Well, my mother was a maniac for garlic and salt. While other mother's in the 1950s made Celestial Seasoning's dressing pre-mixed, my mother fell in love with a dressing we were served in a restaurant in small town in the Berkshires. The restaurant was called the Hillside Inn. We ate there at least one day out of every summer weekend. We had to order our food a few days in advance because they brought in fresh beef, and they picked their own lettuce and  tomatoes which they served in a dressing with fresh cut up garlic, wine vinegar and what was probably a trough of salt.

We loved it. As the years went on, I became known as the Salad Dressing Queen. I'd grown up on real dressing. No bottle dressing ever passed muster in our house. Although my mother didn't really cook, the dressing we her signature contribution to my repertoire.

To this day there is no mystery even though I have added and subtracted many ingredients over the years. The three things that remain the primary taste in all of my dressings are olive oil, some sort of acid like lemon juice or multiple types of vinegar and excessive salt. The recipe will post on Mouse News.

BTW. I never use Balsamic except to cook with. The taste overwhelms greens, I feel. I traveled in Italy many times with a cook and they don't use Balsamic on salads often.