With a teeny bit of a departure from classic storytelling we have moved forward to our MouseMuse Live Magazine format. October 12th, We will be featuring a new storyteller, Edward Gibson, who came to one of our shows and got hooked on being up there. A stage addict so fast?
He brings with him a a lively out-of-state audience and a share of humor I value. And then, if all goes as has been planned, we will be joined by a singer/songwriter who approached us on FB MouseMuse FB, and he became a follower. While he confesses to having written his confessional "What Went Wrong" love song in his twenties, he has promised me (we've never met!) that if he ventures from his home in New Jersey, he will give the torment of love lyrics an Elvis Costello mellow. Lindsley, the singer/songwriter has serious eldercare health responsibilities so he is trying to keep a promise to us and to his family. Lindsley Seaman we hope to see you.
I will be sitting myself down on a chair and beginning a monologue of "What Went Wrong?" No title yet, but it did go wrong fast.
For me the hints of wrong were happening for years, I mean for heaven's sakes, I treated my sister to an escorted trip to Napa and then a gorgeous drive all the way down to L.A… and when we boarded the plane in NYC she wanted Continental Airlines to replace her seat with a newer seat, not another assigned seat which many people, including myself were willing to exchange with her, but one with better springs because….because... and she held fast to that demand. The flight was delayed due to the Princess and the Pea and a new seat carried onboard and engineered into place.
'Tis a beautiful thing to be Irish or to be in the company of the Irish.
"There by the lake of beer,
We'd be drinking good health forever,
And every drop a prayer."
~from A Lake of Beer for God, by St. Brigid of Kildare
And nothing goes better with good company and good drink than great storytelling. We're in the process of interviewing storytellers and we have a quite a few names. The Gaelic Club will be open to the public for this event, which is rare indeed. The pub bar will be open for those who care to enjoy a wee dram. Do remember to bring cash as it is a cash bar only. Located on Beach Road in Fairfield, tucked away just off the Post Road, The Gaelic Club is a hidden bit of heaven.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Our storytelling evening at Landmark Academy in Westport saw 80 audience members and seven storytellers connecting, laughing and sharing. Her are some of Larry Untermeyer's photos of a fabulous evening:
Our seven storytellers enjoyed it too!
Blake Schnirring - a New York baby makes its mark
Ben Jalet's little girl needs her blankie right now
Suzanne Sheridan is a mom to her siblings...
Rebecca Toon - Queen of Disney
Pete Pastorelli nearly comes unglued when wallpapering with his dad
Rob Jackson's kids nearly get him arrested
Joe Limone can babysit without getting into trouble, can't he?
Summer Stories Part 1
Some Like it Hot
July 13, more info TK. SAVE DATE
7:00. GREAT stories, Great food, drinks, bug spray and a gorgeous barn in Wilton.
Cash, bucks, bread, dinero, coins, loot, even high finance - no matter what you call it, the abundance or absence of money can cause conflict and change. We’ve been there, and we know you have too. Bring us your stories of striking it rich, barely getting by, being broke, owed or owing –and our great team of coaches (Bill Bosch, storytelling master, aided and abetted by Ina Chadwick, and Gabi Coatsworth) will help you hone your tale so it’s ready to perform in April.
Our March storytellers weren't sure they were ready for prime time, but we helped them get there, and the March 22 event was a smashing success, thanks to them. Be part of this exciting new entertainment form by telling a story or coming to cheer on the people who do! Just a small handful of banknotes will get you a ticket, free scrumptious food, and a great evening. Be there!
Doors open at 7PM. Show starts 7:30 PROMPT.
Whether you were in a tent on a scouting trip or playing under your bed as a kid, shelter is a universal need. Maybe you were settling into your first dorm room, finding, renting, building or even losing shelter, we want to hear your story. If you think you've got a story, email us, and we'll take it from there. Ina@mousemuse.com or Gabi@mousemuse.com.
There is life here in the suburbs after dark! Hear it! Be part of it! Experience it! Be in the audience or be at the microphone. Or be both!
Doors open at 7 PM. Show starts 7:30 PROMPT.
Turn off the six-o-clock news! Treat yourself to a weeknight evening that doesn’t end by falling asleep before 9 p.m. There is life here in the suburbs after dark! Hear it! Be part of it! Experience it!
Be in the audience or be at the microphone. Or be both!
How to become a storyteller? Try not to write out your story. If you have already written it, then fold it up and put it in your back pocket. You wrote it. You know it. You can tell it by heart. You are the character! It’s your story.
Doors open at 7 PM. Show starts 7:30 PROMPT.
