Based on a true story.
I really enjoyed the play De Novo (a production of Houses on the Moon Theater Company), which I saw over Mother’s Day weekend last month. The show ran from April 28 through May 16 at 59 E. 59th Street Theatre, a very small space with no assigned seating.
De Novo is about an illegal teenage immigrant seeking asylum in the United States, and the court process that unfolds. It’s a true story, based on transcripts from real court documents of Edgar Chocoy-Guzman, and about his quest to seek asylum from deportation.
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59e59,
DeNovo,
Houses on the Moon Theater Company
Enclosed within 59E59 Theaters is Theater B, unpretentious and intimate in design. Walking in you find foreign writings across the wall, an intricate device flowing on a mildly moving set. Less than a hundred were there between Madison and Park Avenue to witness a history come alive. We were all subjected to a magnificent true story behind a 1486 Spanish Inquisition file, which was almost stolen from the Spanish National Archives. The interrogation of the detained Israeli professor opens up the forbidden desires awakened by the binding of eyes, the tragic love between a Spanish Priest, Andrés González, and his Jewish wife, Isabel. Andres’s confession of a double life reveals a testing of his conviction amid overwhelming intolerance and persecution.
The cast of Conviction is comprised of three actors, Ami Dayan (Professor Tal, Andrés González), Kevin Hart (Director of The National Archives in Spain, Juan de Salamanca), and Catharine Pilafas (Isabel). [click to continue…]
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59e59
Heard of the 1st Irish Festival??? It’s happening right now and H5′s got tix!
Check out Spinning the Times @ 59e59.
When a Palestinian luthier, a London songwriter, a time traveler, a troubled teen and a New Yorker dream of music, escape and home, they are drawn together by the global media, even as their communities and lives are shattered by the events it depicts. A play for five voices by five acclaimed Irish playwrights, Spinning The Times is a tapestry woven by articles from the New York press. [click to continue…]
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59e59,
Irish Festival
Pure Confidence is a great name for a horse, especially one that wins races regularly. However, a horse needs an equally good jockey to accomplish anything. This lesson is what people take home after watching Pure Confidence at the 59E59 theatre in Manhattan.
Pure Confidence begins before the civil war and follows the story of an enslaved African-American jockey by the name of Simon. He even impresses his master, the colonel, and gains the affection of his master’s wife. His talent on the track gains him some fans including the esteemed General Dewitt who eventually tries to hire Simon to race for him, but is outbid by the Colonel, proud of his young jockey that he starts to see as a friend more than a servant. He eventually becomes so successful that he buys himself out of slavery and takes his girlfriend Caroline with him. After that the Colonel, his wife, Simon and Caroline go on tour to races all over the country with Simon making a name for himself.
This all stops at Saratoga. The Colonel told Simon that racers in the north were much tougher and played dirty, but Simon, drunk on his success, took no notice. When they eventually got to Saratoga, Simon found out the hard way that everything the Colonel said was true. He was permanently injured during the race and his racing career was over.
This play is a study in the relations between master and slave and how those relations change when the slave becomes free and he goes from being the servant to business partner. The acting in this play featured a lot of shouting, sadness, anger, and a little bit of comedy here and there. Very entertaining and a great pick me up for a bad day. A great play for people who like stories of success and failure.
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59e59,
pure confidence
The first look at the stage shows colored lights dappled across in a dreamy way, a place of serenity. A second look and there is camera flash lights up the stage to disturb the tranquility. This dynamic contrast of calmness and excitement was the wave of feeling that was presented throughout the play. The dialogue presented a flowing mixture of humor and drama. The actors could laugh and then yell, allowing the audience to feel the shift of emotions. The contrast allows the audience to relate to the ups and downs of life. In the first scene in the south in 1861, pre-Civil War, victories and fails are what define the main character, black jockey Simon Cato. He is the master of the track but a slave to two white children. His only dream is to be free and he works towards this dream riding his horse Pure Confidence. [click to continue…]
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59e59,
pure confidence
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