Self-styled as a “multimedia one-man feat,” Darian Dauchan’s “Obamatry” opens up a dialogue between America and its president through speech, video, and music. Oftentimes it is difficult to gauge who exactly is speaking through Mr. Dauchan; the spoken word artist channels Obama as skillfully as he does the diverse people of America, exploring the hope, disappointment, trust, and fear which we’ve felt sometimes simultaneously these past four years.

Grounded in spoken word, the piece contains plenty of impressive rhapsodizing embellished with alliteration and peppered with humor. These are the moments when Mr. Dauchan reaches, along with the audience, a near ecstasy, not explaining but illustrating what it feels like to be black in America, to be let down by one’s leaders, or simply to be American. Fans of Mr Dauchan will see previous material (such as the poem in the video below) worked into this polyphonic framework. Read more…

FRIDAY, OCT. 19
“Ghosts of New York Tour: Peter Stuyvesant And His Ghostly Neighbors Of The East Village”
During this tour of some of the neighborhood’s spooky sites, the tour guide will perform as a downtown denizen from the past, such as Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain and Washington Irving. 7 p.m., tour begins at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, 131 East 10th Street at Second Avenue, (718) 591-4741, ghostsofny.com/calendar/; $25.

SATURDAY, OCT. 20
“Halloween Haunting: Phantom Pub Crawl of the East Village Starring Harry Houdini”
Join the search for Harry Houdini, Edgar Allan Poe, Jonathan Swift and other ghosts known for their fondness for the drink, at some of their favorite drinking spots. The tour meets in front of the lion sculpture in front of St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, northwest corner of Tenth Street and Second Avenue. 6:30 p.m. $25 by credit card online; $30 in person if space is available.
Read more…

Theater in Asylum

Theatre in Asylum’s piece “Revolution in 1” opens with the “Cast of Revolutionaries” turning in place on the tiny stage. Rest assured, this is not just a ham-fisted leftist play, but a smart, oftentimes funny look at historical revolution through a hybrid of drama, performance art, and dance.

The work’s major strength is its restlessness – the six women on stage embody historical views which constantly collide: The democrat is dismissed by the oligarch, who is one-upped by the aristocrat, who is questioned by the plutocrat, and they are all repressed by the dictator. And this cycle continues. The cast is cautious not to let their own politics show strongly, often poking fun at both sides of a conflict; a farce of the first presidential debate regressing into a thumb-wrestling match is a particularly sobering view of absurdity.

In presenting revolutionary figures, the piece sometimes swings away from neutrality, but one can hardly fault the writers for sympathizing with the jailed members of Pussy Riot, or with the pepper-spray victims at UC Davis. Using extensive quotation and minimal props, these reenactments echo the portrayal of events in the media eerily, and, calling upon the collective memory of the audience, tap into the fundamental power of theater; the sterile, distanced view of TV news has no place here. Read more…

First, the rededication ceremony, then the opening of The Library and the unveiling of the Shakespeare Machine. On Saturday, the Public Theater continued to celebrate its $40 million remodeling with a block party. The Local’s cameras were rollIng.

On the heels of last week’s rededication ceremony, The Public Theater unveiled two new amenities this week. At an event last night, the “Shakespeare Machine,” a sort of high-tech LED chandelier, made its formal debut. The installation – created by artist Ben Rubin and statistician Mark Hansen, who collaborated on a similar work in the New York Times building – pays tribute to the Bard’s works by parsing up his language and displaying it in found patterns.

Watch the above video to see the machine in action and hear more about how it works.

And below, have a look at The Library, the lounge that Andrew Carmellini’s team, along with the folks at Joe’s Pub, have installed on the Public Theater’s new mezzanine. The books and trinkets on the shelves were picked by designer David Rockwell in collaboration with The Public’s archivists. For more, including the menu, refer back to last week’s post.

Photos: Noah Fecks

Last night, Toy Tokyo celebrated the 30th anniversary of He-Man by pre-releasing the latest Mattel action figure, The Temple of Darkness Sorceress. Oh, but that was just part of it: once fans purchased the $22 toy, they made their way downstairs to TT Underground, to check out original art inspired by the Masters of the Universe. If the names She-Ra and Skeletor mean anything to you, you’re definitely going to want to watch the above. And if you’re looking for the ultimate dorm room decoration, the artwork is going for around $100 to $400.

“Masters of the Universe 30th Anniversary Art Show,” through Oct. 24, 2 p.m. to 7 p.m., at TT Underground, 91 Second Avenue (Lower Level); (212) 673-5424

Art in Odd Places is underway on 14th Street: earlier this week we ran Scott Lynch’s photo of Marie Christine Katz, who is inviting the public to join her as she walks and knits. She’s just one of many artists and performers livening up 14th Street now through Oct. 15. The Local took its own walk down the boulevard, with a camera in lieu of knitting needles, and encountered poet Michael Howley, among others. Watch the above video to hear him read and to see some more guerilla art from the festival.

If you care to hear more from Mr. Howley, watch a second video in which he tells us why he’s reading poetry on the street, to be overheard by passersby. “We’re all just walking by, we’re just passing through this life,” he said. “And 14th Street is life.”

The Public Theater showed off some $40 million in renovations yesterday, as The Local reported. City Room also covered the rededication ceremony, and ArtsBeat reported that Meryl Streep gave $1 million to the theater’s renovation. Now, for your viewing pleasure, here’s video of Vanessa Redgrave, Mayor Bloomberg, and others celebrating the theater’s relaunch, with Shanta Thake, director of Joe’s Pub, telling us more.

If you’re looking for an excuse to check out the new digs in person, remember that Andrew Carmellini’s mezzanine lounge launches next week (he’s also bringing musical performances, top mixologists, and chefs Marco Canora, Seamus Mullen, and Karen DeMasco to the space as part of the New York City Wine & Food Festival). And the Daily News notes that Colman Domingo’s new play, “Wild With Happy,” will premiere Tuesday. And, of course, there’s a big ol’ block party Saturday.

Dana Varinsky The ceremony today.

Mayor Bloomberg showed off his Shakespeare this morning as the Public Theater celebrated the completion of a four-year, $40 million renovation.

Addressing a crowd of city officials, theater big-ups, and community members in the redesigned lobby, Mayor Bloomberg requested a round of applause for the taxpayers who helped make the renovations possible. “This public-private partnership is really putting the public in The Public,” he said, referring to the city funding that footed over two thirds of the project. “It takes a village, if you pardon the pun, and this one certainly did.” he said, adding that the community is still being repaid in free renditions of the classics.

The Public has presented Shakespeare in the Park since 1962. Joe Papp opened the theater in 1967, paying $1 a year to take over the building that once housed New York’s first public library.

“This building has always served a public purpose,” Oskar Eustis, the theater’s artistic director, told this morning’s crowd, adding, “The greatest art belongs to everybody and it is made greater when it belongs to everybody.” Read more…

Courtesy “Bayside! The Unmusical!” The students of Bayside, with Mr. B.

It’s not every musical that has even the house band cracking up, but last night at a packed Kraine Theater, “Bayside! The Unmusical!” did just that with its raunchy, irreverent send-up of “Saved by the Bell.”

The zippy one-hour production – back after an earlier run in May – starts by reintroducing the archetypes of the early-90s sit-com: Zack Morris (JD Scalzo) is the naïve “cool guy” in acid-wash jeans who thinks his ditzy cheerleader girlfriend, Kelly (Caitlin Claessens), is a virgin even though a giant, er, “zit” on her stomach keeps her from going to homecoming. Slater (Israel Viñas) is the “greasy, sexy stud-muffin” who just wants to be respected: “I want to go to collage someday,” he mispronounces. Lisa (Shamira Clark) is the bubbly token black girl who does nothing but shop and gossip while fending off Screech, the nerd who, appropriately enough, is played by lanky comedienne Rachel Witz. And Jessie, well, she’s another story entirely.

The stereotypes quickly come undone like a defective Trapper Keeper: for all its Disney Channel-esque cheeriness and its “uncomfortably Christian creator” (per “Bayside’s” program), “Saved by the Bell” is the show whose cast members went on to get naked in “Showgirls” (Elizabeth Berkley) as well as in an honest-to-goodness porno (Dustin Diamond). “Bayside” revels in that, via an almost Benny Hill-like parade of slapstick hormones and homoeroticism: the kids need to raise an “unreasonable” amount of money (a whole $500!) to save their favorite diner, The Max, and their ideas range from gay prostitution to stripping to pornography. Read more…

Nicole Pasulka A recent dress rehearsal.

While developing “Micro-Mini Maxi Mystery Theater: En Total,” Jessica Dellecave asked the five dancers in the cast to recall their most embarrassing protest moments. With their help, she created a show that explores the often cringe-inducing intersection between activist fervor and queer young love.

The work, premiering tomorrow tonight at Dixon Place, grew out of three 10- to 15-minute studies the playwright, who goes by J. Dellecave, wrote between 1999 and 2010: one was about her experiences as a young, queer activist in the late ’90s, another about her frustrations with activism in 2005, and the other dealing with her mixed feelings about the Occupy Wall Street movement.

In a controlled frenzy, Ms. Dellecave and her “pod” of dancers travel to space, find love at the protest march, and belt out Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Ms. Dellecave humps the floor in a pink mini skirt while delivering a monologue on love and activism. “Isn’t this romantic, going out in the street and smashing the state?” she asks.

It’s not romantic at all, but it is familiar. Like love, first experiences of activism can be both nostalgic and awkward to remember ten years, or even ten hours, later. Ms. Dellecave, whose full first name is Jessica, pokes fun at her history as a queer activist and, in doing so, pushes audiences to examine their own experiences. Read more…

Courtesy Scott Kenemore What passes for fun in the Midwest.

We have 7-Eleven stores here in Chicago, thank you very much.

I was supposed to come to New York this month to give a reading from my new novel about a zombie attack on the Windy City. I bought myself a plane ticket (not that expensive on JetBlue, but still) and was all but eagerly clutching it in anticipation. (If you’re not from the Midwest, you might not have a sense of how excited I was: a reading in the East Village, in a cool bar, and as part of the Guerrilla Lit Reading Series was something to look forward to.)

But then the venue — Bar on A — was closed, reportedly to make way for a new 7-Eleven. This development was was harder to swallow than a KZ3™ Battle Fuel Slurpee.

When you’re a writer living in Chicago, you think of New York City as “headquarters.” It’s where your agent and publisher are, where important stuff happens, and where you occasionally get to go for meetings or readings or whatever. It’s fun and cool and inspiring, and filled with interesting things. It’s awesome for writers in ways the metropolis of the Midwest is often not.

Being a writer in Chicago can feel like trying to meet women at a party thrown by a church. I am not the first person to have observed this. In “Chicago: City on the Make,” Nelson Algren bemoans “a city whose pleasures are so chaste” and laments the “hipless biddies entitling themselves ‘Friends of Literature’” who stand ever-ready to throw a stuffy daytime function where the punch is non-alcoholic and the conversation is polite.

Writers don’t want this.

Writers want to go to places like the East Village and womanize and get drunk and meet interesting, daring, wonderful, terrible people. Read more…

Courtesy of New York Shakespeare Exchange Rehearsals for “Island.”

A luckless, drenched, and thoroughly confused batch of modern folks is shipwrecked on an obscure isle populated by loonies who think they’re living in a Shakespeare play and speak and behave accordingly. The setup is a stretch, but you won’t mind that while enjoying “Island: or, To Be or Not To Be.” Directed by Ross Williams and produced by the New York Shakespeare Exchange, this fun-filled result of a well-publicized Kickstarter campaign is now playing at the Connelly Theater.

Plot-wise, all the Bard’s heavy hitters are in the rotation: evil brothers, murdered fathers, gals disguised as lads, separated twins (plus a pair of very un-separated ones for good measure), best bros in love with the same babe, malapropistic cops, psychedelic witches, and everybody neatly paired off at the buzzer.

Female lead Katelin Wilcox as the shipwrecked Julia is endearingly believable as the starry-eyed romantic who grows accustomed to the island’s zany magic – thanks largely to the torch she carries for the dreamy “Prince” Palamon (Brad Lewandowski). The exasperated attempts of her cynical brunette bestie K (Evelyn Spahr) to snap her out of it provide some of the best laughs. Read more…

Check out the newly released video for “New York City,” off of Joey Ramone’s posthumous album “…Ya Know?” It starts with a stroll down 10th Street, from Avenue D to Third Avenue, rounds the corner at the St. Mark’s Bookshop, and heads all the way down the Bowery and eventually all the way up to Times Square and into Joey’s native borough of Queens. A slew of well-known New Yorkers make appearances, starting with Joey’s brother Mickey Leigh. At one point, Ramones drummer and producer Tommy Ramone pops up holding a “Joey Ramone Place” sign, as does celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain.

You’ll also spot Godlis, whose photos of the Ramones and St. Marks apartment have appeared on this site; Ed Stasium, producer of Ramones albums, and John Holmstrom, illustrator of their covers; Suzy Hotrod of Gotham Girls Roller Derby; actor-comedians Reggie Watts, Kristen Schaal, John Lutz, and Scott Adsit; and musicians Andrew W.K., Tim Harrington of Les Savy Fav, Jonathan Pierce of The Drums, Tish and Snooky Bellomo of the Stilletto Fads, J.P. Patterson and Andy Shernoff of the Dictators, Ricky Byrd of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Sonya Balchandani of the Big Sleep, Erick Arc Elliott of the Flatbush Zombies, and Matt and Kim.

The Pyramid Club and bygone after-hours Save the Robots also get shout-outs – and look out for a clay model of the Astor cube. Recognize anyone or anything else in the video? ID them in the comments.

Sanna Chu Ramzi Khoury.

As noted yesterday, the inaugural NYC’s New Music Festival will see over 130 acts across 24 stages around the East and West Village. The performers are coming in from all over the country, but a few, like folk-rock musician Ramzi Khoury, are based in the East Village.

Mr. Khoury, 33, grew up in California – playing trumpet in elementary school and picking up guitar in high school – and came to the East Village because, he said, “it’s got a lot of good arts and music.” His debut album was “Color”; a subsequent EP, “Champagne and Cigarettes,” yielded the above video, for the song “2nd Avenue,” in which an actor is jerked around the East Village at the whim of Google maps (and you thought the iPhone 5’s maps were maddening). The Local spoke to the musician in Unions Square Park.

Do you have a day job?

For the longest time I didn’t, but six months ago I started working for a technology company. Does it interfere with my music? More so than I thought it would. But I do play my guitar every night when I get home. Read more…

Courtesy Corey Lima. Corey Lima, a.k.a. iLLspokinn.

While other hip-hop open mics have come and gone, Freestyle Mondays has been one of the scene’s staples for over a decade. Launched in 2002 at the now defunct Sin Sin, its doors were open to any rapper who wanted to grab the mic and perform, with a live band supplying the beats. When the club closed in 2010, the party migrated to Bar 13 and then to 116 MacDougal Street, until noise complaints resulted once again in the search for a new venue. Tonight, Freestyle Mondays returns to the East Village with an inaugural 16-MC battle at Ella Lounge at 9 Avenue A.

We spoke to co-host Corey Lima, better known as iLLspokinn, about coming back to the neighborhood, the challenges of having a weekly hip-hop event in New York City and new plans to broadcast online in high definition.

How does it feel to return to the East Village where Freestyle Mondays started?

It’s kind of nostalgic to get off on the same train to hit Freestyle Mondays again. I used to live in the East Village, so I’m hoping it brings out my East Village friends who just like to walk up the stairs or down the street. Read more…

Courtesy of S.S.A. Theater 80

A music festival taking place across both Villages this week is being billed as “East Meets West.” And the organizers? They’re from down south.

Kicking off Wednesday and lasting five days, NYC’s New Music Festival will feature over 130 artists  – from indie, folk and alternative rock to rap and hip hop – at a variety of venues.

Unlike the CBGB Festival, which last week announced it would return in May, the organizers of this festival aren’t from around here. It’s the first production that the Songwriters Showcases of America will stage outside of its home base in Florida.

Phil Weidner, president of the S.S.A., said the 13-year-old company had been trying to put together a festival outside of Florida for years. New York City, he said, was a no-brainer. “We wanted to focus on the East and West Villages to show that’s really the magnet of where good local, live music is being featured in Manhattan,” he told The Local. Read more…

Tim Schreier NDA and Sot

The latest cycle of the Cente-Fuge project went up today. You’ll recall the project, which brought a painting of Adam “MCA” Yauch to First Street back in May, brings a rotating array of art to the walls of a modular unit used by construction workers. Tim Schreier, who photographed the installation of Cycle 4 in June, was back at it today, documenting East Villager Beau Bradbury and the rest of Cycle 5’s artists as they did their thing. Here’s what went down (or up, rather). Read more…

Nicole Guzzardi

When we read in City Room that Lower East Side artist Jordan Eagles created his latest works using, um, blood we just had to drop into Krause Gallery to see the paintings for ourselves. They were just as eccentric (and beautiful) as we thought they might be: bold red, brown and orange-toned pieces that one might call Dexter-esque.

According to gallery owner Benjamin Krause, 38, who has worked with Mr. Eagles for over six years, the artwork has been received very well. But why blood? “The whole concept behind his work is regeneration,” said Mr. Krause. “It’s a life force, it’s an energy and that’s why he uses blood, it’s not for any other reason.” Read more…