Daniel Maurer The alleged rape occurred outside of 303 East Eighth Street.The 51-year-old accused of the brutal and brazen rape of a woman on Eighth Street on Saturday morning spent seven years being shuffled between city jails and state mental health institutions.
Neal Essex, who was scheduled to appear in criminal court today, spent a total of 1,350 days behind bars over the course of seven separate jail bids; all of which were related to a second-degree murder charge in 1984 (The Local was unable to confirm the victim or verdict in the case, but The New York Post reported that Mr. Essex was accused of killing his mother.) Despite all the jail time, Mr. Essex did not end up serving time in the New York prison system, according to a Department of Correctional Services spokeswoman. And, until the alleged rape, he had not been to jail or prison since 1991. Read more…
The suspect in the July slaying of a homeless man in Union Square is expected to be cleared of charges, DNA Info reports. The 29-year-old man, Keenan Bryce, was charged with brutally beating the homeless man to death with a bike lock and chain. But Mr. Bryce’s brother refused to accept that his mentally ill sibling was guilty, and through a good deal of research was able to prove that Mr. Bryce was in New Jersey during the time of the murder.
Samantha Ku Dario D’Ambrosi supervises preparations for his new show at La MaMa Experimental Theater. His work explores the experience of the mentally ill.Life-size puppets were perched on stacked chairs at the La MaMa Experimental Theater as Dario D’Ambrosi, the Italian avant-garde actor and director, attended to last-minute details for the opening of his new play tonight.
“Bong Bong Bong against the Walls, Ting Ting Ting in our Heads” opens the fourth annual La MaMa Puppet Series. Mr. D’Ambrosi first worked with mentally ill patients more than 30 years ago, doing research in a mental institution in Milan. Since then, his main avenue of creative exploration has been portraying the experience of mentally ill people through acting and playwriting.
This passion led him to create the Pathological Theater drama school in Rome, which teaches stagecraft to students with a range of conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism and Down syndrome.
We caught up with Mr. D’Ambrosi earlier this week as he supervised the hectic construction of the set at the theater.
What was the inspiration for this piece?
This piece came from my work with the mentally ill. You see the set and the puppets, they designed it. We developed the play together. Yes, it’s my play, but it’s also from Teatro Patologico [Pathological Theater].
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