Press
RAVEN-O, ONE NIGHT WITH YOU
Raven O, Up, Close and Personal
by Steve lewis
The face frozen between devilish imp and blushing innocent belies the years. Raven O has been banging around this grand old town for decades. A three year stint with the Cirque de Soleil gave him a sort of marketable legitimacy that landed him at The Box, where he was the face that launched a thousand ships. Now, he’s thinking outside the box with an every-Tuesday performance at the Bleecker Street Theater. (06/03/10)Full review
RAVEN O | One Night Is Not Enough
by JC Alvarez
cover photo by San Sierra
If the city of New York were given to dressing up for a night on the town, picking a persona reflective of all it’s vigor, intensity and sex appeal – the Big Apple would choose to dress up as Raven O. The ubiquitous love child of Elvis Presley and Anne Margaret, when Raven O performs it’s raw and powerful, real and sensitive – it’s impossible to sit there and not feel the tremor in his voice warming against your soul, or the feel of his hips grinding to the bass. You’re vetted and left to hope and wonder if when he reaches out that hand in a final musical climax, if when he gives that daring stare…is he looking at you? Full Review
JAZZ-A-MA-TAZZ
Spare Times: For Children
The saxophonist Hayes Greenfield is leading an interactive tour of the jazz scene, one in which children can serve as guides as well as followers. (4/22/10) Full Review
THE COMMON AIR
NYTheatre.com: Robert Weinstein
“…Most of the play’s fun comes from watching the actor, Alex Lyras, morph from one character to the next… it is a fascinating perfvormance… the packed audience gave Lyras a standing ovation.” (11/13/09). Full Review…
CIRCUMCISE ME
New York Times: A True Repeat Customer
“… Plenty of laughs!… Mr Campbell’s genial and polished recounting is a tale well told”…… (11/30/09). Full review…
New York Post: Convert’s a cutup…
“When writing an autobiographical one-person show, it helps to have colorful background material. Yisrael Campbell has it in spades”… (11/30/09). Full review…
The Huffington Post: Fern Siegel
“…Circumcise Me is fun…. It offers genuinely comic moments and wacky observations about the nature of Jewish life. He’s an equal-opportunity jokester… [Campbell] gets great mileage zinging the idiosyncrasies of various Jewish denominations. This is inside baseball, affectionately rendered.” (11/15/09). Full review…
NYTheatre.com: David Ian Lee
“…Such borscht-belt witticism also applies perfectly to Circumcise Me, the hilarious one-man show written by Yisrael Campbell, currently playing at the Bleecker Street Theatre. Charting Campbell’s passage from alcohol abuse and a Catholic upbringing to familial salvation and (multiple) religious conversions, Circumcise Me is at once steeped in Jewish culture and laced with Yiddish nuance, yet immediately accessible to even the most goyische of audience members” (11/14/09) Full review…
Jewlicious.com: (Super) Circumcise Me!
“Circumcize Me ” debuts Sunday, November 1st at Manhattan’s Bleecker Street Theatre at 45Bleecker Street through January 3rd. The show is an outgrowth of Yisrael’s stand-up comedy performance and DVD of the same name.… “ (10/30/09). Full Review…
BLEECKER ST OPERA: L’AMORE DEI TRE RE
NY Times: An Opera, Rarely Heard, From a Troupe, Newly Born
“You had to applaud the chutzpah the Bleecker Street Opera Company displayed in its maiden voyage. You might have thought that this upstart company, founded by former executives and artists of the Amato Opera (which closed in June), would start with a familiar repertory staple…” (10/19/09) Full Review…
QMetropolis.Net : Rousing ‘Trei Re’ Introduces Bleecker Street Opera
“A new company, the Bleecker Street Opera, performing at one of the Theatres at 45 Bleecker Street, in the East Village, has arisen from the ashes of the defunct Amato Opera and introduces itself in style… “ (10/25/09) Full review….
ConcertoNet.com: The Joy of Operatic Sadism
“Is Bleecker Street becoming the Greenwich Village branch of Lincoln Center? Within heldentenor shouting distance from the defunct Amato Opera, Bleecker Street Opera is presenting a true opera rara…which swings along with energy, commitment, and all the sadism one needs for a terrific evening in the Village. “ Full Review….
NY Times: An Opera On Both their Houses
A HOUSE divided, two self-described families laying claim to the honored legacy of one: on a surface level, the competing arrivals of the Bleecker Street Opera and the Amore Opera could be the stuff of a libretto. Both companies grew out of the Amato Opera, a feisty, much-loved troupe founded in 1948 by the impresario and conductor Anthony Amato with his wife, Sally Amato. Mr. Amato closed the company in June, to the shock of many.(12/04/09) Full Review…
HOMER’S ODYSSEY
NY Times: Mad, Wild, Hurling Tales of Odysseus’ Journey
“Eleven talented performers make up the cast of “Homer’s Odyssey,” but the script is the real star of the show. Indeed, this adaptation, written by Simon Armitage and presented by the Handcart Ensemble, is so superb that you may find yourself wishing that the playwright would step onstage and take a bow at the curtain call…” (9/15/09) Full Review…
CF Interviews: Louis Salamone, Owner/Creative Director, Theatres at 45 Bleecker
In the nearly 20 years I’ve covered New York theater, I can’t recall receiving a press release advertising a theater as an investment opportunity. I’m not talking about a prospectus for investing in a show — those I’ve seen and they, too, are fascinating documents, especially if you’re jazzed by the minutiae of LLCs and such. This press release, however, announced that Louis S. Salamone, whose title is Owner/Creative Director at the theater complex at 45 Bleecker Street, “has created a new business model for Off-Broadway theater with hismultiuse, hybrid theater complex which is open 18 hours a day, seven days a week.” Read more