INSIDE INK
By John Rowell

 

 INVESTIGATE THIS

The world has seen quite a few different incarnations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ubiquitous sleuth Sherlock Holmes, but I’m not sure we’ve yet seen a Sherlock who rocks out. Well, if you’ve been waiting for that, your wait is over: The Uncanny Appearance of Sherlock Holmes is a carnival-style crime investigation filled with live original rock music, high-energy acrobatics, slapstick comedy antics, cross-dressing and 20th-century philosophy. Written and directed by Brad Krumholz, the show follows our man Holmes as he investigates the bizarre murders of Dr. Jeremy Nietzsche and Dr. Kevin Freud, and becomes embroiled in a battle of wits against a formidable female detective. The show is a New York City premiere production courtesy of North American Cultural Laboratory (www.NACL.org), and performances begin this week at HERE Arts Center. Visit www.here.org.

 

Figure It Out : Tannis Kowalchuck turns up the Watson in The Uncanny Appearance of Sherlock Holmes.

 

 

THE GRIPES OF ROTH

If you’re having marital problems, you’re probably better off to not play Truth or Dare in mixed company. And you should definitely not use author Philip Roth’s famously dark novels about sexual dysfunction as a marriage guide. Ah, well, conflict is the stuff of drama, after all, and there should be plenty of both in David Bar Katz’s new play Philip Roth in Khartoum, which examines the destructive power of truth and the devastating impact of bad sex, autism, absinthe, genocide and Philip Roth on husbands and wives during an intimate evening with friends. A production of LAByrinth Theater Company, which launches the second season of Public LAB, the play is directed by John Gould Rubin and the cast includes Amelia Campbell, Alexander Chaplin, Michael Puzzo and Victor Williams. Performances begin Dec. 4 at The Public Theater. Check out www.LABtheater.org.

 

WRITE IT AGAIN, JOE

Time and deadlines, the bane of working-class America. There’s never enough time and there are always too many deadlines! (This seems like a good place to give a self-indulgent, personal shout out to my editors at SBW, who are incredibly generous when it comes to the old deadline dilemma. Thanks, guys! Now let’s talk about that Christmas bonus...) And so why not deal with the issues of time and deadlines in a musical? Or, better yet, in a fun, quirky trio of mini-musicals? That’s the premise of ReWrite, subtitled “a musical comedy triple feature,” which takes a look at the deadlines one imposes on oneself and the deadlines that the universe imposes on us. It’s also about normal people, not the sort of people who get musicals written about them. The three mini-tuners, Nelson Rocks, Miss Marzipan and The Process, are the brainchild of composer Joe Iconis, a new talent on the musical theater landscape who arrives with “one to watch” status. Being talent-watchers, we will keep him on our dashboard. ReWrite is a production of Urban Stages, and the cast includes Nick Blaemire, who was in Cry-Baby, Badia Farha, Lorinda Lisitza, Lauren Marcus, AJ Shively, and Jason “Sweettooth” Williams. John Simpkins directs, and performances begin Dec. 6 at the Urban Stages theater on West 30th Street. Check out www.urbanstages.org.

 

SONGBIRDS OF THE SEASON

Much as I love contemporary musical theater (see above), I do wax nostalgic about the old days, the Golden Years, which, I hasten to add, I was not around for, but felt like I was when I was a kid obsessively listening to my parents’ old Broadway cast albums. Singer Jeff Harnar was probably similarly obsessed: his show The 1959 Broadway Songbook is a musical revue that celebrates an incredible year in which such shows as Gypsy, The Sound of Music, West Side Story and The Music Man, among other legendary titles, were all running in New York simultaneously! Now Mr. Harnar is bringing his acclaimed revue back to off-Broadway at 59E59 Theaters, and the show launches the theater’s Holiday E: Café project. Jeff will be joined onstage by popular New York cabaret performers Klea Blackhurst, Anna Bergman and David Gaines. Performances run from Dec. 3-12 (www.59e59.org.) ... And America’s only Juilliard-trained drag opera diva, Shequida, who possesses a five-octave vocal range, thank you very much, will portray a larger-than-life character named “Jessye Normous: The World’s Biggest Opera Diva” (uh-huh) in Holly, Jolly, Jessye, a light-hearted holiday extravaganza that includes “Jessye’s” classic arias, her favorite Christmas songs and some Chanukah selections as well. A very big show in a very small venue, Holly, Jolly, Jessye plays Dec. 5-17 at The Cutting Room (212-352-3101.) Sing out, Jeff! Sing out, Shequida! The holidays are here.