#sohoplayhouse

[openingnightposts]

Josh Thomas - Let's Tidy Up at the SOHO Playhouse

[openingnightposts]

The Movement You Need

NEW YORK – The Movement You NeedBrendan Hunt’s The Movement You Need playing at Soho Playhouse is an uproarious stand-up solo circus act that will have you loving the man even more than you already do.Raised by a single mom, he tells the story of their complicated relationship through photos and videos and the art of storytelling. Brendan’s mother loved The Beatles, and he was first exposed to them one late night when he couldn’t sleep, peeking in a doorway, watching his mother watch the movie Yellow Submarine on television. After that, The Beatles became an entry into finding a connection with his mother and himself. As a toddler, he could not pronounce his name, Brendan, but instead could only make the sound NaNa for his name, so when he heard McCartney’s “Hey Jude” with the final “Na na na nananana, nananana, hey Jude…” he figured the song was about him.The Beatles will be the constant in his and his mother’s tangled, torturous connection. The band will be the thread that will hold them together.On the screen on stage, as the audience enters, are seven questions about The Beatles’ music. Only one person in our audience got all seven correct, and three others got six. They are great questions and a fun way to start the evening. Upon his entry, Brendan immediately creates a collaborative, loving community. We are all cheering for him.We witnessed, in the tight but way too short sixty minutes, the growth of Hunt from child to man, from young artist to consummate entertainer and writer. His mother and her alcoholism were continual partners in their relationship. The saying, “Comedy is tragedy plus time,” rings true in The Movement You Need. Humor is the gateway through pain. Brendan Hunt uses his tilted comedic way of looking at the world in all of his brilliant performances and writing. He had a public-access show he wrote and starred in as a high school student. We get to watch it. Even then, the glimmer of brilliance of art seen in the everyday is present.The spark for the evening started back in 2022 when, in the UK, working on Ted Lasso, Hunt found out that Paul McCartney was going to be performing just a walk away from where they were working on the show, rehearsing for a tribute to Taylor Hawkins, drummer for the Foo Fighters. And luck has it, The Lasso group was invited. Hunt is about to meet, in person, the man who was the glue that kept him and his mother together. The person who was a lifesaver through his music to Hunt’s entire adolescence. Knowing that McCartney had spent decades having adoring fans crumble and gush at his feet, Brendan “Na Na” Hunt chooses not to crumble and gush but simply remain silent and be a friend and not a fan.The Movement You Need is all about what he would have said to McCartney had he felt he could and instead been a fan.As you know, the lyric na-na is in many rock and roll songs, not just “Hey Jude,” “Na Na, Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye,” song by Steam, “Na Na Na” song by One Direction, the Batman Theme from the 1966 television series Batman, which features the lyrics “Na-na-na-na-na-na-na, Batman” Brendan “Na Na” Hunt was destined to be a rock star writer.Much of this is the story of Hunt’s teenage years. Those torturous years of looking for oneself and often finding dead ends. We are all, all of us, so confused as teenagers. So tormented. Hunt reaches into the confusion and torment and, with humor and love, takes us on a journey through the angst to pop out the other end.His mother died of emphysema before her 64th birthday. Such a short, complicated, dark life where joy was found in the music of four men from the United Kingdom, a place where her son would find his music and shine.Na Na!, thank you! One hell of a great night at the theater.The Movement You Need, written and performed by Brendan HuntRunning Time: 60 MinutesSoho Playhouse 15 Vandam St, New York, NY 10013Readers may also enjoy our reviews of Russian Troll Farm, Aberdeen at the SOHO Playhouse, The Animal Kingdom, Romeo and Juliet, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Exorcista, Women on Fire: Fair is Foul, and The Days of Wine and Roses.https://youtu.be/jsaTElBljOE?si=HXwfP_049JBpn9rm

[openingnightposts]

Aberdeen at the Soho Playhouse

NEW YORK - Aberdeen at the Soho PlayhouseCassie Workman’s astonishing Aberdeen is a tragic poem of Euripidean intensity chronicling for us the life and death of Kurt Cobain and what his passing meant to her. She conjures for us the hero, the quiet god, full of flaws and glories akin to the Greek and Roman deities.Cassie Workman is a poet, a sorcerer of words, and a woman trying to come to terms with the suicide of her hero who spoke to and for her. Kurt, an artist, an enormous flame of talent, burning too fast to keep up with itself. An artist that everyone thought of as a friend,…friends.That’s how everyone thought of him.That’s why it hurt so much in the end.This is her personal story, and she tells us,This is going to sound crazybut just give me fifty-five minutes to explain.This is the story of when I went back in time,to save Kurt Cobain.The piece is in four parts, each with sound and lighting and Cassie, nothing else. Nothing else is needed, only an empty stage, but for Cassie and her words and the marvelous sounds and noise that enhance the story, the sounds of a brain unhinging. The lighting cues of color shades and blackness blow us up and out and back down, along with the words and story in a tight syncopation.Aberdeen was the town in Washington State where Kurt grew up. Aberdeen self-proclaimed itself as The Lumber Capital of the World. Everyone in town worked at the lumber mills. Kurt grew up in a family and community of poverty, financially and emotionally. He grew up and eventually physically moved out but never grew out of the pain and suffering. His pain would be the genesis of his music, his lyrics, and his tunes. A way through pain turned into art. Cassie asks,Should we forgive pain for the beauty it has wrought?Aberdeen is a Shakespearean monologue accosting the ghosts of a man tortured by the demons of his past, the demons residing in him, and the lure of heroin and its release.Cassie is a sage sent from on high to remind us of the life of a fallen god. Her descriptions are rich in rhyme and meter, delivering the emotional worlds we humans reside in where hearts and brains fight one another,In an imperfect world, all life is chaos and therefore imperfect.Kurt lived with a depth of depression, which Cassie shares,Depression is gospel.When it talks so calmly and serenelyyou think it is a friend…There is security in depression.Kurt generously truthfully spoke through his music about what so many go through in life as they leave childhood: teenage angst, depression, and confusion. He was a light in that maelstrom of confusion that burned itself out way too soon.In the end, with lights out, there is silence. No one moves for a moment, taking in this amazing performance and perfection of each word chosen and… then…and then… the explosion of applause.This is a stunning performance. Stunning.Soho Playhouse 15 Vandam St, New York, NY 10013Through February 11. Tickets for Aberdeen HEREFYI, Soho Playhouse is on fire with spectacular performances. Check it out.Readers may also enjoy our reviews of The Animal Kingdom, There’s A Little Starch Left at Don’t Tell Mama, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Encores! Once Upon a Mattress, Ibsen’s Ghost, Women on Fire: Fair is Foul, and The Days of Wine and Roses.https://youtu.be/hTWKbfoikeg?si=TlTmGHfcDEswVEHc

[brooklynjoe]

Hernan and I with San Morrison after his funny 1 man show at Soho Playhouse “Sugar Daddy” #sugardaddy #offbroadway #sohoplayhouse (at SoHo Playhouse) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn8PNzzt8di/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[uptownbill]

attending #thedayiturnedblack #billposley #sohoplayhouse @billposley has a great show about his life and being black in America. (at SoHo Playhouse) https://www.instagram.com/p/BqQ-0KqjEqA/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=11gv9eu3ff26c

[niteclubgirl]

View this post on Instagram

Saw @bababrinkman lastnight. Science🤓+ HipHop= Worth Seeing! 👍🏾 #neuroscience #perceptionshifts #subjectiveexperiences #physicalprocesses #encodedcells #whatyour🧠does🧐 #BabaBrinkman #MJ #SohoPlayhouse (at SoHo Playhouse)

[frontmezzjunkies]

#5guyschillin #frontmezzjunkies is excited to see this English production come to NYC and #sohoplayhouse Seeing it tomorrow night. It was reviewed on www.frontmezzjunkies.com from London by Travis https://frontmezzjunkies.com/2015/10/15/travis-in-london-5-guys-chillin/ and I'll review the NYC production soon. #5GuysChillinNYC tw: frontmezzjunkie IG/tumblr/FB: @frontmezzjunkies (at The Lift Gym Inc)

[mormonboylive]

No full frontal nudity BUT... The "garment monologue" was assigned to me to write by my director Jack Hofsiss two days before opening "Confessions of a Mormon Boy" at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in 2003. We later opened off-Broadway in 2006 and it has toured ever since. I'm glad I accepted that assignment. #sohoplayhouse #mormonboy (at SoHo Playhouse)