Little Island (Manhattan, NY)

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    ‘A Perfect Party’ That Celebrates All Its Guests

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    Trusty Sidekick Theater Company has created an outdoor adventure for young people on the autism spectrum.Like many festive occasions, “A Perfect Party for Trees” involves giving and receiving presents: a pine cone, a jar of found objects, a song, even a badger and a bird (both are inventively portrayed by puppets). But perhaps the greatest gift this new play offers its audience is intangible: the freedom to be themselves.The show’s producer, the Trusty Sidekick Theater Company, has created an interactive woodland adventure for children ages 5 and older who are on the autism spectrum. In the show, which is filled with music, young spectators become part of the cast and can participate — or not — while happily defying the constraining conventions of traditional theater. Sit still? This production is a promenade. Be quiet? Please sing along. Don’t get your hands dirty? The plot of “A Perfect Party” includes treasure boxes, filled with trinkets and real dirt, that children can dig into.“It feels like a celebration of this audience instead of a segregation of this audience,” Leigh Walter, Trusty Sidekick’s executive creative producer and the play’s director, said in a recent interview with the show’s creative team. “It’s us, like, going into a public space and throwing a party like we’re throwing a party.”City parks provide the convivial setting. Originally scheduled to debut in June on the Autism Nature Trail at Letchworth State Park in Castile, N.Y. — a coronavirus outbreak in the cast ended that plan — “A Perfect Party” will now have multiple performances, all free, on Sunday at the Little Island Storytelling Festival in Manhattan and Sept. 23 to 25 at Brooklyn Bridge Park. (Email registration is strongly encouraged, though walk-ups are allowed, space permitting.)John Rankin III, left, as the Beekeeper, and Jesse Greenberg as the Bear.Leah ReddyThe show is a birthday tribute to the spirit of the forest. Two quirky characters — the Beekeeper (John Rankin III) and the Bear (Jesse Greenberg) — join forces with Ms. Branch (Naeemah Z. Maddox), a cheerful delivery person who transports both the birthday presents that the cast and the audience create and the offerings that the forest spirit unexpectedly leaves.Arriving in acorn-shaped containers, the spirit’s gifts include the Badger, assembled on the spot from a sock, a cushion and a couple of back scratchers, and the Thrush, whose components are a gourd, a handkerchief and a penny whistle. Designed by Eric Wright, a founder of the Puppet Kitchen, these transformative animals underscore that objects, like people, can play many roles.“We’re trying to create this perfect party for the spirit to come out and visit us,” Walter said. “And all along the way as well, our characters are sort of stumbling along in this story of self-acceptance, really of discovering themselves.”Trusty Sidekick is undergoing its own process of self-discovery. A pioneer in theater for audiences with autism — it has created two such commissions for Lincoln Center, whose Big Umbrella Festival for children on the spectrum is also this weekend — the company is staking new territory with this mobile, open-air play.“I wanted to see what we could do to give all the characters a little story arc and have the audience move with that story arc,” said Marty Allen, the show’s playwright.Because the spectators change locations twice during each 45-minute performance, Greenberg and Maddox, who are also the production’s composers, chose percussive, acoustic instruments that are easily transportable, including a kalimba (thumb piano), a pandereta (hand-held drum) and a West African bell. (At one point, children can choose from a variety of small instruments to join in.) The main musical source, however, is a lightweight glockenspiel, which Greenberg plays with yarn mallets, yielding a softer, more ethereal sound.Cast and audience members celebrating with a collective interactive puppet, the Spirit of the Trees, in a rehearsal of the show’s finale.Leah Reddy “We definitely wanted textures and timbres that would be clear, but not too intense,” he said.Reactions to sound, however, were just one consideration. In creating theater for audiences who might find certain sensations stressful, Trusty Sidekick not only tried out aspects of the show in classrooms of autistic children but also, for the first time, brought people on the spectrum onto the creative team.“There’s the common saying, ‘If you’ve met one person on the autism spectrum, you’ve met one person on the autism spectrum,’” said Andrew M. Duff, the play’s associate director, who was diagnosed when he was 2. In addition to making audience members comfortable by incorporating repetitive gestures and rhythms into the show, Trusty Sidekick will email registering families an intake form about their children’s individual sensitivities. The company can then take the responses into account when performing.Every moment of interactivity is also a choice: Audience members who don’t want to dig with their fingers can use small shovels or simply “supervise”; those who don’t want the treasure boxes’ unearthed trinkets to become gifts can hang onto them during the show.Children might even “chuck the box and dirt,” Duff said. He added, “I think my job, more than anything, was just to encourage our cast and crew to not only be prepared for that, but to look for moments of encouragement in these styles of play.”“A Perfect Party” ultimately teaches that perfection is illusory: In life, the different, the unusual, the flawed can often be the most prized. When a speech to that effect was cut during the play’s development, Twig Hu, the show’s 18-year-old assistant director, who is also on the spectrum, asked that it be restored. “It was important for people to hear,” she said.Trusty Sidekick, which also produces theater for general audiences, wants these children to know that they won’t be judged. However they choose to participate, Allen said, “there’s just not a wrong way to be here with us.” More

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      ‘The Big Mix’: Little Island’s 3-Week Party

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      The director Tina Landau knows firsthand how much the New York City waterfront has changed over the decades. In 1996, she did a production of Charles Mee’s “The Trojan Women: A Love Story” at the East River Park Amphitheater. “I remember going there, and we cleaned up syringes and condoms,” Landau said.She was speaking backstage at another riverside amphitheater, albeit in much improved conditions: at the public park Little Island in Manhattan, which opened last year at Pier 55 on the Hudson and where Landau is directing “The Big Mix,” a new performing arts festival through July 3. The roster features prominent names like Idina Menzel, Tonya Pinkins and Peppermint alongside poets and fire artists, neighborhood dance troupes and choirs, tap dancers and marching bands.“I wanted to focus on representation of as many kinds and types and ethnicities and abilities and genders,” Landau said.One of Little Island’s four artists in residence, Landau has come a long way since her days picking up trash before a show; she’s a member of the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago, and was a Tony nominee for “SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical.” But the inspiration behind “The Big Mix” came not so much from a high concept as from simply looking at the calendar.“I saw that Pride weekend was a week after Juneteenth and a week before July 4th,” Landau said. “I started thinking about what these holidays are: What do they mean to different people, and why do we celebrate them? So each show is in honor of, and an interrogation of, the holiday that falls on that weekend.”While she takes seriously the meaning of these commemorations, Landau also wants to entertain. “Let’s get a ton of different people in here and mash them up, and let it be sloppy and crazy and big and powerful and fun,” she said.From left, Zach McNally, Ianne Fields Stewart, Allan K. Washington and Marla Louissaint rehearsing at Little Island for a Pride Week performance. Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesJoshua Henry (“Carousel,” “Waitress” and the upcoming Broadway run of “Into the Woods”) is the M.C. of the Juneteenth celebration, running through Sunday, with a lineup that includes Pinkins, the singer Mykal Kilgore, the Sing Harlem Choir and the dancer Brinae Ali. Henry is fully on board with Landau’s big-tent approach.“It’s my job to make sure everyone’s having a great time,” he said in a video chat. “As I become more active on social media, people are starting to see my personality more, and I guess I come across as a fun-loving guy, which is pretty accurate,” he added, chuckling.Henry also suggested potential guests to Landau, who was all ears. “I wanted to find a way to turn over the space to voices other than my own,” she said. “For Juneteenth, for instance, I’ve invited people, but I’ve also been very open to what they want to say and how they want to say it. We’re in a very charged and thankfully transformative time, culturally.”The L.G.B.T.Q. Pride program (June 23-25) provided Landau an opportunity for some course-correction, decades after her 1994 show “Stonewall, Night Variations,” which also happened to be on a New York pier. Looking back on that show, Landau believed it wasn’t as inclusive as it should have been — leaving out people of color, homeless youth and transgender women in particular, who were all “part of that moment in time.” This time around, she said, “I wanted to honor those that I, in some way, had left out.”That’s why Peppermint, the “RuPaul’s Drag Race” runner-up, seemed like a great addition as M.C. But because she could host only a couple of the Pride shows, Landau turned to the costume designer and activist Qween Jean to handle the other two. “I had been following her, and I thought, ‘She’s the real deal, she’s out there doing the work,’” she said.Another participant in the Pride celebration is the choreographer James Alsop, who had been wanting to collaborate with Landau since meeting her in 2019. “She could have said, ‘I have a sneaker full of poop,’ and I’d be like, ‘I’ll choreograph it!’” Alsop said with a laugh.Fortunately, the director had a better offer — to choreograph a group number to Diana Ross’s “I’m Coming Out” for the festival, despite being deep in rehearsal for “The Devil Wears Prada: The Musical,” which premieres next month in Chicago.Jose Llana, right, and Brandon Contreras rehearsing a duet in front of an unbeatable backdrop, the Hudson River.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesOne challenge was to concentrate on the dancing and not the spectacular vista right behind the stage. “Let the backdrop do what it does and just be beautiful, and let me not think too much about it, because then I won’t really focus on the movement and the dance and the joy that I want the audience to feel,” Alsop said. “I just want to exude nothing but radiance and light.”Rounding out the festival is the Independence Day show (June 30-July 3), hosted by Faith Prince — a beloved Broadway star who won a Tony for “Guys and Dolls” in 1992 and starred in Landau’s revival of “Bells Are Ringing” about a decade later.At first, though, the actress worried that she wouldn’t be a good pick for the diverse group of performers, which includes the samba-reggae marching band Fogo Azul NYC, the poet Denice Frohman and the Heidi Latsky Dance company.“Tina said, ‘Oh no, you’re quirky in your own way,’” Prince said on the phone. “And I said, ‘Yeah, I have age on me, which is another factor.’ Just when you think you’re in your prime, they want to put you out to pasture!”Prince is familiar with at least one of the performers in the Independence Day show, the Broadway regular Judy Kuhn, but she’s particularly excited by the mix of professional artists and community members, similar to the approach in a production of “The Tempest” she co-directed at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center in 2019.“We used a lot of different groups around the city, and it was thrilling,” Prince said. “It brought so many different communities together, and they were all cheering for each other. I’m really excited that’s what will happen here.”The Big MixThrough July 3 at Little Island, Pier 55, Manhattan; littleisland.org. More

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      Little Island Unveils Free Monthlong Festival With Over 450 Artists

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      The festival, which runs from Aug. 11 to Sept. 5, features a flurry of music, dance, and comedy performances from both established and emerging artists.Little Island was dreamed up as a haven for the performing arts on the Hudson River, and in its first months, it is also being put forward as a playground for artists who have been kept from the stage for far too long.The operators of the island announced on Tuesday that it would host a free monthlong arts festival starting in mid-August that would feature more than 450 artists in more than 160 performances.There will be dance, including works curated by Misty Copeland, Robert Garland and Georgina Pazcoguin. There will be music, including the pianists Jenny Lin and Adam Tendler, the composer Tyshawn Sorey and the saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin and her band. And there will be live comedy, with television stars like Ziwe and Bowen Yang in the lineup.The festival — which is being produced by Mikki Shepard, formerly the executive producer of the Apollo Theater — is another major effort by New York’s performing arts community to revive the arts after the pandemic darkened theaters and concert halls for over a year. For the performers, it is an opportunity to get paid to create new work and explore where their art is heading after months of pandemic restrictions, and in the wake of racial justice protests that swept the country.“We wanted artists to have a voice in terms of, where are they now?” Shepard said. “Coming out of this pandemic, where do they want to be?”By offering free performances, the festival’s objective is to host an audience that combines typical arts patrons with people who might not normally buy tickets to see live music or dance. The performances in Little Island’s 687-seat amphitheater will be ticketed, but shows located elsewhere on the island will not be, allowing tourists and other park visitors to stumble upon them as they’re walking around the 2.4-acre space.“Nothing about it is refined,” said George C. Wolfe, a senior adviser working on the festival, which is called NYC Free. “It’s to give people a place to play.”Copeland and Garland are co-curating a performance on Aug. 18 that features eight Black ballet dancers from three major companies: American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet and the Dance Theater of Harlem, where Garland is resident choreographer. During the performance, Copeland will read aloud from American history texts on top of hip-hop, soul and funk music.Other dance performances include Ballet Hispánico performing an evening of new works by Latina choreographers on Aug. 18, an evening of dance curated by the choreographer Ronald K. Brown on Aug. 25 and a performance by the tap dancer Dormeshia on Sept. 1.As for music, the first day of the festival on Aug. 11 will feature John Cage’s work “4’33”” — in which the score instructs that no instruments be played. It will be performed by students of the Third Street Music School Settlement, led by Tendler. Other musicians include the jazz duo Cécile McLorin Salvant and Sullivan Fortner; Flor de Toloache, an all-women mariachi band; and Ali Stroker, the Tony-winning “Oklahoma!” performer, who will sing and tell stories onstage. The final night of the festival includes an all-women jazz performance, curated by the drummer and composer Shirazette Tinnin.The comedy lineup features a stand-up show hosted by Michelle Buteau and a live show called “I Don’t Think So, Honey!,” hosted by Yang and Matt Rogers, that grew out of a segment on their podcast.The festival is funded by Barry Diller, the mega-mogul who paid for Little Island and whose family foundation will bankroll the first two decades of the park’s operations. It will run from Aug. 11 to Sept. 5. More

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      ‘I Needed It’: A Well-Timed Outdoor Theater Opens on Little Island

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      The island’s first performances, by Broadway Inspirational Voices choir, were post-pandemic catharsis for both the singers and the audience.The timing could not have been better.After the pandemic drove New Yorkers outdoors for everything from dining to haircuts, a 687-seat al fresco amphitheater opened for its first ticketed shows over the weekend on Little Island, the new oasis on the Hudson River, offering a new place for those tentatively re-emerging into crowds again to gather for open-air performances.The amphitheater opened with an emotionally rousing performance by Broadway Inspirational Voices, a professional choir run by Michael McElroy that is made up of chorus members who sang in Broadway musicals like “Ain’t Too Proud” and “The Lion King” before their theaters were shut down and they were thrust into unemployment.Some cheered, and some wept at the return of sights and sounds that had been in short supply during the many months of strict limitations: of hundreds of people piled into the curved wooden benches of the sleek new amphitheater, few of them masked, watching the sun set over the Hudson as a choir belted out “A Whole New World” from “Aladdin.”Michael McElroy, leader of Broadway Inspirational Voices choir and an artist in residence at Little Island, who started working on the show in January.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesThe choir, made up of Broadway musical actors, performing at dusk. The audience cheered and wept at the return of live entertainment.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesAt the show, McElroy urged the audience to reconnect with one another, opening with the line, “After the darkness, there is always the light.”Vincent Tullo for The New York Times“This is the first time that I’ve been here, and I’m overwhelmed,” said Barry Diller, the mega-mogul who paid for Little Island, before entering the amphitheater for Sunday’s performance.Although an outdoor theater was always part of the plan for Little Island, Diller had no idea how useful it would be as the city emerges from a pandemic — offering culture-starved New Yorkers a place for performances as indoor venues slowly begin to come back to life. “It’s the exact right moment,” he said.His family foundation will bankroll the first two decades of the park’s operations, which includes six days a week of arts programming. Without tickets to the amphitheater, visitors can perch themselves atop one of the island’s overlooks to peer down at the performances. Or, if they’re lucky, they can stumble upon one of the artists hired to perform at various spots on the island, like intentionally placed, well-paid buskers.The audience on Sunday. The sun sun set over the Hudson as a choir belted out “A Whole New World” from “Aladdin.”Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesThis weekend’s program was designed as a sort of post-pandemic catharsis for both the singers and the audience, some of whom rose from their seats to sway and clap along with the choir. It was shepherded by McElroy, whose homiletic interludes urged the audience to reconnect with one another, opening with the line, “After the darkness, there is always the light.”The evening of musical theater and gospel music was punctuated with drama and dance — which revolved around the themes of reawakening and reconnection. The actress Phylicia Rashad delivered a monologue about rediscovering the inner child; Daniel J. Watts and Ayodele Casel imitated sounds like thunder and a babbling brook with their tap shoes; Norm Lewis sang a commanding rendition of “Go the Distance” from “Hercules.”“Out of this space of necessary, required isolation, we come into a place that was created for community,” McElroy said in an interview.The evening featured musical theater, as well as gospel music, drama and dance — with themes of reawakening and reconnection. Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesThe show was McElroy’s last major performance with Broadway Inspirational Voices, a group that he founded in 1994, at a time when his friends were dying of AIDS and he saw a need for spiritual healing. Twenty-seven years later, McElroy has decided to leave the group to focus his time on other creative pursuits, as well as to serve as the musical theater chair at the University of Michigan.But first, McElroy wanted to put together a show that filled a new spiritual void created by the current pandemic.So in January, McElroy, an artist in residence at Little Island, started planning for a live concert scheduled for June, not knowing how quickly the city would be able to get vaccinated and return to see live theater. For the initial rehearsals, which happened on Zoom, members of the choir would gather virtually to go over the music and ask questions, then mute themselves when it was time to sing.In May, the choir moved to a spacious recording studio, where they sang socially distanced and masked. And at the end of the month, they started rehearsing in a park, and then eventually, on the island itself, which floats over the Hudson River near West 13th Street.“It’s the exact right moment” for outdoor theater, Barry Diller, the mega-mogul who paid for Little Island, said.Vincent Tullo for The New York Times“We were rehearsing on the faith that we would be able to come together and do this concert,” he said. “It all depended on where the world would be at this time.”While Broadway itself still has a few months to go before it returns in full force, about 60 of the industry’s chorus members were able to get onstage to sing songs from some of the most popular musicals of all time, including “Wicked” and “West Side Story,” as well as some of the newer musicals that were shuttered by the pandemic, including “Hadestown” and “Mrs. Doubtfire.”Watching from the audience, David Plunkett, 52, started out with his mask hanging from his wrist, then alternated between waving it in the air like it was a handkerchief at a church service, and using it to dab at his teary eyes.“I knew I needed it,” he said, “but I didn’t know how much I needed it.” More

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      Cuomo Announces Pop-Up Performances Across New York

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeExplore: A Cubist CollageFollow: Cooking AdviceVisit: Famous Old HomesLearn: About the VaccineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCuomo Announces Pop-Up Performances Across New York“NY PopsUp” will kick off Feb. 20 and run through Labor Day.A festival celebrating Little Island, the parklike pier being built downtown in the Hudson River, will coincide with the last days of “NY PopsUp.”Credit…Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesFeb. 8, 2021, 3:18 p.m. ETGov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, who has made it clear that he sees the return of art and culture as key components of the economic revival of the state, announced Monday that a series of more than 300 free pop-up performances, “NY PopsUp,” would begin Feb. 20 and run through Labor Day.Mayor Bill de Blasio, meanwhile, announced details of the city’s Open Culture program, which will permit outdoor performances on designated city streets this spring.The state’s pop-up events are part of a public-private partnership, New York Arts Revival, and will feature more than 150 artists including Amy Schumer, Chris Rock, Mandy Patinkin, Renée Fleming and Hugh Jackman.Since the state does not wish to draw large crowds in the pandemic, many of the events will not be announced in advance.“We’re trying to thread the needle,” Mr. Cuomo said. “We want the performances. We don’t want mass gatherings, we don’t want large crowds.”The events, the state said, will take place in parks, museums and parking lots, as well as on subway platforms and in transit stations. People can follow a new Twitter and Instagram account, @NYPopsUp, for details about upcoming performances. Many will be shown online.The series will be spearheaded by the producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal, along with the New York State Council on the Arts and Empire State Development. It is part of an arts revival plan that the governor had announced during an address in January, when he had said the state would organize the pop-up performances beginning Feb. 4.The series will begin Feb. 20 at the Javits Center in New York City with a free performance for health care workers that will feature Jon Batiste, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Cecile McLorin Salvant and Ayodele Casel. The performers will travel across the city to all five boroughs, performing in parks and street corners, as well as at the footsteps of Elmhurst Hospital and St. Barnabas Hospital.Mr. Cuomo said some of the events would use flexible venues that do not have fixed seats, and could therefore be reconfigured to allow for social distancing, including the Shed, the Apollo Theater, Harlem Stage, La MaMa and the Glimmerglass Festival’s Alice Busch Opera Theater.In June, the opening of Little Island, the parklike pier being built downtown in the Hudson River by Barry Diller, and the Tribeca Film Festival, celebrating its 20th anniversary, will add to the expanding arts programming in the city.Little Island plans to hold its own festival from Aug. 11 to Sept. 5, which will coincide with the final weeks of “NY PopsUp” programming.Mr. de Blasio announced on Monday that the city would launch a new program to help some of the city’s cultural institutions apply for federal grants. The city’s effort, called “Curtains Up NYC,” will offer webinars and counseling to businesses and nonprofits that are connected in some way to live performances.“We have to make sure that New York City cultural institutions get the help that they need,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference.Asked whether any Broadway theaters could be allowed to reopen as his arts revival plans continue, Mr. Cuomo expressed hope.“I think that is where we are headed, right?” he said. “The overall effort is headed towards reopening with testing.”He announced last week that the state planned to issue guidance to begin allowing wedding ceremonies for up to 150 guests if attendees were tested beforehand.“Would I go see a play and sit in a playhouse with 150 people?” he said. “If the 150 people were tested and they were all negative, yes, I would do that. And the social distancing and the air ventilation system is proper? Yes, I would do that.”Commercial producers have repeatedly said that economics of Broadway preclude reopening at less than full capacity.New York reported at least 177 new coronavirus deaths and 9,923 new cases on Sunday. While the number of new cases has fallen from a post-holiday high last month, the average number of new daily cases and deaths is still far above where it was last summer and fall.Mr. Cuomo said that government had to take an active role to help the city and the state recover from the economic pain wrought by the pandemic. “It’s not going to be a situation where the economy is just going to come back,” he said. “We have to make it come back.”“New York leads,” he added. “And we’re going to lead in bringing back the arts.”Michael Gold contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Little Island Announces Resident Artists

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      @media (pointer: coarse) { .at-home-nav__outerContainer { overflow-x: scroll; -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch; } } .at-home-nav__outerContainer { position: relative; display: flex; align-items: center; /* Fixes IE */ overflow-x: auto; box-shadow: -6px 0 white, 6px 0 white, 1px 3px 6px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15); padding: 10px 1.25em 10px; transition: all 250ms; margin-bottom: 20px; -ms-overflow-style: none; /* IE 10+ */ […] More