Some Timely Odd and Ends

in front of Torn Page on Saturday

These are just some little scraps I collected over the weekend and wanted to impart…to whom it may concern.

Dutiful readers will recall that I reviewed a show called The Whole of Time at Torn Page about a year and a half ago. I thought it was terrific and am so glad to learn that it will see the light of day again, this time at my old sandbox The Brick in August. This past Saturday May 3, Tony Torn held a fundraising for the project at Torn Page so I took these snaps. Downtown notables like Edgar Oliver and Bob Berger were present and accounted for. If you’d like to kick into the Whole of Time campaign, do so here.

Yesterday I popped into the Lambs to shoot a little video with Shepherd Kevin Fitzpatrick about some exciting photos the club recently acquired of Charlie Chaplin and co. shooting shorts at the Essanay studio in Niles California (A Jitney Elopement and In the Park are represented). Some of the photos were used in Diane Kiesel’s recent book When Charlie Met Joan. The video’s for the upcoming Charlie Chaplin Days to take place at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum this May 16-18. In other Lambs news, I’ll be presenting at the Tony Pastor History Night celebration on May 28. (The Tony Pastor naming is my idea. It’s my hope to gradually make that into National Vaudeville Day. May 28 was Pastor’s birthday).

Lastly, over the weekend we binged the recent tv mini-series remake of Alan Alda’s The Four Seasons with Tina Fey, Steve Carrell, Colman Domingo, Will Forte, Kerri Kenney, and MARCO CALVANI. Which reminded me that I had actually interviewed Calvani back in 2017 at La Mama, about a play he was directing there. (Your gateway to that Nirvana is here) My son Cashel took this snap at the time:

Calvani is hilarious and moving in the series, and so is everyone else. (There are some moments I’d tweak in the last episode, but otherwise the show is a very enjoyable hoot…at least for people, erm, my age.)

Lastly, here’s my umpteenth reminder to come to the Coney Island Book Fair this coming Saturday and the Marx Brothers Weekend two weeks after that!