Category: Five Questions

When downtown art-rock stalwarts Coocoohandler joined forces with James Godwin’ s avant-puppet ensemble The Elementals to create Uncle Jimmy’s Dirty Basement, no-one knew what to expect. Over the past several years of live performances the two groups have fused together to create a unique rock-theater hybrid. The Dirty Basement combines the irreverence of Frank Zappa,…

Michelle Matlock is a character actress and physical comedienne extraordinaire, having worked as a clown/variety performer with the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, Circus Amok, Dare Devil Opera Company and as a member of The Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit. In The Mammy Project she digs deep into her own experience, American history, and a twisted…

Adrienne Truscott has been performing, creating work and teaching in NYC for the last ten years. Most recently, her neo-vaudevillian collaboration with Tanya Gagne, The Wau Wau sisters, was seen off-Broadway at the Ars Nova Theater and at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival. Adrienne was a founding member of LAVA, Sarah East Johnson’s Obie and…

Kyle Jarrow (Writer/Composer) penned the Off-Broadway hits A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant (OBIE Award), Armless (FringeNYC Overall Excellence Award), and President Harding is a Rock Star. The New York Times described him as “New York’s hipster playwright.” Kyle’s work has been seen at HERE Arts Center, The John Houseman Theatre, New Dramatists, Dixon…

Young Jean Lee is a playwright and director. She has directed her plays at Soho Rep (The Appeal) and the Ontological-Hysteric Theater (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals). She has worked with Radiohole (None of It) and performed with the National Theater of the United States of America (What’s That On My Head!?!). She is…

Gamal Chasten is a founding member of the acclaimed poetry/theater ensemble Universes. As a playwright Chasten has presented Slanguage, The Last Word and God Took Away His Poem. As an actor he has been seen in Slanguage, Reg E.Gaines’ TIERS, In Case You Forget, You Can Clap Now, God Took Away His Poem and in…

Alejandra Martorell makes dance pieces that marry choreographed material with improvisation. She was a founding member of Viveca Vázquez’s dance troupe, Taller de Otra Cosa, with whom she performed here at PS122, in Pennsylvania, Argentina and Puerto Rico. She was a 1998-2000 Artist-in-Residence with Movement Research with a grant from the Eduard and Sally Van…

Mike Albo is a writer and performer who has been delighting downtown audiences with his witty and scathing sociological commentary since the mid-90’s. His solo shows include MIKE ALBO, SPRAY, and PLEASE EVERYTHING BURST- all co-written with his longtime friend, Dr. Virginia Heffernan, as well as many solo performances and tours across the United States…

Julie Atlas Muz, one of the most acclaimed and prolific conceptual performers and choreographers in New York, sucker punches the boundaries between performance art, dance and burlesque with dark, twisted, come-hither performances that have secured her place in the underworld of nightlife as well as the bastion of the art world. On any given night…

Dov Weinstein is the founder and director of Tiny Ninja Theater. He was born in Madison, Wisconsin and has studied puppetry with The Green Fools, Jon Bell and Eric Blanc. Recent outside projects include a tour of Southern Sweden playing music for a new circus show, and directing actual flesh-and-blood human beings in self-generated clown…

Mei Yin Ng is a dancer and choreographer and the founder of MEI-BE Whatever Company, a collective for the interaction of artists from diverse fields. In New York Ms. Ng’s work has been presented at Dance Theater Workshop, La Mama Etc., PS122, Movement Research at the Judson Church, The Construction Company and The Flea. Her…

Salley May, the curator of PS122’s Avant-Garde-Arama, is the long-reigning queen of downtown performance art. Whether she’s performing with her dog, Phantom, or strutting across the stage with a chorus of scantily clad women in lobster costumes, she never fails to captivate her audience. Salley’s most recent show, Five and Two (5mg Haldol + 2mg…