Gypsy Musical Comedy and Super-party

"Gypsy dance instruction begins at 7:45," promised the email flyer for Viva Patshiva, and we were determined not too miss it. So Jim and I wolfed down our dinner at Desi Deli on 10th Avenue and rushed up to the Interart Theatre Annex, where Rolling Rocks and several varieties of box wine were already being proffered, free with admission, in the waiting room.

"This is the first play I've been to where they try to get you drunk first," Jim said, starting his beer. Christine thought the Cabernet wasn't bad for box wine.

But what about those dance lessons? Yes, I was told, they usually have them but not tonight, maybe because there were so many of us, but that shouldn't stop us from joining in for the big dance number. We didn't really need to know the steps.

Rollicking and ribald, Viva Patshiva aims to be a "super-party" as well as a musical. With a lively, soulful score, a fine band and strong singers pouring their hearts into their performances, it largely succeeds.

Close to the stage in the rugged, intimate space, we felt almost like part of the Gypsy band.

Though the plot--involving a romance between a Gypsy dancer and a motivational speaker, whom the Gypsies are hoping will give them money to keep from being deported--seemed a tad unfinished, we accepted that as part of the show's home-grown charm.

Catch Viva Patshiva now if you can--it closes May 16. Sit in the front row if you'd like some extra attention from the cast, and do join in that big dance number.

If you've got the energy--we didn't--stay for the "Gypsy-style After-party with drinking and dancing into the wee hours." I'm guessing closing night will be a blow-out to remember.

www.vivapatshiva.com

Trashing the School Cafeteria

While folks in the film industry are trying to make film production more environmentally friendly, I've just seen signs of an opposite trend in New York City schools.

Last Friday, on my fifth substitute teaching gig, I found myself in a gloomy middle school basement cafeteria, where the trays are styrofoam, the utensils are disposable plastic, the floor gets covered with litter minutes after a janitor sweeps it, and even recyclables get tossed.

My forty minutes of cafeteria duty consisted mostly of gathering the kids' trays after they finished eating (or not eating), and tossing them, along with many uneaten apples.

Seems that this school instituted the teacher-as-busboy practice to prevent food fights, and according to the dean who told me about the policy, it's been working. "We've only had a couple of food fights since," he said.

Unfortunately, it's also teaching the kids that they're not responsible for cleaning up after themselves--a great addition to the model of environmental negligence that the failure to reuse and recycle provides.

I wonder whether teachers or students ever discuss the practices of their very own cafeteterias during the inevitable environmental unit--and whether there are any schools still using washable trays . . .

Film Biz Recycling Open House

It's a lovely day for a trip to Long Island City, and from 3 pm to sunset Film Biz Recycling, a new, nonprofit "set dressing salvage and reuse center" offering prop rentals and sales, is hosting an open house.

It's at 43-26 12th St., 2nd floor; for further info, check their website: www.filmbizrecycling.org

Bicycling in the Cathedral

When Jim, Christine, Mitch, and I rode to the Blessing of the Bikes at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine last Sunday, sans cameras, little did we expect to be prominently featured in other people's online photographs.

Inside (13th photo) Jim's the bearded guy in blue with helmet staring heavenward ("paying more attention to the architecture than the prayer"); I'm in red, Christine in green, and Mitch in blue at right.

http://tinyurl.com/ch99qk

In the second Time Out pic (Grace Lin), I'm not smoking, but maybe polishing off a pastry.

Mitch can be seen zipping around the cathedral in the third photo on page 4.

http://tinyurl.com/dlb7jm

Take the La Didone Challenge

"That was a lot of work," said Jim at the end of La Didone, the Wooster group's mating of the opera of the same name with Mario Bava's 1965 film, Planet of the Vampires. Every second presented multiple choices: do you follow the actors--and if so which; luxuriate in the music; read the supertitles ( English for the film, Italian for the opera, typically one of each available at the same time) ; or watch the screens, one at rear, two at the sides, on which much of the film appears, and sometimes the arm or hand of an actor?

For 90 minutes, it felt as if my eyes and brain never stopped moving. Work, yes, but delightful and delirious.

It occurs to me that those who know Italian would have a leg up in following this show. but would one less series of supertitles to read detract from the challenge of pursuing the stories all over stage and screen? For me, that pursuit was thrilling--and part of the show's point.

La Didone closes on April 26--catch it if you can, but be prepared to work.

A Must Read (and Must See to be?)

After finishing Patricia Volk's delightful novel "To My Dearest Friends" late last night, I'm still basking in the afterglow, and wondering if a film version is in the works. Volk's vivid and memorable characters would provide meaty roles for some great actresses--Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon, Stockard Channing, perhaps. If Volk doesn't want to do the adaptation herself, I'd be glad to take it on.

"I don't do fear."

After regaling members and guests of New York Women in Film and Television with stories from her amazing career, Nora Ephron was taking questions. "What is your greatest fear?" someone asked, and weeks later, I'm still thinking about her answer: "I don't do fear."

Thinking about it and saying it, like a fear-banishing mantra.

What I need to start saying is "I don't do procrastination," because I do do it--and am long overdue to mend my ways.

Here goes--"I don't do procrastination."

How about you?