“A shrine of pillar candles and pictures of lost revolutionaries sits in one corner of the room. The trail of roses leads the men upstairs into the big room. We discover an unfamiliar cavernous hall. Glimpses of bars, ropes, candles, and petals appear in the distance, but a scene at the very center of the room illuminates the whole space…For about one hour, we see one gorgeous, impeccably dressed man dancing the tango, alone. He uses prison bars as his partner…”

This is just one of the scenes in Vance Garrett’s remarkably thorough treatment for the Black Party. The 13-page document also describes walls plastered with revolutionary paraphernalia and ticked with the chalk marks of a prisoner tracking his cell time. And of nuns muttering a blessing to the Virgin Mary — probably begging her for forgiveness — as each Black Party attendant checks his belongings at the door.

Garrett has been working for The Saint at Large since 2005, with increasing responsibility for the look and feel of the Black Party. Today he is its director and scenarist — this year mixing Argentine culture, the political upheavals of the Infamous Decade, leather and bondage, and high camp into one coherent, stimulating, storytelling dance party. (Read more…)

Congratulations to THE BROADWAY EXPERIENCE’s BEN HARTLEY on being cast in ENRON!

From BroadwayWorld.com:

The upcoming Broadway production of Lucy Prebble‘s critically acclaimed play ENRON, directed by Rupert Goold, is proud to welcome actors Jordan Ballard (Hairspray), Brandon J. Dirden (Prelude to a Kiss), Anthony Holds (Spamalot, Pal Joey), Ty Jones (Judgment at Nuremberg, Henry IV, Julius Caesar), Tom Nelis (The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, Aida), Jeff Skowron (The Lion King, High Society), LUSIA STRUS (the upcoming untitled Gus Van Sant project), Ben Hartley (Swan Lake, The Little Mermaid) and Ellyn Marie Marsh to the company.

They join the previously announced Norbert Leo Butz, Gregory Itzin, Stephen Kunken, Marin Mazzie, Noah Weisberg, Rightor Doyle, Ian Kahn, Mary Stewart Sullivan, Madisyn Shipman, and January LaVoy.

ENRON will begin previews on Broadway on April 8, 2010 at The Broadhurst Theatre (235 W. 44th St. between 8th and Broadway), in preparation for an April 27, 2010 opening.

Tickets are currently on sale via Telecharge.com or by calling (212) 239-6200. The Broadhurst Theatre box office will officially open March 11th. (…)

Ben Hartley was first seen on Broadway in Matthew Bourne‘s Tony award winning Swan Lake followed by Fiddler on the Roof, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Disney’s The Little Mermaid & City Center Encores! staging of Follies. West End productions to include Cats, Fosse, Matthew Bourne‘s Cinderella & The Carman. He was part of The Most Happy Fella & Pirates of Penzance at NYCO & Hello, Dolly at The Papermill Playhouse. He was also a member of The Met Opera Ballet and English National Ballet. Modeling work has included companies such as Ericsson, Aveda & has been featured in New Yorker Magazine and American Vogue. Ben is the founder & director of The Broadway Experience musical theater program based in NYC for aspiring triple threat performers. tbenyc.com (Read more…)

Revolutionary Cell Block Tango :: The Saint At Large Presents Rites XXXI: The Black Party
by Mark Thompson and Robert Doyle
EDGE Contributor
Sunday Feb 28, 2010

Saint At Large Black Party XXXI

GOLPE! reads one headline. There’s anger in the air. Revolutionary fervor. Another headline reads:GOVERNMENT DEMOLISHED. NEW BLACK PARTY APPEARS.

Taken from the Spanish term “golpe de estado,” golpe means coup d’etat: the sudden overthrowing of a state government-which means that, once again, this year’s Black Party invite has caught the American zeitgeist and the revolutionary zeal in the vox populi with uncanny prescience. The Great Recession, with its discomfiting parallels to the final years of the Weimar Republic, has unleashed the demons of debauchery and decadence, with a burning desire for a totally new order-and that’s where Black Party XXXI commences.

With a twelve-page backstory narrative, this year’s Black Party celebration of the arrival of the vernal equinox reads like an amalgam of Kiss of the Spider Woman meets “Cell Block Tango” in 1932 Buenos Aires, where a militaristic regime with a penchant for roses and rough tango has seized control. Matadors and masochists commingle with sadists and Santeria. It’s the black of night and totalitarianism-and the red of blood, roses, martyrdom-and saints.

Ever since Bruce Mailman opened the original Saint in 1980, and celebrated the vernal equinox with a two-night Black Party (hence the reason for the 31st Black Party thirty years later), men from around the world have congregated in New York City to celebrate an annual rite that echoes the ancient Druids. With the enforced closing of the Saint in 1988 (due to the burgeoning AIDS crisis and city crackdowns), and the untimely passing of Mailman in 1994, the Black Party, for the past nineteen years, has been helmed by Stephen Pevner, the extraordinary visionary behind the Saint-at-Large, and his exceedingly gifted creative staff, all of whom work to explore the darker side of Dionysian, sybaritic revels. Recent incarnations of this blackest of nights have included such all-encompassing themes as Schwarzwald, the Black Forest, Lucha Libre, free wrestling, and the underside of NASCAR-as well as The Dangerous Black Party For Boys, all of them immersing patrons in theatrical environments that withstand comparison to Vegas, Cirque de Soleil, and les egouts de Paris. (Read more…)

From Broadway World:

Lincoln Center to Produce WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN, WAR HORSE & A FREE MAN OF COLOR

Lincoln Center Theater (under the direction of Andre Bishop, Artistic Director, and Bernard Gersten, Executive Producer) announced three productions that it will produce during the 2010-2011 season at the Vivian Beaumont Theater and on Broadway. The first, a musical version of the Pedro Almodóvar film WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN, with book by Jeffrey Lane, music and lyrics by David Yazbek and direction by Bartlett Sher, will begin previews Saturday, October 2 when it will reopen the newly restored Belasco Theatre (111 W. 44 Street). Opening night is Thursday, November 4.

Screen sirens Salma Hayek and Jessica Biel, along with Broadway stars Matthew Morrison and Paulo Szot starring in a private industry reading of WOMEN ON THE VERGE… back in October of 2009. There’s no word yet if any of the starry cast will appear in the production.

This will be followed at LCT’s home base at Lincoln Center with the world premiere of John Guare’s new play, A FREE MAN OF COLOR, directed by George C. Wolfe at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, with previews beginning Thursday, October 21, opening Thursday, November 18. Following A FREE MAN OF COLOR, LCT will team with the National Theatre of Great Britain, in association with Bob Boyett to present the U.S. premiere of the National Theatre’s critically acclaimed production of WAR HORSE, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo and adapted by Nick Stafford with direction by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris.

WAR HORSE is scheduled to begin performances at the Vivian Beaumont Theater on Thursday, March 17, 2011 with an opening night scheduled for Thursday, April 14, 2011. LCT’s 2010-2011 Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater and LCT3 productions will be announced at a later date. (Read More…).