The $ellout Festival

Now in its third year, The Brick Theater, Inc.’s wildly popular summer festival series kicked off in 2004 with The Hell Festival and continued last year with The Moral Values Festival. Now it presents the summer’s best artistically void theater festival. Several shows have been extended! Click on show links for complete schedules.

$ell Out Like Crazy!! Multi-Show Passes Available!! –
CLICK HERE FOR INFO

The line-up includes:

Bad Girls Good Writers
Shalimar Productions
by Sibyl Kempson
directed by Shoshona Currier

The story of two girls from the wrong side of the tracks trying to get their poetry heard. Wild parrots, a pervert spouting feminist theory, and the Baby Moses try to get in their way but the girls just throw on their mermaid costumes and do their best to avoid arrest. A wild absurd romp through the trials and tribulations of being a bad girl on the Brooklyn College campus.

Bonbons for Breakfast
Written by Lisa Ferber
Directed by Ivanna Cullinan
Incidental music by Robert Firpo-Cappiello

A rip-roaring satire of the contemporary art world. Bon vivant artist Wimbly and his fashionista playwright girlfriend Toots plan an art project to cover NYC’s Riverside Park in red licorice. The couple is devastated by the fact that their sommelier, Schmutzy, has run off and left them, and they feel helpless to go on. Little do they know that Schmutzy has been lured away by Wimbly’s lovable Society benefactors Merciful and Miniver Dalrymple, who feel they are doing the right thing as they are able to offer a more comfortable lifestyle. Meanwhile, Boz (the art world’s It Boy until “the sardine fiasco”) feels distraught that the trendsters overshadow his earnest approach to art. Starring: Alyssa Simon, Hope Cartelli, David Marcus, Sal Brienk, Maggie Cino, John Kinsherf and Miriam Lipner

The Brick Ballistic Billyburg Battle of the Bands for A Billion Bucks! (BBBBBBB for short)
Hosted by Jason Bell (co-creator of Caveman Robot)

One night only! Foreskin LaRue, a crass unfunny comedian presents 6 bands in competition for a billion bucks. Some bands are fake. Some are evil. The audience can vote on their favorite but there’s not much point because it’s all rigged!

Die Hard – The Puppet Musical
Exploding Puppet Productions
Created by John Ardolino and James Walton
Composed and Designed by James Walton
Choreography by Gretchen Van Lent

Somewhere between homage and parody lies the best singing-sock-puppet-themed adaptation of a late 1980’s action movie you’re likely to see this summer. Wielding an array of puppets as diverse as the gripping musical numbers they sing, we bring you the epic tale of New York cop John McClane as he blows stuff up, befriends a local cop with a weakness for snack cakes and kicks some serious terrorist ass to save the puppet he loves.

Freak Out Under the Apple Tree (excerpts)
Written by Tom X. Chao
Performed by Kim Katzberg with Tom X. Chao
In honor of the Sellout Festival, long-time Brick regular Tom X. Chao presents Kim Katzberg performing “Freak Out Under the Apple Tree.” Katzberg, who originated the performance as a scene in Chao’s Cats Can See The Devil, will flatten and level your sensibilities in a way that other avant-garde artists can only hope to achieve. One performance only. “Seeing Kim Katzberg perform the ‘Freak Out Under the Apple Tree’ changed my life.”–Kevin Draine, The Bitter Poet. (NOTE: This is not the full-length show presented last summer in the Moral Values Festival.)

Girls! Girls! Girls!
Choreographed and directed by Jennifer Schmermund

An all-purpose, show-stopping exploitation of dance clichés. In a glitzy, sequined series of vignettes, Jennifer Schmermund vomits out the stomach-wrenching sellout possibilities. From porno to half-time to jazz hands, Schmermund exposes them all gratuitously, then sells them as her own.

Greed: a Musical Love $tory (Featuring Anna Nicole! James Joyce!
Boobs!)
Written and Directed by Robert Honeywell
Composed by: Robert Honeywell, Whitney Gardner & Meighan Stoops
Featuring: Gyda Arber, Bryan Enk, Robert Honeywell, Michael O’Brien, Moira Stone

A tormented accountant who’s hungry for money sings and dances her way through a day-in-the-life of 21st century New York City. Accosted by various hallucinations — Anna Nicole Smith being chased by her dead billionaire husband, James Joyce and W. B. Yeats begging her to embrace art, a professor on a subway doing a striptease with the floor- to-ceiling pole — she tries to maintain her sanity while fighting off the urge to “massage the numbers” at her day job. With perky song & dance numbers by Anna Nicole, Joyce, Yeats and a lusty, wheelchair-bound J. Howard Marshall.

The Impotent General
(A play in four related parts.)

Written by Gary Winter (of playwright collective 13P)
Directed by Meredith McDonough

Part one will be a poetry on the history of the sellout. Part two will be a mind-blowing audio experience with teeth-an elderly couple at the Met’s Rauschenberg exhibit. Part three involves a scary discussion between two people waiting for a play to begin. Part four explores the life and legend of Pocahontas and Suzy-Dawn, American legends who sold out.

I.P.O. – Flipping Unreal Estate
Directed by Octavio Campos
Performed by Octavio Campos and Michael Yawney

A public meeting for potential IPO Worldwide franchisees. Art, artists’ body parts and sweatshop girls will be auctioned off. Please bring a credit card with a spending limit of at least $10,000.

“IPO…is without doubt one of the most original and exciting new dance or theater works seen in South Florida in recent memory” – Miami New Times
“In the realm of neo-Expressionist European dance theater, Miami’s Octavio Campos stands alone.” – Entertainment News & Views

King Lear
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Michael Gardner
(Director of In A Strange Room – Top 10 plays of 2004, Time Out NY)

A monarch sells his kingdom to his daughters for their profession of love. But when King Lear banishes his favorite daughter for failing to buy, will he end up going insane? Will Gardner sell out by selling out the $ellout Fest? What do you care? It’s free. (except for ticket surcharge if ordered online)

The Kung Fu Importance of Being Earnest
Conceived by Timothy Haskell
Fight Directed by Qui Nguyen
Adapted and Directed by Michael Gardner

Two English gentlemen in the 1890s secretly use the name “Ernest” in their double lives…until they fall for English ladies who cherish honesty. They settle their differences according to the ancient methods of the Shaolin monks.

Magic Monkey Dance Company
Laboratory Theater
Directed by Yvan Greenberg
Featuring Corey Dargel, Sheila Donovan, Oleg Dubson, and Alexis Macnab

An operatic primate fantasia chronicling the life of an orangutan named Kusasi. This animal epic tells of his beginnings as an orphan, his rise in dominance over a jungle kingdom threatened by the logging industry, his struggle with panic attacks and depression, and the psychotherapist who would try to save him. Kusasi’s story is told through a commingling of television Nature documentary material, therapy sessions from The Sopranos, and exotic jungle ballets from the repertoire of Kusasi’s internationally renowned, all-orangutan dance company.

The Nigerian Spam Scam Scam
Paul Provenza, director
Written by Dean Cameron
Starring Dean Cameron and Victor Isaac
From the Director of The Aristocrats!

After receiving spam email from Nigeria, Dean Cameron assumed the identity of a sexually confused Florida Millionaire whose only companions are his house boy and cats, and began a 9-month correspondence with the scammer. Taken from actual letters, this internationally acclaimed show documents the hilarious relationship that descends into misunderstanding, desperation and deception.

Red Carpet LIVE!
Performed and created by Lisa Levy

Lisa Levy, of the long-running audience event Psychotherapy LIVE! does hilarious interviews as the “celebrity” audience members stroll the red carpet from the sidewalk of The Brick Theater onto the stage where they are photographed by a “paparazzi.” A panel of catty ‘experts’ then offer reviews of the celebrities. Prizes are awarded to the Better Undressed, Most Remarkable and Most Likely to Get Searched at an Airport.

Rosea on the Flesh
by Nerik Elliott and Alie Vidich

A seductive dance piece that features live, on stage body painting, subjecting the audience to a tantalizing display of tawdriness and indecency.

Sexadelic Cemetery (A Bizarre $cience Fantasy)
Directed by Jeff Lewonczyk
The Brick Theater, Inc. and Piper McKenzie Productions

The year is not-so-subtly 1969. A company accountant comes to visit a schlock film director’s vampire sexploitation set, and things get a little wild when someone doses the lemonade with something a little wacky… Lascivious freak outs ensue! Who’s sleeping with whom? Who’s biting whom in the neck? When the 60s die, will they be reborn as
the undead 70s.

The Soccergirl Second
Written by Soccergirl and Ryan P. Murray
Performed by Soccergirl

The world’s first naked podcaster brings her popular podcast/videocast to the stage for the first time ever! Voted one of the top 10 podcasts on the net over and over again!

Stars in Her Eyes
Written by Clay McLeod Chapman
Directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel

Four new tongue-in-cheek stories by Clay McLeod Chapman that riff on the actor’s identity, consisting of four stories which lampoon the acting process, artistic ideals, celebrity worship, and the media’s exploitation of individuals.

That’s What We’re Here For (An American Pageant)
Ian W. Hill Playwright and Director
Gemini CollisionWorks

A pageant celebrating the United States, and its relationship to God and Money, from V-J Day to the Present, told primarily through movement and lip-synched recordings. The audience follows a family (Mom, Pop, Junior, Sis) through their daily activities in a USA that is a combination/collision of all the years 1945-2006.

Trav S.D.’s Health And Wealth Elixir Program
Written and performed by Trav S.D.

The author of last year’s best-selling Non-fiction title, “No Applause–Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous” hosts a one-man vaudeville variety show in which he shamelessly hocks his book!

The True Life Story of [YOUR NAME HERE]: Tom Ritchford
Created by the artists of Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Youngblood company
Directed by R.J. Tolan

Have you ever thought to yourself, “Boy, my life is amazing…, somebody should write a play about it?” On April 7, Youngblood launched a 10-day eBay auction in search of a true life story to write. The winning bidder will have his life story adapted into a one-hour work of theatrical genius by the up-and-coming playwrights of Youngblood.

Vaudeville and Film: Two Great Tastes Together
Vaudeville historian Trav S.D. (of TRAV S.D.’S HEALTH & WEALTH ELIXIR PROGRAM and author of the book NO APPLAUSE, JUST THROW MONEY: THE BOOK THAT MADE VAUDEVILLE FAMOUS) and film archivist and exhibitor Dennis Nyback collaborate on a unique program of historic films from the late 1920s through the early 1940s featuring top vaudevillians. Well known names like Buster Keaton and WC Fields alternate with more obscure but equally rewarding gems like Chaz Chase (the guy who eats everything) and Gus Visser (“The Man With the Duck”). Between films Trav S.D. and Mr. Nyback will step in with helpful and amusing commentary. It’s a program of rare and breath-taking treats. Don’t miss it!