Metropolitan
Playhouse
The American Legacy
The American Legacy
"Theatrical archaeologist
extraordinaire" - - Back Stage
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Metropolitan
Playhouse
The American Legacy "Theatrical archaeologist
extraordinaire" - - Back Stage
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Close Up The Alphabet City Monologues, 2023  TRUE STORYIn my first year as Artistic Director at Metropolitan I met a man who made an indelible impression. Carlos Roman was unhoused in 2001, and spent most days on the theater’s block of E 4th Street between Avenues A and B. Gentle, spirited, funny, compassionate, he was a regular ally. Then in his 70’s, he recounted childhood memories of Puerto Rico, told teenage stories of diving into the East River off Madison Street, and made new observations of the city and our block. Carlos was one of many of the theater’s neighbors I wished everyone from anywhere else in my life would have the chance to know. And so my favorite of all Metropolitan’s performances came to be: the Alphabet City monologues. Over nearly 20 years, we have asked actors to interview the theater’s East Village neighbors—residents, shop owners, denizens—and create verbatim monologues from those interviews, sharing our neighbors’ stories. Theatrical snapshots, in a sense, of the people who make up the world right around us, these oral history performances are detailed portraits, but much, much more. Along with their biographies, we capture our partners’ hopes, regrets, challenges, and triumphs. Each performance is a play in itself: a whole story of ambition and conflict, filled with resolutions and revelations, and driven by unexpected philosophy. Moving, funny, inspiring, and quite literally and profoundly, true, the monologues never fail to draw laughter and tears from their audiences. Telling stories of life as it is lived, they are filled with surprising incidents and resonant insights. WITH A LITTLE PERSPECTIVE Because they are performed by actors, the performances are also distinctly theatrical journeys. Our goal is not simply to do an imitation of someone else. These are not “impressions,” and often the actors are far removed in “type” from their partners, not merely by background and experience, but by age, race, and/or gender. Perhaps the distance between performer and subject opens room for interpretation. Perhaps it takes some awkwardness out of the telling—for audience and teller, both! But the stories are no less intimate; they seem somehow much moreso. Through the alchemy of acting, the result is a particular magic that is powered by the energy of the best theater, born of the collision of the wholly unexpected and the immediately recognizable. WHO’S WHO? It takes a special gift to perform the essence of another person. It’s acting, certainly—learning their words, finding their inflections, feeling their rhythms. It is empathizing—discovering in oneself another’s passions, hopes, doubts, and inspirations. And it is also connecting that person to an audience, as the spirit of another reveals itself to a company of strangers. It is perhaps the purest form of theatrical storytelling we ever attempt on the Metropolitan stage, and this year three favorite theatrical storytellers join us to introduce you to three neighbors. Marisol Carrere is making her Metropolitan on-stage debut, but she memorably performed an online monologue as local firebrand Carmen Pabon in our East Side Stories of 2021. The trilingual, multi-award winning actor is a native of Colombia who was raised in New York and has appeared on stage and screen around the nation and the world. A Yale trained actor born in South Africa and come to New York by way Chicago, Linda Kuriloff captivated Metropolitan audiences in her own one-woman show Linda Means to Wait in 2019. She played Ruby Jackson in On Strivers Row (2017) and Lulubelle Alexander in State of the Union (2019), and online performed in Compromise (2020) and Aftermath (2021). Michael Turner is familiar to Metropolitan audiences as Janos Kadar from Shadow of Herores (in-person, 2018), as well as central roles online in The Rector (2020) and The Taliban (2021). An exceptional mimic and veteran solo-performer, he has also appeared onstage at LaJolla Playhouse and Florida Rep, and in numerous film and TV roles. The subjects of this year’s portraits are restaurateur Rafik Bouzgarrou, owner of Bin 141 on Avenue A; jazz and standards crooner Nick Drakides, a foremost Sinatra impersonator; and Marcia A. Richard, author of the memoir of addiction and recovery, M!ss D!agnosed. DEDICATED Carlos Roman found city housing by 2005—a one bedroom on 103rd Street I helped him settle into—but he returned to 4th Street regularly until his passing away a few years later. Our 14th installment of the Alphabet City monologues is, as always, in his honor, and that of the 90+ other neighbors we have celebrated over the past decades. A chance to bring hidden stories to life for our friends and supporters, it is the final project of our 31st season, the Season of Awakening. ~ Alex Roe Sneak Peek Take a look at past performances here: Alphabet City Videos |
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