WALL-TO-WALL TALENT at AWoW's HOLIDAY SHOWCASE at THE CELL

Niamh Hyland and Honor Molloy
Niamh Hyland and Honor Molloy

“What a great night of talent…and Niamh Hyland’s voice is stunning. I literally get goosebumps. Amazing. ” Mitch Traphagen

 

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Joseph Goodrich started things off with “The New Boy”—a poignant and humorous look at Christmas in a small Minnesota town. Goodrich’s story skillfully conveyed the turbulent emotions of its main character, a seven-year-old boy whose life has been touched with loss. Sensitive writing and a bravura performance by Goodrich made “The New Boy” a welcome guest.

 

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Vera Hoar
Vera Hoar

 

Ron Vazzano’s poem “Trains: A Christmas Story,” suggested paradoxically, the joy and peril of getting what you wish for, in that it can come at a cost of a loss of innocence and humiliation in the process.  Beautifully done.

 

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Award winning singer/songwriter/author Michael Sheahan opened his performance with “Jingle Jangle Jingle All Night Long” from his award winning Christmas Book, CD and Dance DVD, Mr. Holidays Presents The Roof Top Hop. This up-beat, joyful Christmas song had the audience smiling, laughing, and tapping their feet to it’s wonderful Christmas spirit.  His second song “Some

Jim Hawkins and Maeve Price
Jim Hawkins and Maeve Price

Things Never Change,” the title track from Michaels Christmas CD, touched the audience’s heart with it’s loving sentiment for Mom and Dad as they physically change over the years. Michael finished his set, appropriately ringing in the New Year, with “Year Out…Year In.”  You can hear all the above mentioned songs on Michael’s latest  Christmas CD Some Things Never Change. 

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Grainne Duddy and Brona Crehan
Grainne Duddy and Brona Crehan

Here’s what the audience had to say about playwright Brona Crehan and actress Grainne Duddy:

Moonlight Sonata – a roller coaster of a ride. “

“Beautifully written and wonderfully told.”  

“We felt like we were eavesdropping on something deeply personal and could have listened all night.” 

 

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Singer/songwriter Ed Romanoff began his performance sharing the ironic discovery of his own Irish heritage and being welcomed to Ireland by Phillip King on the RTE program, “Where The South Wind Blows.”  Ed then continued his engaging rootsy storytelling with an Irish twist by becoming the voice of Willie Sutton in a ballad about the famed Irish bank robber, paroled on Christmas Eve by Governor Rockefeller.  Ed also played a crowd pleasing new song, “A Golden Crown,” about a boxer and a claddagh ring.   

 

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Admiring Vera's 2014 AWoW Poster
Admiring Vera’s 2014 AWoW Poster

Nicholas Garr gave a wonderfully moving, and hysterically funny performance, from his solo theatre piece Paper Tigers, which explores our shared issues of love, sex, ambition, and self image, in a world where things are often not as they appear. In the scene Nick performed, Father Rodney, a teacher at an all boys Catholic school, gives his final religion class, to a group of graduating seniors.  In Nicholas’ Paper Tigers, a Mafia psychic, channels a variety of characters from the underbelly of the familar, in order to help his audience find “spiritual understanding and their true inner selves.”

 

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Guess Who?
Guess Who?

What if 19th century Paris’ most infamous party-girl were undead and on the loose in the Big Apple? Marion Stein read from her new novel Blood Diva (published under the pen name VM Gautier) which reimagines the heroine of Camille and La Traviata as a vampire-about-town enjoying the human smorgasbord that is New York.  Blood Diva is available in paper book and as an ebook at Amazon and other fine booksellers.  Click here for a link to the Blood Diva blog.

 

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Charles R. Hale
Charles R. Hale

Honor Molloy and Niamh Hyland brought the evening to a close with “Christmas on an Island.” Adapted from a Radio Eireann script written by Honor’s mother Yvonne Voight, this selection from Smarty Girl – Dublin Savage is set in the wilds of Inish Maan during the last days of 1954. Honor played the mother and the mischievous Noleen O’Feeney. Niamh played a handful of Island Women, including the Mighty Spirit, Bridgie Flaherty. There was a song—miracle a song–as Niamh sang the first verse of “Silent Night” in Irish. Then the whole crowd joined in to celebrate the season and send each other home (with a quick stop at the Westside Tavern first.)

 

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The next Artists Without Walls’ Showcase is on January 27th, 7pm at The Cell Theatre, 338 W23rd St., NYC

 

All photos by Vera Hoar and Mitch Traphagen.

 

 

 

VERA HOAR'S PHOTOS from the ARTISTS WITHOUT WALLS' SHOWCASE at THE CELL, MAY 27, 2014

Vera Hoar’s photos from the Artists Without Walls’ Showcase at The Cell Theatre, Tuesday, May 27. 

 

Michael Brunnock and Niamh Hyland

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Tedi Spalato

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Nancy Oda

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Nacho Arimany

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Marion Stein

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David Sharp

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Ann Klein

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Nenad Bach, Richard Lindsey, Michael O’Keefe, Hank DeCora, Joe DeSanctis

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Shirley Showalter

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At Intermission

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ARTISTS WITHOUT WALLS' SHOWCASE at THE CELL THEATRE: MONDAY, MARCH 3, 7pm

“If you were to put Ed Sullivan, Oscar Wilde and TEDTalks into a blender you’d get Artist Without Walls. The Showcase is a friendly environment for artists to share their work and start unique collaborations in a remarkably intimate setting.  One of the most receptive and fun shows I’ve been a part of…” Ed Romanoff

 

 

Erin Layton
Erin Layton

An outstanding lineup of talent has been assembled for Monday night’s “Artists Without Walls Showcase at the Cell Theatre” in New York City. Erin Layton will be performing a scene from her one woman play, Magdalen, a play about finding one’s voice in the void. The void being the place where identity and beauty and language are stripped away. This void is what the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland were to the young girls and women who labored in the commercial workhouses operated by religious orders of nuns in Ireland from the 19th – 20th century. Erin’s Magdalen won the Best Documentary Script at the Fourth Annual United Sol0 Festival Awards Ceremony.

 

 

Ann Klein
Ann Klein

Guitarist Ann Klein has toured in Europe consistently for 10 years, played house concerts in the US and has written music for a number of documentaries. As a guitarist, Ann was a featured soloist with Ani DiFranco on several shows; she has had the honor of playing, writing and recording with Kate Pierson of the B-52s, Joan Osborne, Dana Fuchs, Darden Smith, PM Dawn, Randall Woolf & Maurice Sendak (for a ballet of “Where the Wild Things Are”), Keri Noble,  Of Ann, Billboard magazine said, “.…a dynamo guitarist and writer.”

 

 

Joseph Goodrich
Joseph Goodrich

Joseph Goodrich is an award-winning playwright and the editor of Blood Relations: The Selected Letters of Ellery Queen, 1947-1950.  His nonfiction appears frequently in Mystery Scene Magazine. On Monday night the masterful actor Jack O’Connell is going to read the opening pages of Joe’s short story “Ghost of Brooklyn Past”.

 

 

Jerry O'Sullivan
Jerry O’Sullivan

Jerry O’Sullivan has been widely hailed as America’s premier uilleann piper. He is also widely recorded on the tin whistle, the low whistle, the Highland Pipes and the Scottish smallpipes. Jerry will be performing with poet Connie Roberts, a County Offaly native.

 

 

Connie Roberts
Connie Roberts

Connie’s book-length manuscript, Not the Delft School, a collection of poetry inspired by her experiences growing up in an orphanage in the Irish Midlands, was awarded the prestigious Patrick Kavanagh Award.  Last May, Connie received the 2013 Poetry Collection Award at the Listowel Writers’ Week Festival.  She teaches creative writing at Hofstra University, New York.  Also performing with Connie will be AWoW cofounder and singer Niamh Hyland who will be putting one of Connie’s poems to music.

 

 

by John Mignault
by John Mignault

John Mignault drew a lot as a kid, but a horrible experience with oil painting at the age of 13 and the lack of employment for artists led to the pursuit of a degree in comparative literature. “Not a field loaded with jobs,” John said. In 2006 intimations of something–very likely his own mortality–spurred him to get with it and he began drawing again. A rematch with oil painting commenced in 2012. As John said, “Oil painting is winning on points, and I continue Rocky-like anyway.” John will be sharing his work with us on Monday night.

 

 

Marion Stein
Marion Stein

Marion Stein is a New York based writer and blogger with an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence and an MSW from Hunter. Of her novel Loisaida, one reviewer wrote – “if this doesn’t become a cult classic something is wrong somewhere.” You can catch her awesome television recaps over at Happy Nice Time People and on Monday Marion will be sharing one of her stories.

 

Join us at The Cell, 338 W 23rd St., Monday at 7pm.