NIAMH HYLAND at ROCKWOOD MUSIC HALL TONIGHT with SINGER/SONGWRITER ED ROMANOFF

 

As the audience was making its way to their seats at a recent AWoW Showcase, AWoW cofounder Niamh Hyland got everyone’s attention when she stepped on stage and, unannounced, belted out a few lines from “You Have No Idea Who I Am,” which opens Brendan Connellan’s comedy Pompa Pompa. Niamh co-starred in a New York City production of Connellan’s play earlier this year. 

 

Niamh will be appearing with singer/songwriter Ed Romanoff tonight, Tuesday, August 20, at Rockwood Music Hall, 196 Allen Street, NYC, 7pm. Poet Liv Mammone will be joining Niamh and Ed as well. 

 

 

Niamh Hyland
Niamh Hyland

ELECTRIFYING PERFORMANCES AT ARTISTS WITHOUT WALLS SHOWCASE, 7/31/13

 

Nadia Parvez Manzoor
Nadia Parvez Manzoor

“I can’t stop rewinding last night in my mind! What an incredible cast of talent, surrounded by an audience in awe. A truly magical evening. Thanking you over and over.” Barbara O’Connell

 

With a brilliant sense of comedic timing and heart, Nadia Manzoor kicked off the evening with a hilarious segment from her one woman show, Dirty Little Paki. Nadia’s segment featured both the aspirations of a five year old and the cultural limitations faced as a woman.  Her story of a Pakistani girl facing the dichotomy of a strict Muslim upbringing in free-spirited London is both universal and intensely personal.  I first saw Nadia performing in Brendan Connellan’s Pompa Pompa earlier in the year and just as her humor, intelligence and charm shone through then, it did so again on Wednesday night.

 

Eimear O'Connor
Eimear O’Connor

Dr. Eimear O’Connor followed Nadia and held the audience rapt with a slide presentation that featured the art of Irish born Sean Keating. The art teacher you always wanted, Eimear presented a picture of Keating, his projects, his expansive career and his overtly political paintings with an ease and wit that brought Keating’s work to life. Sean Keating: Art, Politics and Building the Irish Nation is a book that is richly illustrated with over 200 color paintings, sketches, and photographs, and the definitive work on this hugely respected, yet controversial Irish artist. 

 


Maggie O'Farrell
Maggie O’Farrell

Best selling author and award winning novelist Maggie O’Farrell, whose most recent award was the Costa Novel Award in 2010 for The Hand That First Held Mine, gracefully read from her latest novel Instructions for a Heat Wave, the story of a family that is falling apart and coming together and the truths about who they really are. Earlier, Maggie said, “I’ve always been interested in how extreme weather affects behavior.” Maggie combined that interest with an interest in dyslexia and her own life long stammer to develop her novel’s main character, Aoife. 

 

 

Deni Bonet and Charles R. Hale
Deni Bonet and Charles R. Hale

Incorporating humor and edginess, violinist Deni Bonet dazzled the audience with her breathtaking virtuosity. Beginning with “Last Girl on Earth” from the CD with the same title, Deni moved into a sizzling violin solo called the “Goddamn Violin Solo,” so called, as Deni laughingly said, “For lack of a better name.” Deni concluded with a foot stomping, rocking “Alone.” Deni will be playing every Tuesday in August at the Garcia’s Club at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY.  The show is called “A Tribute to Old and in the Way”. 

 

 

 

Pamela Herron
Pamela Herron

Pamela Herron began the second half of the evening with a dance, a very moving, untitled, Butoh solo that she performed with a grace and intensity that echoed throughout the space. She dedicated the piece to the healing of an artist she has been collaborating with since 2009, Jogyo (aka/ Dru Barnes) who recently suffered a brutal attack that took his left eye. Enthralling, heart wrenching, and spectacular.

 

 

Liv Mammone
Liv Mammone

Poet Liv Mammone is a vivacious young voice that will be heard on the New York performance poetry circuit for years to come. Using her background as a novelist, she uses various characters, including Venus de Milo, a fictional gangster, and a certain part of her own anatomy, to provide insight into what she calls “all the million ways one must be moved; the changes we make on our migrations through the world.” Her poems were titled “Venus de Milo answers a Tumblr Feminist,” “Elegy for James Darmody,” and one of the funniest poems imaginable, the laugh out loud “Vagina Resigning.”

  

Brendan Connellan
Brendan Connellan

Playwright Brendan Connellan ended the evening dipping into crazed, frenetic prose, racing through some fresh and fun thoughts on his visit to Japan. Brendan touched on scraping away calf muscles, Perry blasting his cannons at Japan’s gates, foreigners being welcome but only if they leave quickly and Joseph Stalin turning out to be a friend with benefits. 

 

The next Artists Without Walls Showcase at The Cell will be on August 27, 7pm. For more info on becoming a member of Artists Without Walls write to info@artistswithoutwalls.com 

CAT DWYER'S PHOTOS: AWoW SHOWCASE at THE CELL, 7/31/13

Cat Dwyer’s photos from Wednesday night’s “AWoW Showcase at The Cell.” Names appear above each photo.

Nadia Parvez Manzoor

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Eimear O’Connor

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Maggie O’Farrell

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Deni Bonet

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Pamela Herron

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Liv Mammone and Connie Roberts

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Brendan Connellan

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"ON THE TOWN" WITH AWoW MEMBERS AND FRIENDS

 

Pompa posterApril 9, 7PM, opening night of Brendan Connellan’s Pompa Pompa! starring Niamh Hyland and Moley O Suilleabhain. Theatre Row – The Studio, 410 W. 42nd St. ,New York City.   Tickets for Pompa Pompa, $21.25.  AWoW discount available by inserting “TRAWOW” in the promotional code box.

 

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April 11, Thursday, An Evening in Celebration of William Kennedy at the Irish Arts Center, hosted by Peter Quinn with special guests Mary Tierney, Dan Barry, and Tara O’Grady.

Irish Arts Center

 

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Maria Deasy
Maria Deasy

April 12, 8PM, opening night of  What’s In a Name starring Maria Deasy.  The Chain Theatre, 21-28th Road, 45th Road. Tickets$18.  Tickets for What’s In a Name AWoW discount available by inserting “susan” in the promotional code box. 

 

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Antoinette Montague
Antoinette Montague

April 13, 2013, 8PM, 137-35, Northern Blvd, Flushing, Queens, NYC. Jazz Appreciation Month–A Tribute to Ladies Who Swing with Antoinette Montague. Tickets $10-$15. Click here for ticket info: Antoinette Montague at Flushing Town Hall

ARTISTS WITHOUT WALLS' "SPOTLIGHT ON" BRENDAN CONNELLAN

Who is Brendan Connellan?

 

IMG_0946In the last four years Brendan has started to think of himself as a writer. Though he used to tell stories all over downtown, it only dawned on him later that he could and should write some plays. “I’d die for dialogue. I love it,” he said.  The first time actors read aloud my lines, I was almost hiding behind the couch but I got over that pretty quickly. Then it became exciting. I’d hear things I’d want to fix right away and would be itching to write the follow up. I want to do this till I die.”

  

What are you working on at the moment? 

 

I’m remounting a play called Pompa Pompa! It’s funny but it’s also very sad. It’s about survival and what each of us do to hang on. That tends not to be pretty. Perhaps it’s an Irish thing to blend the funny with the sad. You have to lull the audience into thinking one thing then slit their throat with another. That makes it sound like a hit-and-run. Part blood, part laughter.

 

Do you have upcoming events you would like people to attend? 

 

Pompa posterPompa Pompa!, April 9-13th, 2013 at Theatre Row on 42nd St, between 9th and 10th.

Seven performances – Tues at 7, Wed-Sat at 8 and matinees on Wed, Sat at 2.

I am also directing and producing the show.

As an extra bonus, AWOW’s Niamh Hyland and Moley O’Suilleabhain are among the cast and will knock people’s socks off. They’re a treat and a half.

 

What are the top five things on your bucket list that you want to do?

 

1) I’d like to get lost in a jungle in Asia, just to see how I’d cope. But I probably wouldn’t so that would take care of the bucket there and then.

2) I’d like to read a thousand more books but I did a quick calculation and figured out that, at best, I might get to devour just 700. That made me quite sad.

3) I’d like to feel more of a connection with the ocean and the moon and not be so caught up in the concrete corridors that hem us in if we let them.

4) So many ships crashed in the high waves around Cape Horn. I’d like to feel those winds. I have always loved wind, the wilder, the better.

5) I’d like to actually travel around Ireland properly. It’s pathetic that I never really get to go much further than the outskirts of Dublin whenever I am there.

 

IMG_9118What is your favorite place in the world to visit and why?

 

Paris. Death feels so near. Anywhere that jolts you out of torpor is a wonder. Life feels so very short there.

 

Who is your greatest inspiration and why?

 

My family. We’re all completely different but we’d do anything for each other.

 

What picture do you love to stare at and why?

 

Any El Greco. The way that the colours wobble and throb feel so futuristic. He couldn’t get anybody to pay any heed to him in Rome or Madrid so hid himself away in Toledo, threw out the rule book, ripped out the pages and painted the way he wanted to. Standing ovation every time.

 

If you could dream about trying out something you haven’t tried out in the arts yet, what would?

 

I’d like to set a poem to music and force myself to sing it without any backing music, without any place to hide. Flowers sometimes grow in the mud.

 

brendan at Salon-Oct 12What was the best gift that someone gave you that inspired or facilitated an interest in your art.

 

A lifetime ago, an English teacher gave us back our essays, calling out the grades one by one. I didn’t hear my name being called and was a little concerned. Then, he started raving about the last one. My eyes were bulging when I realized it was mine. I was 15. I was good at Maths. It had never dawned on me that I might actually be good at writing. It wasn’t really talked about at home. Maths got you jobs. Reading was for the holidays. Now, writing is my biggest pleasure in life.

 

 

Brendan Connellan on Twitter

Brendan Connellan Facebook Page

 

www.artistswithoutwalls.com

 

 

 

 

ARTISTS WITHOUT WALLS' FRIENDS AND MEMBERS' UPCOMING EVENTS

 

 

March 22, 8PM, The Cell Theatre, 338 W. 23rd St., NYC. Jazz at The Cell hosted by Tara O’Grady. FREE for first come first serve, but to reserve $10 tickets to this event, which will no doubt sell out, follow link: Jazz at The Cell

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Brendan Connellan
Brendan Connellan

March 23, 7PM and March 24, 1Pm, Beal Bocht Cafe , 238th St., Bronx NY. “Puttin On Your Shorts” including plays by Seamus Scanlon and Brendan Conellan. 

 

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Jack O'Connell
Jack O’Connell

 

 

 

March 24, 6PM at The Cell Theatre, 338 W23rd St., NYC. Pat Fenton’s Stoopdreamer starring Jack O’Connell.  Free event

 

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Seamus Scanlon
Seamus Scanlon

March 26, 7PM at The Cell Theatre, 338 W23rd St., NYC. Artists Without Walls’ Showcase. Free event

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April 13, 2013, 8PM, 137-35, Northern Blvd, Flushing, Queens, NYC.

Antoinette Montague
Antoinette Montague

Jazz Appreciation Month–A Tribute to Ladies Who Swing with Antoinette Montague. Tickets $10-$15. Click here for ticket info: Antoinette Montague at Flushing Town Hall