October 2, 2001 - Like the players in an indie film lover's dream, a thicket of movie and theater thesps turned up for The 24 Hour Plays after-party at Spa. Natasha Lyonne, Liev Schreiber and Lili Tay lor hit the hip downtown club's VIP room, coming straight from the Minetta Lane Theatre, where six short plays were written, staged and performed, all in the course of 24 hours (get it?), for one night only, to benefit families affected by the World Trade Center tragedy (ticket sales alone raised $30,000). Once safely offstage,
Philip Seymour Hoffman confessed to being a bundle of nerves, forgetting his first line. Luckily, the ubiquitous actor quickly ad-libbed his way back on track during his scene with Marisa Tomei and Adam Nelson. Also crowding into the celeb-filled space were Billy Crudup, Mary-Louise Parker, Fisher Stevens, Rosie Perez and chameleon Sam Rockwell (remember his loathsome character in The Green Mile?), who cut a mean rug on the makeshift dance floor with Pearl Harbor co-star Catherine Kellner.
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SEX AND LIES | SEDUCTIVE ACTS
By Guy Giarrizzo and Scott Manus Directed by Guy Giarrizzo Theater 3 | Review by Nicholas Moore Every time you glimpse up at an apartment window, imagine two people are inside, engaged in hot, unholy sex. Wait, you don't have to imagine, it's really happening . . And these two commit this act in the face of one very simple truth: sex and love in the city can be a dirty business. For those brave enough to hunt it down (like our bedroom lovers) and join the emotionally exhausting rat race, filled with shame and bitterness, Seductive Acts, smartly directed by Guy Giarrizzo, will gladly indulge any of your anxieties and/or paranoia concerning the matter. Martin (Adam Nelson) and Paige (Andrea Maulella) met in their therapist's waiting room and fell in love kind of. Well, they're both desperate and coming off bad break-ups (as opposed to good ones), and they do have great sex with each other ...sure, they fell in love. In actuality, that's just a word for it; both are a little self absorbed and distracted, so they're not quite sure what they've got yet. The desperately neurotic duo live in a sitcom-like world swarming with love-starved singles willing to swallow their bitter frustrations and hold out for true romance. If that's even one of the options. It's a city where your friends, thankfully, are more screwed up than you, and answering machines talk back, making sarcastic quips at your feeble, failed efforts to find somebody to love. The script, co-writ ten by Scott Manus and Giarrizzo, is light and enjoyable live television. Each scene is fueled by just one idea which is usually dragged a bit too far, But the play's clever moments are nailed by a terrific ensemble cast headed by the quirky, manic performances of Adam Nelson and Andrea Maulella. It deals with three Manhattan couples: Bill (Michael Bassett) and Danielle (Dana Bledsoe) are devoted to sex. Jonathan (David Folwell) and Blythe (Malindi Fickle) are devoted to love, while Martin and Paige haplessly drift somewhere between the two. And they're all a little mixed up, trying to sort out that sometimes disturbing prospect of an authentic romance. Each actor in the cast has a unique charm and comic timing of their own. They find the bittersweet chemistry within each relationship and rise above_ the light weight of the material, bringing life and blood to otherwise stereotypical characters. Seductive Acts dutifully tries not to overdo its down -to-earth intentions and fails on that count only when the relationships lapse into repetitive, diched melodrama. Still, Giarrizzo's direction keeps the pace relatively brisk. In the end, he delivers a slick, tightly packaged, slice of life and love in mean Manhattan. If you happen not to have cable television and were curious about HBO's new series, Sex in the City, check it out live and in the flesh at Theater 3. Next up was the rooftop of Flo's Diner, the starry-night site of merriment for young Director Morgan J. Freeman's Desert Blue, with his cast Sara Gilbert, stunning babe Kate Hudson (daughter of Goldie Hawn) and Brendon Sexton Ill, who also gives a pedigree performance in Pecker.
When Kate Hudson spilled wine on actor Adam Nelson zinged back, "Never mind. But could I get you a fork for those spaghetti straps?" Hudson, who told us "Rules are meant to be broken," was in major party mode, heading over to the Permanent Mid night bash at Syn, where she joined Very Bad Things director Peter Berg, along with Cameron Diaz, Jon Favreau and Jeremy Piven. Slinky Permanent Midnight star Elizabeth Hurley savvily kept her distance from the fun-lovin' partyhearty crew, though Janeane Garofalo didn't. Ben Stiller - who gets our best-male-shoes-of-the night award -briefly dropped by before heading out, first to Bistro 990 and then to the funky Matador. Sleeping City was originally produced as part of The 24 Hour Plays Benefit for The New York State September 11 Victims Relief Fund on February 24, 2022 at the Henry Fonda Theater in Los Angeles. It was directed by Gregory Mosher and featured the following cast
PROFESSOR BRINE ... Jared Harris BEN ... Seth Green LOIS / DORIS ... Gina Phillips OTTO ... Adam Nelson The 24 Hour Plays to aid The NY State WTC Relief Fund which debuted and closed in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24th, 2002 at the Henry Fonda Theater. Produced by Workhouse, the cast included Jane Adams (The Anniversary Party), Christina Applegate (Married with Children), Jennifer Coolidge(Best In Show), Portia Di Rossi (Ally McBeal), Seth Green (Austin Powers), Adam Goldberg (Beautiful Mind), Clark Gregg (State and Maine), Paul Guilfoyle (CSI), Devon Gummersall (Relativity), Jared Harris (Mad Men), Jeffrey Jones (Ferris Buellers Day Off), Mila Kunis (Black Swan), Ann Magnuson (Making Mr. Right), Gina Phillips (Jeepers Creepers), John Ritter (Three's Company), Sarah Silverman (Gary Shandling Show), Ione Skye (Say Anything), Adam Nelson (Dogs), Brooke Smith (Series 7) and Adam Tomei (The Truman Show) who appeared in six short plays, each written less than a day before the curtain raised. Under the direction of Morgan J Freeman, David Lee Strasberg, Neil Pepe, Tom Quaintance and Mike Uppendahl, six plays written by Beth Henley, Neil Labute, Bruce Vilanch, Hilly Hicks, Alexandra Cunningham and John Belluso. Program included introductory letter from then Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. There are many amazing examples of heroism in Gotham this September. On Monday night, Planet Impact held its “The 24 Hour Plays” benefit at the Minetta Lane Theater for Working Playground’s program to help children in the city cope with the tragic events of Sept. 11.
The heroic hook had 23 actors performing in six 10-minute plays written, rehearsed and teched in a mere 24 hours. Playwrights Warren Leight, Richard LaGravenese, Frank Pugliese, Tamara Jenkins, Nicole Burdette and Chris Shinn got their assignments at 10 p.m. on Sunday, actors started rehearsals at 8:30 a.m. on Monday and the show went on 12 hours later. Pre-performance, Leight weighed in: “I am grateful for the chance this benefit gives me to get back into a theater. To work. To be with my community. To try to create something rather than to cry or feel numb. I don’t know what, or even how to write, given the last 10 days. The skyline and our lives have changed. The work will reflect that.” In Leight’s “Nine Ten,” Mary-Louise Parker, Robert Sean Leonard, Natasha Lyonne, Andre Royo and Rosie Perez played a troupe of recalcitrant New Yorkers on jury duty, with Parker getting the evening’s most memorable line: “There are no sharks in the Hamptons — professional courtesy.” Fisher Stevens and Marisa Tomei contemplated buying a gun from Philip Seymour Hoffman and Adam Nelson in Pugliese’s “A Living Room.” Sam Rockwell and Lili Taylor took a convoluted car trip across America, with Iowa east of Indiana, in Shinn’s “Sandcastle,” while Billy Crudup showed he was a tremendous song-and-dance man in Burdette’s “A While.” And playing grade-school teachers, Kyra Sedgwick, Julianne Moore and Catherine Kellner showed they were definitely ready for Broadway in “Recess” by LaGravenese. Other thesps walking the hire wire were Benjamin Bratt, Liev Schreiber, Jared Harris, Brendan Sexton III, Scarlett Johansson, Drena DeNiro, Adam Nelson, Brice Gaillard and Brent Cox. The partylike atmosphere continued at Spa in the East Village. |
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