STAGE: Suddenly Last Summer & The Oath

"Suddenly Last Summer is one of Tennessee William's starkest and most poetic works featuring Catherine Holly, a young woman who seems to go insane after her cousin Sebastian dies on a trip to Europe under mysterious circumstances. The young man's mother tries to cloud the truth about her son's homosexuality and his death, as she wants him to be remembered as a great artist."

Now thru May 9 @ June Havoc Theatre at the Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex.

"In this Southern Gothic tale, a wandering preacher is embroiled in the passions and politics of a swampy Florida outpost ruled with a macabre sense of justice by two rival sisters. The Oath is a darkly comic look at balancing ambition and ideals in a time of crisis."

Now thru May 10 @ ArcLight Theater

STAGE: Sex Slaves in Mississippi??

There are 5,218 people living in Aberdeen, Mississippi. This is the story of 17 of them and the men that caused all of the trouble.

The whole thing started when Viola Haygood, the Assistant Librarian at the Charles B. Evans Memorial Library, fell in love for the umpteenth time. This one was new in town.

He was tall.

He was dark.

He was handsome.

And he smelled really good.

It was the dark coincidence of his arrival that caused the locals to comment.
Someone was kidnapping Aberdeen’s young women.

They were eating cheese nachos at Big Otis’s Saloon one night and gone the next. Not so much as a by-your-leave.
The town was getting nervous.

They were locking the stately front doors of their antebellum homes and the aluminum screen doors of their double-wide trailers. For the first time. Ever.

They would have called in the FBI but they didn’t have to, as that particular organization was proud to boast a national office on Aberdeen’s Main Street that runs along the scenic banks of the Tombigbee River.

This was a town in an uproar.

Dirty deeds being done dirt cheap.

Women being snapped up and carted off to who knows where.

FBI running up and down the streets like they knew which way was up.

Reporters descending like locusts.

Lawyers locking and loading.

And actor Frank Blocker plays them all.

Southern Gothic Novel: The Aberdeen Mississippi Sex-Slave Incident runs now through Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at Stage Left Studio Inc. in NYC.

ART: If You Can't Keep Your Baby, We Can

7:14 pm. Welcome to Arkansas. Alex bought one of those white-trash lighters that have a half-naked guy on it, wearing ripped up jeans.

1:10 am. Mississippi state line.

sugar never was so sweet. day four.

8:30 am. I do believe this was the earliest we ever got up in a motel room, but it had to be done. This was Mississippi, and there's nothing like waking up in the Delta for the first time in your life.

Alex collected the breakfast bagels and coffee, Beth was doing Yoga, and meanwhile I was busy being paralyzed with the anticipation of seeing the land where the blues began. I guess if you woke up one morning and knew you were going to fall in love for life that day, you'd feel just about the same. How could you even turn a door handle or squeeze toothpaste on your toothbrush without your heart thumping up in your mouth?

Outside, the humidity hung heavy in the air, and the breeze smelled sweet and warm. We drove over a small, country road with an overcast, yellow sky above us just aching to let loose. The road was awkwardly patched-up and flooded on either side by deep green. Whole trees were smothered by vines, creating strange landscapes that looked like science fiction.

"One of these nights, you're sure gonna love me right

And I'll come and I'm gonna be your baby

All the rest of my life. . ."

Coahoma.

It seemed to be election time. The roadsides were cluttered with little colorful signs, demanding you vote for a whole array of bizarre governmental positions." Re-elect Scotty Meredith - Coroner", "Elect Alfonzo Buford - Constable Northern District", "Elect Ed Seals - Coahoma County Superintendent of Education", "Re-elect Rybolt - Constable", "Please elect Carolyn Parham - Tax Assessor Collector".

"If you can't keep your baby, we can" - billboard.

(Excerpted from Devil Got Religion. Mercedes Helnwein. (c) 2004)

Influenced by the blues and a lifelong obsession to see places with names like Arkansas and Mississippi, critically acclaimed Los Angeles-based Austrian artist Mercedes Helnwein has birthed such works as America Motel Project and a body of drawings described as "photo-realistic," "lucid fairy-tales," "strikingly bizarre," "haunting," "southern Gothic," "evocative" and "unexpected."

Whistling Past the Graveyard featuring new works by Mercedes Helnwein and hosted by Jason Lee opens at the Merry Karnowski Gallery in Los Angeles on August 30.