The 'Houston' Thread.- Page 4

[maybethistime]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 11:40pm

Me too!! I think Papasitos is actually better, but Ninfa's makes for better take out. Do you ever go to Paulies? Its right around Lanier and they make some of the best cookies ever...

I've been listening to my CoC cd all day and now I'm pretty addicted... looks like it'll be my cd-that-I-listen-to-all-the-time-until-I'm-sick-of-it for a while!!

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 11:42pm

Paulies roxs my socks. man those cookies (as u said) are SO good! We hardly go though, i dunno why... its sad. Caroline was so good, Anika and Tonya and the whole cast (except the little boy who sounded like a girl and whined) was SO great. its a f*cking shame it closed.

[maybethistime]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 11:47pm

I agree about Caroline. At least its still gracing other cities. . Personally, I though ANIKA was the most amazing. I was capivated by her fabulous performance from the moment she walked out onto the stage. I was SOOO glad she won the Tony. Tonya was amazing also. Her voice... ***speechless**. The whole show is amazing. I get chills everytime I listen to Lot's Wife. WOW!

I rarely go to Paulies becuase it's so expensive, but my mom usually gets some of those amazing cookies when she has parties. Their club sandiches are pretty good, too. I always get one when I go their for lunch.

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 11:48pm

yes. Caroline was such a BRILLIANT show. i think we don't go to paulies cuze... well, i dunno. My mom gets her cookies and crap from Desert Gallery. when i had my barmitzvah they put a picture of me on the cookies. i dont have the heart to eat it.

[maybethistime]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 11:54pm

Dessert Gallery makes one really good brownie/choco chip/coconut square thing thats really good that mom always gets. I had the same problem with a birthday cake with my picture on it! I had that piece in the fridge for as long as it would last. . I go to go finish an english essay, so hopefully this thread ill be alive tomorrow. If not, I'll bump

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 11:58pm

haha. i should get too bed. night also.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 10:18am

Caroline Q and maybethistime - If you go to All Records, please tell Fred that Matt says hello. I've known him for almost 20 years. When I was a teenager, during Christmas, he would let me work there part-time and pay me with free CDs. He is such a great guy and he'll order just about anything you are looking for if he doesn't have it.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 10:31am

shermanslave - I just received an email from "Anthony". Remember him? He's now in LA. I might try to go out there for a visit this year.

[TxTwoStep]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 11:44am

i'm looking forward to JOHN & JEN/LAST FIVE YEARS at Masquerade---i've never seen "j&j" staged, but i saw LAST 5 at Theater Lab last year. You guys should really check out Theater Lab---one of the Stages mainstays, Joanne Bonasso, was Cathy for their LAST 5 and she is amazing. They are doing I SING right now, which is another show i've only heard about. There was a small discussion on it on the main board here a while back. Their show BOYGROOVE last season was quite good, even if the idea sounds hokey. The same director is doing I SING and i think one of the leads is the same.

Anika was one of the best things about CAROLINE. Truly an amazing actress and singer. If i'm not mistaken, the other younger black woman in it is from Houston---she was profiled in a NY Times piece a while back about the "up and coming" musical theatre talent and said she wanted to come back home. Is her name Shondra something?

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 12:12pm

I love Joanne Bonasso! She is amazingly talented. I knew a lot of people from Masquerade from when it first opened and a couple of years after they moved into their current space. I was asked to assist in directing Annie, but that was when I was moving to Chicago, so I couldn't do it. Last I heard, they were supposed to get a space in Bayou Place downtown. Did that ever happen?

By the way, I was in Hysteric Studs at TheatreLaB with Anne Quackenbush and Chad Brannon (Emmy winner for Zander on General Hospital). Good times...

I worked at so many theatres in Houston including Bienvenue, Main Street, New Heights, Country Playhouse, Theatre Suburbia, North Bend Community Theatre (teaching) and was a founding member of The Little Room Downstairs. It's depressing when you move to a new city and they ignore your resume.

[TxTwoStep]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 12:37pm

i've seen Quackenbush some at the Alley and Stages---i think she took time off to have a baby. She's amazing. Does she sing?

Last i heard Masquerade was looking at a church in the Heights somewhere as the "next step." They also now are moving shows to other venues in town as "specials"...like the Zilkha at the Hobby Center (I REMEMBER MAMA and CHESS), and places like the Jewish Community Center for their high-school productions (NUTCRACKER and MUSIC MAN JR). i really admire their mission, and also the company members they nurture. There's a lot of talent in that group. They make some wonderful season choices too.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 12:51pm

Unfortunately, Miss Quackenbush is not a singer, but is quite a talented actress as well as a very sweet and fun person to work with. I just love Luther at Masquerade. We did a couple of shows together including A New Brain and a new family musical at the Children's Theatre Festical by Jerry Bock (with Joanne Bonasso as well). Is he still starring in the Masquerade shows? I also love Ilich and Allison. This is such a memory rush for me.

[TxTwoStep]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 6:15pm

i've always wanted to see inside there too. Of the "dearly departed" theatres in town, i never got to know Little Room or Theatre in the Heights (or some name like that). i moved here too late. i just see the names a lot in bios of local actors i like.

Luther is still singing the roof off at Masquerade. Rumor has it (I REMEMBER MAMA Playbill) that they are soon going to do a show he composed. He wrote a couple of songs they added to the non-ALW WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND a few seasons ago which were great...so that's exciting. Allison and Ilich are still there, along with two wonderful singing actresses...Stephanie Bradow and Rebekah Dahl. In the "associate" company are standouts like Kaytha Coker, Katherine Randolf, and Braden Hunt. CHESS and REMEMBER MAMA also had some new talent from UH School of Music (primarily), who were singing great. And Russell Freeman (i think that's his name), a good character actor for them, has been singing roles lately, very well too. It's a wealth of talent over there. i need to see those new musicals at UH each summer---i saw one Bock one called BRANDON FINDS A STAR, and heard a demo of another one about comic books or superheroes or some such.

Bonasso is now in POLISH JOKE at Stages, and i don't think she's even singing in it. Last time i saw FORBIDDEN BROADWAY, a woman in it reminded me so much of her. She's stunningly talented.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 7:29pm

I have rather bittersweet memories of The Little Room Downstairs. I was there from the beginning when it was just seven of us that wrote a musical review and wanted a place to perform. It started as a miniscule stage inside a one-car garage behind a friend's house with 13 seats. We grew a following and even sold season tickets. Soon, we had the attention of the press and gained non-profit status as Houston's first theatre for the GLBT community. Then, we moved to a small, but slightly larger building (that you see now) and expanded to a second stage in the building next door. Edward Albee was a regular visitor and we won multiple awards including one for Best Actress who beat out the company members of Stages, Alley, and TUTS. Unfortunately, the artistic director (and owner) did not have much business sense and ran things without much thought or reason and lived his life with reckless abandon. The financial state of the theatre plummuted and he alienated pretty much every person who ever worked with him including myself. Shortly after I left the theatre (and subsequently left Houston), he had a serious falling out with the new artistic director and shortly thereafter the Fire Marshall paid a surprise visit. Coincidence? The theatre was shut down for multiple violations and there was no money to improve it. The owner left town and never returned and nearly four years later, the marquees for the last productions at the theatre are still outside from what I've heard.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 7:31pm

Here's a review from the southwest premiere of Misery I directed at The Little Room Downstairs:

By Chuck Perroncel

A Stephen King fan? Not!!! Isn’t the world scary enough without reading ourselves to sleep with tales of terror and inhumanity? BUT Misery is a cat of another color! And The Little Room Downstairs (LRDS) production directed by Matt Joseph and starring Marcy Bannor and Jim Lawrence is an singular exception!!! This is what theater is all about!
Aside from music from the soundtrack of “Needful Things” – another King movie– this production could take place in your garage … and still be compelling. Once the stage is briefly lighted in a flash of red … blood, of course. Otherwise subtle “focus lighting” changes are IT for special effects. If it’s gonna work, it’s up to the actors and the director.
And it works!

Jim Lawrence (Paul Sheldon), an auto accident victim “rescued” by his “Number One fan,” is now imprisoned by her. He cannot walk. She has made sure nobody knows she has him at her isolated house. The first hour of the play he is in bed. He has his voice, his face and his hands to create for us the growing desperation of a captive man in physical agony. We watch him gradually becoming addicted to the pain medication his rescuer doles out with controlling love and malice. As he comes to comprehend just how crazy she is, he is, by turns, ingratiating, pathetic, infuriated, coy, determined, and more … quite a range of emotion to play lying down covered by a comforter. Lawrence is up to the demands and enlivens them with a rich believable humanity. The second half of the play he is afforded the actors luxury of a wheelchair. At least he is slightly mobile. But addicted, as he is now, he has to convince us that he can be extremely weak, yet determined. There is not a minute that he lets us go! We are his willing victims through the entire ordeal.

Thank God he is playing against one of the strongest actors in town. Marcy Bannor (Annie Wilkes) lets us watch as she slowly reveals the totally insane person only a “Number One Fan.” can be. She is by turns obsequious, caring, childlike, scolding, mad, vicious, and deadly! But what is most compelling is the way this talented player titrates the craziness in a rising crescendo. She is masterful.

All actors have their own pallet of emotions. Bette Davis did not play Little Red Riding Hood. Bannor is a specialist in roller coaster craziness … recall her comedic lunacy in Season’s Greetings. In the scene where she sits listening to Paul read the new book she has forced him to write, she licks honey, straight from the bottle … off the blade of a knife. The picture of innocence and appreciation, she still twists our guts with the knowledge of the smoldering danger just below the surface. She is BAD! (that is: really … really good!)

Matt Joseph shows himself to be a blue-ribbon director. His task in a show like this is to watch and listen with our eyes, in order to keep the actors’ crescendo smooth and gradual. It mustn’t get ahead of our emotional readiness, nor may it slip behind our expectations for the next build. He is like a musical conductor keeping the tone, tempo and blend of instruments smoothly unobtrusive, so that the music of the play grips us with its own force. He does it!

[maybethistime]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 9:18pm

Nope - but I've gotten some stuff from there as gifts around the holidays. They always disappear pretty fast in my house. Do you ever go to The Red Onion or Nit Noi - those are some of the places my family regulars. The starberry margaritas (virgin ) are unbelievable. And everything at Nit Noi is really good. You can make a mean out of the spring rolls.

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 9:19pm

Nit noi, that's on Kirby right? of course we go there! you REALLY NEED TO HAUL ASS to Chocolate Bar and Candylicious. when i had surgery, my friend got me a tube of choclate covered popcorn. it was SO good... i get hungry thinking about that place. we usually go to Goode Co. Barbeque. they make the best.

[maybethistime]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 9:27pm

I always drive past it, but I've never been there. The last time we went out for dinner, we went Palazzos. We ate like 2 baskets of the garlic bread. Its quite tasty!

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 9:33pm

i went there once, my brother didnt like it so we havent gone back much. the pizza is really good.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 9:56pm

Barnaby's was always one of my favorite hangouts. The original one, not the one on Shepard. And I LOVE Dietrich's Coffee on Westheimer.

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 9:58pm

i go there all the time after school!!! and Brazil

Updated On: 1/31/05 at 09:58 PM

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 10:08pm

seeing as nobody is here, im loging off, if you need. PM. lata

[maybethistime]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 10:44pm

MMMMMM. Barnaby's is so amazingly good. Every single thing is foodgasm worthy. And I love how there are always dogs there. Such a fun place!

[M J R]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 11:42pm

I haven't posted on this board in WEEKS, but this thread definitely sparked my interest.

I am a Houston boy, currently living in New York. I went to the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University for Graduate School and I am a former company member of Masquerade. (I did four shows with them: Floyd in "Floyd Collins", Anthony in "Sweeney Todd", Britt Craig in "Parade" and Man 2 in "Songs for a New World.")

Phillip Duggins, the artistic director has a great vision for his theatre and an incredible dedication to Houston actors. I can highly recommend any production they mount. I would most definitely like to work there again.

Masquerade recently hosted composer William Finn for a workshop and opening for their mounting of "A New Brain". Finn had great things to say about the production and the theatre company.

Definitely go check out the two shows they have coming up - I can guarantee you will enjoy yourself.

I can also say great things about the entire theatre scene in Houston, including Theatre Under the Stars (with whom I've also done four shows) Main Street, Stages and The Alley. More and more I miss the community of actors there in Houston!

[TxTwoStep]

Posted: 2/1/05 at 4:54am

the staff at Candylicious and the Chocolate Bar are the best. Really great places.

How sorry am i that i missed FLOYD COLLINS at Masquerade. i did catch SONGS, but missed A NEW BRAIN. As M J R mentions, the actors i know from the Houston scene are very talented, and actually surprisingly supportive of each other.

The other restaurant i'd recommend is Benji's in Rice Village. A slightly more upscale Barnaby's, with a good eclectic menu, wonderful staff, and nice atmosphere. i also like Mi Luna next to Urban Outfitters in the Village---amazing desserts there, and good tapas. This weekend i just discovered 19th Street antique/thrift shops in the Heights...i knew about the strip on Westheimer and Texas Junk on Taft, but these were amazing. Near Texas Junk is also a wonderful hole in the wall burger place called Lankford's (sp?)...fun place, great food, and interesting staff. You never get a bill, just go up to the aging owner at the register and give your table number, where he rings up your tally.