Jefferson Market Courthouse in New York

A Love Affair with a Landmark in Manhattan: An Arresting Drama in Greenwich Village. [Opinions expressed are the views of OLD JEFF unless attributed to other - - potentially less-reliable - - sources, i.e., newcomers who have not been around since 1832 on Sixth Avenue.]

Saturday, March 29, 2008

A Lock on Mae West

MAE WEST gets her day in court — — when she returns to the Times Square area on Saturday 29 March 2008.
• •
COURTING MAE WEST will be featured at The Producer's Club [358 West 44th Street, NYC] on March 29th under the direction of Louis Lopardi, who has selected a number of actors to do a table reading.
• •
COURTING MAE WEST opens at 7:00 PM at the Algonquin Theatre (NYC) on 19 July 2008.

• • SYNOPSIS [100 words] • •

• • Based on true events during the Prohibition Era, this 95-minute play follows a vaudeville veteran whose frustrations with the rules of male-dominated Broadway have led her to write her own material and cast her own shows. Is the Gay White Way ready for love stories that feature New York City drag queens instead of card-carrying members of the union? Is the legitimate theatre ripe for racially integrated melodramas set in Harlem? Is the Rialto raring to reward a working-class heroine determined to sin and win?
• • Come up and see Mae West as she challenges bigotry, fights City Hall, and climbs the ladder of success wrong by wrong.


• • How about a date?
• • Plan ahead. Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in New York City when the Annual Fresh Fruit Festival presents "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship and Secrets" (based on true events 1926 — 1932 when Mae West was arrested and jailed) under the direction of Louis Lopardi at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, NYC 10010] July 19th — 22nd, 2008.
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" opens at 7 o'clock on Saturday night July 19, 2008 at the Algonquin Theatre [East 24th Street and Park Avenue South].
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" — — showtimes
• • July 19th, 2008 — — 7:00 PM
• • July 20th, 2008 — — 1:00 PM matinee
• • July 21st, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 22nd, 2008 — — 9:00 PM
• • Tickets to COURTING MAE WEST will be about $20 - $25 each.
• • The theatre has 99 seats.
• •
SPECIAL: $100 - $150 donation — — donor gets name in the Program — — and 1 free ticket to the play.
• • $151 - $500 donation — — donor gets name in Program and TWO free tickets to the play and invited to all parties.
• • Fresh Fruit Festival: a non-profit group organizes this ambitious annual festival [now in its 7th year]. The colorful two-week arts festival is a money-losing venture sustained by funds from The New York City Council, a culture grant from New York State, a stipend from Senator Tom Duane, and donations from good people.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Add to Google

• • Photo:
Jefferson Market Police Court • • 2 February 1927 • •


Jefferson Market.

Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

William Zorach's Jeff Encounter

The late great sculptor and painter William Zorach [28 February 1887 — 15 November 1966] often sketched Jefferson Market since, for years, he lived on West Tenth Street and Greenwich (next to the Cushman bakery and directly opposite the formidable jail doors). Zorach reveals an interesting Prohibition Era secret in his colorful memoir Art Is My Life.
• • William Zorach writes: There was Frank Harris [14 February 1856 — 27 August 1931] living on Washington Square, whom I enjoyed visiting. I always found him in bed dictating to his secretary, a handsome redhead. He gave me a set of his Life of Oscar Wilde. I never got a chance to read it, it was lifted from our bookcase so quickly. I remember Frank Harris going into Jefferson Market Court and exposing detectives who enticed young girls, often innocent ones, and then arrested them for prostitution.
• • We faced the Jefferson Market Jail door where the wagons brought in the night's haul, and below us would be the bail-bond lawyers waiting to bail them out.
• • We used to see a manhole cover just outside the jail lift up. A man would stick his head out and whistle and a boy would rush a bucket of beer over from the corner saloon. This went on for years — — and then one day a prisoner escaped through the manhole and that stopped the flow of beer.
• • William Zorach's reminiscence inspired an interlude in "Courting Mae West" [Act I, Scene 4] when Mae West is being held in Night Court and her newsman-boyfriend wants to gain access and get a scoop. Suddenly, he observes a manhole cover just outside the jail lift up. . . .
• • Bringing "Courting Mae West" to an audience requires funding. To support A Company Of Players, a non-profit theatre group established in 1979 to present meaningful theatre, please click on this link — — http://www.companyofplayers.com/support.htm
• • A Company Of Players is recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)3 type organization, and donations to the group are considered a charitable, tax-deductible contribution.
• • Contribute through "Pay Pal" or you can mail a check to: A Company Of Players, 545 Eighth Avenue, #401, New York NY 10018-4307.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" — — based on true events when Mae West was tried at the Jefferson Market Police Court — — will be onstage at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010] on July 19th 22nd, 2008.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Add to Google

• • Photo:
Jefferson Market and elevated train • • early 1930s • •


Jefferson Market.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Mae West's Jail Tale

The past is another country — — and MAE WEST was most comfortable there.
• • However, in her Broadway blockbuster "Diamond Lil" [1928] Mae's aim was not to resurrect the naughty nineties — — but to present that bygone decade's sins in shifty soft focus. The world of Diamond Lil, restrained by Victorian morality despite a certain cheeky daring, was a backwards glance to a time of innocence, picturesque entertainment, well-behaved wildness, corset-clad temptresses, The Police Gazette's seductions, and 5-cent beer.
• • Drama critic Stark Young [1881—1963] analyzed Mae's clever maneuvers in his article for The New Republic:
• • "Diamond Lil" is as daring in the end [as 1926's "Sex"], the same sexy morsels, embraces, interventions of the law with rank suspenses, frank speeches, underworld, and so on. But it is more covered, continuous, and studied than the other production, and the crowd of characters, the costuming and vaudevillistic intervals, pull the whole of this later play into a more familiar style, less crudely, and sheerly singular than "Sex" appeared to be [excerpt from The New Republic — 27 June 1928].
• • Louis Lopardi, who will direct "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship and Secrets" in July at the Algonquin Theatre, also feels enriched by the past. His own production — — The Purgatory Project, Part 2 — — reimagined the lives led by four famous historical figures: Sigmund Freud, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Lee Harvey Oswald.
• • A history buff as well as a thespian, Lopardi especially enjoys plays with a classical echo, texts rooted to a mythic past. For instance, he found "Metamorphoses," a play based on the Greek poem Metamorphoses by Ovid, fascinating and he relished the modernized adaptation written by Mary Zimmerman a few years ago. Ovid works onstage because those depictions of yearning and confused desires are timeless, feels Lopardi.
• • Since he has frequently decanted Ovid's ancient songs, he noticed right away the mythic skin underneath "Courting Mae West" — — the Brooklyn bombshell's story reimagined as the metamorphosis of King Midas. How you get the golden touch is one of the subtle sub-plots here. As Mae's career goals recalibrate her box office appeal, she will earn her hard cold slice of success — — but at a cost.
• • "I like a multi-layered comedy," admits Lopardi. "The best shows make you laugh for an hour and a half — — and then, untethered from your Playbill, you mull it over at home."
• • Bringing "Courting Mae West" to an audience requires funding. To support A Company Of Players, a non-profit theatre group established in 1979 to present meaningful theatre, please click on this link — — http://www.companyofplayers.com/support.htm
• • A Company Of Players is recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)3 type organization, and donations to the group are considered a charitable, tax-deductible contribution.
• • Contribute through "Pay Pal" or you can mail a check to: A Company Of Players, 545 Eighth Avenue, #401, New York NY 10018-4307.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" — — based on true events when Mae West was tried at the Jefferson Market Police Court — — will be onstage at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010] soon after the Independence Day holidays.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Add to Google

• • Photo:
Mae West • • February 1927 • •


Jefferson Market.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Mae West, Inmate

"COURTING MAE WEST" — — which features the arrest and trial of Mae West at the Jefferson Market Court House — — will have a table reading in the month of March [2008], under the direction of Louis Lopardi, at The Producers Club.
• • A Company of Players will read the script aloud in preparation for a short Workshop Production in Manhattan.
• • Seeking the next Mae West!
• • Meanwhile, the search continues for the right actress to portray Mae West [1893—1980] — — in this serious-minded comedy that offers a star-making role. During the Prohibition Era, the Brooklyn bombshell was in her thirties. The ideal audition candidate is 2530 with serious stage training and industrial strength charisma.
• • Rehearsals begin in May 2008 in Manhattan.
________________________
• • Resumes and photo to:
• • A Company of Players
• • Attention: Louis Lopardi, Artistic Director
• • 545 Eighth Avenue [Box # 401]
• • New York, NY 10018 - 4307
• • Send Email via the web site — — www.CompanyofPlayers.com
_________________________

• • The Producers Club is located at 358 West 44th Street [between 8th-9th Avenue], New York, NY 10036.
• • Meanwhile, a fundraising effort is in progress. Matching funds have been promised for every dollar raised.

• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" will be onstage at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010] soon after the Independence Day holidays.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
__ ___
• • Source:http://jeffersonmarketcourthouseny.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Add to Google

• • Photo:
Mae West • • February 1927 • •


Jefferson Market.

Labels: , , , , , ,