It's showtime on the Showboat!

By Meredith Deliso

We were already big fans of “Showboat Shazzam,” a long-running circus series at the Waterfront Museum and Barge in Red Hook. And now that it’s cheaper, we love it even more!

When the aerialists, jugglers and contortionists return to the Red Hook waterfront on June 5, you can get front-row action for only $10 — down $6 for adults and a couple buck for the kids compared to last year’s rates.

With those savings, you might as well take advantage and go more than once.

“Every weekend there’s wholly different artists,” said Artistic Director Karen Gersch. “It’s a whole new show.”

The diverse acts kicking things off include juggler Adam Kapilow; aerialists Megan and Marui; contortionists The Sorbet Sisters; and clown Tanya Solomon.

Down the pipe, highlights include juggler and comedian Will Shaw, Gabeze Trapeze (pictured) and David Sharps, caretaker of the barge, performing a Chinese vase manipulation act (June 19); and slackrope clown prince Dikki Ellis (June 26).

On July 24, the barge docks at the foot of Atlantic Avenue, at Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 6, with aerialist Hilary Sweeney and acrobat Aerial Emery in tow.

The site may change, but its spirit won’t.

“This is the closest children can get to the circus,” said Gersch. “That’s always our MO.”          

 

Showboat Shazzam at the Waterfront Museum and Showboat Barge [Pier 44 at Conover and Beard streets in Red Hook, (718) 624-4719], June 5, 19, and 26 at 1 pm and 4 pm, and at Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 6 (Atlantic Avenue at Furman Street in Brooklyn Heights), July 24 at 1 and 4 pm. Tickets $10 (in advance). For info, visit www.waterfrontmuseum.org.

Photo by Deborah Grosmark

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Lobster shift! Waterfront Book Festival celebrates maritime literature

The waterfront has long been a source of inspiration for Brooklyn writers, from Walt Whitman to Budd Schulberg.

Gabriel Cohen has felt the allure himself. The Ditmas Park resident is the author of four novels, two of which delve into maritime topics, including the recently released “The Ninth Step,” a true story about one of the worst disasters in human history that didn’t happen — a munition ship blowing up in New York Harbor.

So it’s probably no coincidence that on Saturday, he’ll launch the Waterfront Books and Authors Festival, a day of maritime-related projects and music held, fittingly, at the Waterfront Museum and Showboat Barge in Red Hook.

“I wanted to give a sense that not only is the city surrounded by water, but there’s a really interesting subculture of people who work on the waterfront,” said Cohen, who also organizes the Sunday reading series at Sunny’s Bar in Red Hook.

Cohen’s festival will also feature eight other authors who’ve written about topics ranging from lobsters (Trevor Corson, “The Secret Life of Lobsters”) to tugboats (George Matteson, “Tugboats of New York”), as well as Brooklyn-based Americana band Pinataland, performing a selection of sea and waterway-related songs.

“It’s not just about history, but what’s going on right now and gives a vivid sense of New York Harbor — one of the greatest ports in the world,” he said.

Waterfront Books and Authors Festival at the Waterfront Museum and Showboat Barge [290 Conover St. at the water in Red Hook, (718) 624-4719], June 26, noon-4 pm. Admission $6. For info, visit www.waterfrontmuseum.org.

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Shazzam! Waterfront Museum's circus series returns this June

By Meredith Deliso

It’s showtime on the showboat!

The popular Sunday circus series returns to the Waterfront Museum, a restored barge on the Red Hook waterfront, with a whole new season of acrobats, aerialists and jugglers in “Showboat Shazzam.”

For families acquainted with the barge and its variety show CIRCUSundays, have no fear: this is the same show, but with the name changed for fundraising purposes (apparently, state agencies aren’t so keen on giving grants to anything with the word circus in it).

As in past years, the show will include a variety of acts for a full circus experience — right at your feet.

“It’s the closest parents and children will be to circus performers,” said Karen Gersch, artistic director of the show, now in its 14th season on the barge. “It’s that proximity and intimacy that makes our series so successful.” (Successful, indeed. Last year, Brooklyn Paper reviewer Thurston Dooley III couldn’t stop raving.)

This year’s series starts on June 6 with the comedy trio Fidget, Loon & Tater; eccentric juggler Will Shaw; acrobats Rudy & Lea; aerialist Hilary Sweeney (pictured), who does her act on a hammock and a rope; and Rudi Macaggi, a winner of “America’s Got Talent” who performs comedy acrobatics (see that footage below).

Other highlights of the month-long series include a pirate — Billy Bones the Good Pirate! (June 13) — Professor Phineas Feelgood’s Flea Circus (June 20), and David Sharps, caretaker of the barge, performing a Chinese vase manipulation act (June 13).

“It’s always great to see the barge fill up with folks who had never been to Red Hook or the barge, as well as those who return every year,” said Sharps.

Because luckily, this showboat isn’t going anywhere.

Showboat Shazzam at the Waterfront Museum and Showboat Barge [Pier 44 at Conover and Beard streets in Red Hook, (718) 624-4719], Sundays in June at 1 pm and 4 pm. Tickets $16 for adults, $12 for kids (in advance). For info, visit www.waterfrontmuseum.org.

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Play explores mermaids, garbage

Coney Island may be known for its mermaids, but this month, Red Hook will host more of the finned Sirens.

“A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things,” a new play on the Waterfront Museum and Showboat Barge, draws inspiration from the Weeki Wachee Springs mermaids — a roadside attraction in Florida that featured costumed women swimming in a large tank.

Jessica Brater, artistic director of the theater company Polybe + Seat, wasn’t merely looking for colorful visuals, but uses the attraction — which suffered from environmental and legal issues that nearly closed it down for good — as a metaphor for the myriad ways in which humans are screwing up the planet.

That swirling collection of plastic garbage in the North Pacific Ocean — twice the size of New Jersey! — is another handy jumping-off point.

With these iconic images in tow, Brater and company explore what happens if nothing is done about increasing plasticization, and the result is a play that combines the mythological with familiar tales like “Moby Dick.”

The Waterfront Barge, with its waterfront views and own Americana flavor, was a natural choice to host the play, which opens on April 23.

“It has an equally roadside attraction feel to it that is really special to us,” said Brater. “The initial form of roadside attraction in this part of the world is the showboat, so to be on one here in the water is bringing that back to Brooklyn.”

The mermaids don’t hurt, either.

“A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things” at the Waterfront Museum and Showboat Barge [290 Conover St. at Reed Street in Red Hook, (718) 624-4719], April 23-May 9. Shows are Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 7 pm. Tickets $18. For info, visit www.polybeandseats.org.

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'On the Waterfront' comes to the waterfront

“Edie Doyle” and “Terry Malloy,” the roles made famous by Marlon Brando and Eva-Marie Saint, interact on the waterfront

By Meredith Deliso

(Published in the 5.7 issue of 24/Seven)

Budd Schulber’s classic play “On the Waterfront” returns to the spot that inspired it, when Brooklyn’s Brave New World Repertory Theatre puts on a staged reading literally on the waterfront aboard the historic Waterfront Museum Barge in Red Hook.

The May 16 and 17 readings culminate the company’s sixth annual Salon Series, which featured the work of prominent Brooklyn playwrights, including Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” at various Brooklyn locations, ranging from the Old Stone House in Park Slope to Fort Greene’s BRICstudio.


As with “The Crucible,” which took advantage of the outdoor setting for the production, BNW wanted to be site-specific with “One the Waterfront” and bring the reading to life in the fitting environment.

“We specifically wanted to do ‘On the Waterfront’ at the Waterfront Museum,” said Brave New World Artistic Director Claire Beckman, who runs the theater with her husband, John Morgan, and directs “On the Waterfront” with Timothy Smith. “I went to David Sharp at the Museum and asked him about it, and it turned out he was friends with the writer.”

The writer, Budd Schulber, who currently lives on Long Island, will be on hand at the (sold-out) May 16 performance for a talk-back, as were other playwrights involved in the Salon Series (with the exception of Arthur Miller, though we can’t really hold that against him).

His play was based on a Pulizter Prize-winning series of articles that ran in the New York Sun by Malcolm Johnson, detailing the widespread corruption, extortion and racketeering of the Manhattan and Brooklyn waterfronts, and immortalized by the 1954 film starring Marlon Brando.

BNW’s own production will be a bit more bare-boned, with the readings staged and the actors dressed to the part, though aided by the appearance of scripts.

“You forget about the scripts, they just disappear,” says Beckman. “A lot of people in the audience enjoy the scripts – you feel like you’re part of the process. Since it’s a Salon Series featuring notable Brooklyn playwrights, it’s nice to remind the audience constantly that this was written by somebody.”

From the Brooklyn waterfront, the production will move with the barge as it travels the Hudson, marking he 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s own voyage up the river, to Manhattan’s West Side, with a reading on May 22 at Hudson River Park, and moving on to, appropriately, Hoboken, NJ, where the story is set, on May 29.

“This production would not be possible without David’s magnificent barge, enthusiasm for our work, and total cooperation,” said Beckman. “We are indebted to him and honored to be working with him.

Though this does mark the first time BNW voyages out of Manhattan, the company is still very much a Brooklyn-centric one.

“Really the point is to stay here and do theater in Brooklyn. That’s really what we are all about,” said Beckman. “We want people to hear them read by wonderful professional actors who live in your own borough who tend to generally work over the bridge and beyond. We are just as tired of traveling over the bridge to do a play as the audience is of traveling over the bridge to see a play. The idea was to skip the bridge all together and do it right here where we live and keep it local.”

Brave New World Repertory Theatre’s Salon Series culminates with“On the Waterfront” on May 16 (sold out) and 17, with lunch at 1:30 p.m. and the stage reading at 2 p.m., aboard the Waterfront Barge Museum (290 Conover St.).

The production on the Waterfront Barge Museum will then travel to Hudson River Park (Pier 84 at 44th St.) in Manhattan on May 22 and to NJ Transit’s Erie Lackawanna Plaza in Hoboken on May 29, with complimentary wine and cheese at 7:30 p.m. and the reading at 8 p.m. for both performances.

Tickets are $18 each. Reservations can be made by calling 917-285-8911 or by e-mailing theatre@bravenewworldrep.org.

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