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Origins:
In October '99, Marymount Manhattan College hosted 2
panel discussions on the performing arts. The first
panel included an Academy Award winner, a star from "ER"
and a screen writer whose movie was directed by Spike
Lee. Alumni, Steven Tanenbaum was invited to speak on
the second panel. Certain his alma mater was sending him
a message, Tanenbaum almost declined participating in
"Creating Your Own Opportunities In Theatre."
At the end of the seminar, one of the students, Tricia
McAlpin, spoke to Tanenbaum. It was a short dialogue of
the type that seldom occurs when two strangers actually
risk listening to each other. Tanenbaum had felt this
instant kind of rapport only twice before working with
kids in Loco-Motion, a theatre program for kids, and
teaching convicts on Rikers Island. This sincere
dialogue led directly to the inspiration for Tanenbaum
to create his own opportunity in theatre. A month after
meeting McAlpin, the first draft of MONO was finished -
and appropriately it was a play about listening or
rather not listening.
Fittingly, the first actor cast was Tricia McAlpin, the
person most responsible for MONO's start. Over the
course of the show’s 4 year run from off off Broaday to
off Broadway, from the gone, but not forgotten, Surf
Reality on the Lower East Side to Theatre Row on 42nd
Street, there was always, at MONO’s center, an evolving
hardcore group of dedicated actors – Yafit Hallely, JR
Dziengel, Adi Terer, Myrav Osofsky, Maya Macdonald,
Kerri Tucker, Tara Pesce, Florina Petcu, Inbal Samuel,
Yasu Ikeda, Kena Cuesta, Lawrence Jansen, Nick Paglino,
Donan Whelan, Gabriela Garcia, Megan Armitage, Kit
Paquin, Sera Demira, Dai Ishiguro, Pete Mele, Irene
Longshore, Starr Nysheva, Gloria Garayua, Juliette Gash,
Ian Crawford, David Solomon, Philip Lowendick, Kerryn
Feehan -- from all over the world. Some where during 500
weekend performances, thousands of beers and shots at
The Magician and Dave’s and too many slices from
Rosario’s, a disparate cast transformed itself into an
ensemble that could execute “heel turns, slaps, cops,
slips and spit-takes with crisp and euphoric precision.”
This ensemble, that Show Business Weekly called the
leaders of a "new generation of cutting edge theatre," –
along with MONO playwright Steven Tanenbaum, wanted to
take advantage of their collective experience so they
forged the ensemble company, ANOTHER URBAN RIFF, which
continues to produce what the NYC media praises as
"shocking, engaging" work, the kind of
off-the-beaten-track theatre for which New York is
notorious."
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Steven Tanenbaum
Writer/Director/Producer
Steven Tanenbaum is the
writer and director of the feature film Coming
Soon starring Cara Seymour (Adaptation,
Notorious Bettie Page), Lori Petty (A League
of Their Own) and James McCaffrey (Rescue Me,
American Splendor). Coming Soon
was shot this past fall on the Lower East Side and was
inspired by Tanenbaum’s true life experiences which
include a near fatal collision with a truck and 4 years
writing, directing and producing a play that started on
the same exact streets where the movie was filmed.
That play
was
MONO,
which moved to off Broadway in January 2004, after
running for 3 years off off Broadway.
MONO
was
designated as "Critics' Pick" by TimeOut New
York, New York Magazine, Paper Magazine,
Citysearch, NYTheatre.com, Show Business
Weekly and more. Don Lyons of the New York Post
raved about it as "an engaging, promising sample of
new, fresh lively kind of theatre"; New York
Magazine called it “inventive, nasty and a
surprising success”; TimeOut New York praised
“the bawdy bar comedy” as “a cult hit,”
and Where Magazine listed it among "the best of
what to do and see in town" for being
"shocking, engaging and the kind of
off-the-beaten-track theatre for which NYC is
notorious."
MONO
was also featured on
Japanese, Israeli, British and French television.
If
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