10-19 IAW&A Salon: An Intimate, Moving Post-O’Neill Award Evening at the Cell

by John Kearns
Photos by John Kearns

Sarah Fearon hosted an intimate and varied salon two nights after the IAW&A’s biggest party of the year, our annual Eugene O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award, keeping 2016 honoree Malachy McCourt’s Salon spirit moving forward!

Sarah presented some poetic and humorous new material. One bit with some authentic New York spin on the old classic question “Where are you from?”

Sarah Fearon

Sarah also read a poem highlighting some annoying phrases like “really quick” and the over usage of the word “so.” Sarah brought up Lizzie Donahue, a new IAWA member, to join in a reading of a new scene titled “And Again…Niiiiiiiiiiice” where the two characters sit and talk on a beach in Rockaway looking out to sea.

Sarah Fearon and Elizabeth Donahue

Lizzie Donahue read a short fiction piece based on a conversation her 8-year-old self allegedly had with her mom.  The subject: compulsory motherhood.

Marian Fontana

Marian Fontana read a humorous and insightful piece called “A History of Shrinks” about her experiences with therapists over the years.

Rita Mullaney

Rita Mullaney presented two stories about her days in the New York Police Department, including the tale of a woman who cooked for and took care of officers in the local precinct.  Rita rescued a portrait of this woman from the garbage.

Sheila Walsh and Tom Mahon

Tom Mahon and Sheila Walsh read the last scene in Act One of Sheila’s play-in-progress: When The Deep Purple Falls.  In the scene, a daughter’s wedding announcement exposes the regrets and longings in her parents’ long marriage.   Sheila thanks Tom for hitting all the right notes.

John McDonagh

John McDonagh tried out some new material for his one man play, Cabtivist, about driving a yellow cab in NYC for the last 35 years. Cabtivist was developed at the IAW&A Salon and had a successful run in the New York Fringe Festival.

Rosina Fernhof

Rosina Fernhof moved the audience with a dramatic monologue.

Kathleen O’Sullivan’s iMovie

Kathleen O’Sullivan presented an iMovie chapter from her graphic novel Isham Street. This chapter, “The Movies,” describes the child’s adventure every Saturday going to Woolworth’s for her ritual bag of chips followed by a six-hour movie extravaganza where she and all the neighborhood kids swarm up and down the aisles, eat, visit, and conspire to help kids sneaking in. There’s so much going on, she doesn’t know where to look – at Laurel & Hardy running from the cops or the matrons running after the illegal kids.

Marcia Loughran

Marcia Loughran was happy to be back at the Cell with this wonderful group of writers and musicians. The weather was crazy hot so she read a poem about the end of times/ apocalypse, “Imagine October”, published in the Newtown Literary last fall. She also read a mini-essay or ‘messay’ about Cuba, and shared a new poem.

Louise Crawford

Louise Crawford read a story about dealing with a sexually-harassing bartender and how she was able to use social media to get a sincere apology from the man.

Singer-songwriter, John Munnelly played three original songs, his Irish Zen song, “Why is the One Both the Same?,” “Kings & Jesters,” and  “The Funeral Blues”.

Join us for our next IAW&A Salon at Bar Thalia on Thursday, November 3rd!  Maureen Hossbacher will be hosting.

The IAW&A Salon schedule: http://i-am-wa.org/salons/

 

 

10.6.16 IAW&A Salon: Provocative mix of monologues, a dynamic man from Mullingar and one lovely soprano

By Karen Daly

Photos by Christopher Booth and Cat Dwyer

 The audience at the first October IAW&A Salon at Bar Thalia was rewarded with mighty performances. First time host and frequent contributor Tom Mahon presided easily over a bill of stunning monologues, new fiction, an essay and phenomenal spoken word poetry.

Tom Mahon warms up the crowd

Musical interludes were supplied by actor and singer Annalisa Chamberlin who performed a selection of contemporary and classical songs, including “Songs My Mother Taught Me” by Antonin Dvorák in her lovely soprano.

Annalisa Chamberlin

We had a mostly male slate, and many stories about, well, men. Mark Donnelly’s original story/monologue “Pale Green Walls” is about a middle-aged man who moves upstate from Long Island after getting divorced. Alone, he faces a new job and a new life. In Mark’s effective telling, the audience saw the pale green walls in his empty apartment.

Mark Donnelly

Gordon Gilbert, Jr. read three pieces from a series he’s calling “The Dick Monologues,” the message being “Love may be true; lust is ever fickle.” He also gave an original bawdy limerick, especially for the man from Limerick, Malachy McCourt.

Gordon Gilbert, Jr.

Jack DiMonte chose a monologue from David Mamet’s Oleanna. A college professor on the verge of receiving much-coveted tenure must deal with an obstacle, an ambiguous charge of harassment from a female student. Jack portrayed him trying to reason, cajole and finally pleading with her to withdraw her complaint.

Jack DiMonte

In an explosive monologue, actor Thom Molyneaux took Eddie Harrington, a Vietnam vet with a devastating secret, from the pages of Tom Mahon’s new play Closing Civelli’s to the mini-stage of the Thalia. Explosive performance, too, notes the author Tom Mahon. “I can’t believe what he did with the character I wrote.”

Thom Molyneaux

In the fiction department, two Salon regulars shared new installments of work-in-progress. Short story writer and novelist Kevin R. McPartland read from Brooklyn Rhapsody. In a brief, entertaining piece, he described a relationship about to go on the rocks in newly gentrified Park Slope, Brooklyn. Kevin appreciated its enthusiastic reception.

Kevin McPartland

IAW&A Board member John Kearns read from his novel, Worlds. Nora Logan, mother of Reverend Sarsfield Logan, S.J., tells how she came to America from County Cork and it’s a clever story. Unwilling to go along with an arranged marriage, the young Nora asked for a bicycle as an engagement present and then she cycled to Dublin and boarded a boat to New York.

John Kearns

Another work-in-progress was a candid, thought-provoking essay by IAW&A Board member Brendan Costello Jr. In “On Making an Entrance,” Brendan writes about Boris, a friend who had a huge impact on his adjustment to living life in a wheelchair.

Brendan Costello

Marty Mulligan from Mullingar, storyteller and spoken word artist, was visiting New York and performing poetry in America for the first time. Salon producer John Kearns invited him to the Salon, and result was thrilling: two spoken word pieces, rhythmic and furiously fast. “My Idea of Poetry” explains what poetry means to him and “I’m Sorry” explains what to do when arguing with a loved one, namely apologize for everything. Marty sends his thanks for “a great night’s entertainment” and hopes to return and perform stories from Ancient Ireland.

Marty Mulligan

Malachy McCourt summed up the night with his appreciation for all those “words” and added a few of his own, with hilarious stories from the Irish courts. He sang us out with “I Don’t Work for A Living.”

Malachy McCourt

We’re counting down to the big night Monday, October 17, when Malachy receives IAW&A Eugene O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award. Don’t miss this event. Get your tickets now

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2016-eugene-oneill-award-honoring-malachy-mccourt-tickets-26863949797

And see you next WEDNESDAY, October 19 at The Cell, 7pm

Scene at the Thalia

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Kearns TIME COMES, TRAP FALLS

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