for your VINformation

NY Times reader posted review:

EATfest 2009 Festival Series B: New York’s best o-o-Broadway offering. MRS. JANSEN offers touching and comic performances. MOON NIGHT needs trimming but has compelling moments. FIVE WORST WORDS has a nice twist. Jon Spano’s FAMILY COMES FIRST is hilarious, disturbing, and boasts theatre’s most intriguing ensemble cast. A gem.

From Stagebuzz.com:

The final piece of the evening, and one of the most disturbingly amusing I’ve seen in a while, is Joe Spano’s Family Comes First. Featuring a cast of characters that makes the Addams Family seem like the Osmonds, the tag line for the play is, “The family that lays together, stays together.” Living on an isolated vineyard, Clarissa (Lawrence M. Bullock), her brother/husband Elfin (Blake Walton) and their children Hammer (Dusty Alvarado), Rubinesque (Vinnie Costa) and Troy-Toy (Adam Schneider) are coming up with a plan to keep the family matriarch from giving all their fortune to the church. To describe much more will give away much of the nasty and funny secrets in this over-the-top play. The all-male cast does an excellent job, especially the outstanding Vinnie Costa as Rubinesque. Also worth mentioning are J. Stephen Brantley, as the long-suffering and sassy Caterpillar, and Dusty Alvarado who gleams with a feral sexiness as Hammer. This John Waters meets Charles Addams play will not be for everyone, but those who like their comedy on the absurd side will have fun.

From NYTheatreWorld.com:

The final offering of the evening is Jon Spano’s Family Comes First. This is a naughty romp where, in order to save the family inheritance, someone must have sex with the dying, but still virginal, grandmother. Yes, you read that correctly, our theatrical motif here is “popping grandma’s cherry.” Spano has a sharp wit and lampoons everything from religion to sexuality to race, and of course everybody’s favorite, incest. All is relative in this quirky family comedy. Dinero also directs this piece showing his flair for the comic and absurd. The strength of the piece however, is in the fine ensemble performance. Lawrence M. Bullock, J. Stephen Brantley, Blake Walton, Adam Schneider, Vinnie Costa, and Dusty Alvarado make the text pop with disturbing innuendo. They are well-rehearsed and this shows through in their playfulness.

The reviews are in!

From Broadwayworld.com:

Weimar Hole by Sara Jeanne Asselin, directed by Jonathan Warman, pokes gleeful fun at the pretention and excesses of performance artists. Gustav Friendly (J. Stephen Brantley) and Ericka Ericka (Maya Rosewood) perform a hilariously over-the-top piece for an appreciative audience of other artists at an international festival- then at the talkback the other artists (Deb Armelino as an American artist, Kaolin Bass as a French artist, and Vinnie Costa as “Human” a German artist, as well as Moe Bertran as Cyrus, their host) get to have their say. Fine work from everyone – especially Brantley and Rosewood, who give bravura performances, and Costa, who steals the show with his hilarious Germanic mannerisms.

I just came across this review of the EATfest show I was in, One of the Great Ones:

The second comedy is Chris Widney’s farce, One of the Great Ones. Lee (Vinnie Costa) is on a scavenger hunt. The last thing he has to find out is who directed the production of Our American Cousin that Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated. That leads him to librarian extraordinaire Enid Stump (Jane Altman), who will find his answer or die trying. Director Chris Widney keeps things zipping along as good farce should and allows the silliness to shine through. Complementing the cast are Marc Castle as Hank, the naysayer janitor, and Ashley Green as Enid’s gung-ho assistant. Altman and Green are the standouts of this play.

So, I’m not a standout, I guess I should take it with a grain of salt as the reviewer confused the name of the playwright with the director.

From BroadwayWorld.com:

One of the Great Ones is an hilariously farcical skit about an amazing Librarian (Jane Altman).  When Lee (Vinnie Costa) comes in with a question for a scavenger hunt, just as the library is closing, Enid Stump, the Librarian, jumps into action, assisted by library ensign Jimmy (Ashley Green).  Hank the Janitor (Marc Castle) doesn’t believe she can find the answer before the library closes.  All the actors are comic perfection, and the direction never flags.

Click the like above to read the review by Duncan Pflaster of the whole night.

The reviews are in!

Well, one review, from NYTheatre.com; and what are they saying about One of the Great Ones?

"Finally, anyone who has called the New York Public Library for help in fact-finding will find One of the Great Ones, by playwright Chris Widney, delightful. Even if you haven’t, you will. Jonathan Warman includes enough quirky details in his direction to make each character sparkle. Jane Altman, as the dedicated and obsessive librarian, lets nothing stand between her and her facts—not even her desk. Goading her on is Hank, the maintenance man, played with perfect drawl by Marc Castle. Ashley Green gives us an intimidated yet earnest librarian-in-the-making, while Vinnie Costa rounds out the cast as the unassuming employee seeking the final answer to a company scavenger hunt."

UND don’t think I won’t use that quote on my next postcard mailing "… Vinnie Costa rounds out the cast …"

The reviewer enjoyed the evening of One-Acts, and that, as my friend Martha Stewart – ok, she’s not really my friend, but when I get more famous, she will be – would say, is a good thing.

American Splendor #4 is now in comic book shops.

Below is a scan of the page with my images. That’s me in the upper left hand corner and in the lower left hand corner in the tank top!

Vinnie in American Splendor

I remember the day represented so vividly.

Dean Haspiel and Harvey Pekar were in the office to do a signing of their book, The Quitter. I’d met each before – Harvey at Wonder Con ‘04 and Dean at San Diego ComicCon – and I loved The Quitter so I went upstairs to get my copy signed.

You have to have a little background, Dean is notorious for taking his shirt off at signings – for no reason – with little prompting. I’m not complaining about it for any reason, Dean’s hot. So, when I got to the front of the line I handed my camera to Dan, my book to Harvey and said to Dean, "If you take your shirt off, I’ll take mine off."

"I can’t." He said. "Harvey’s here…"

"O…" Before I could get the k out, his shirt was off. I took mine off as promised – but left the ginny-tee on to everyones delight and Dan snapped a picture just as Harvey turned is head, quickly turning away and shaking his head in disbelief.

As Dean himself said to me, "It was a great moment in DC Comics/American Splendor history."

Tags: American Splendor, Dean Haspiel, Harvey Pekar, DC Comics, Vinnie Costa, VERTIGO, Comic Books

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