BY CLAYTON PATTERSON  |  Lorcan Otway and his wife, Eugenie Gilmore-Otway, are longtime Lower East Side figures. Lorcan is easily recognizable by his old-school Quaker attire. He and his wife own and run Theatre 80, a classic St. Mark’s Place establishment with a long, New York City underground pedigree, reaching back to he Prohibition era read more here »

Reverend Billy connects local dots to global concerns BY SCOTT STIFFLER  |  You’re halfway home to making a sale if your book jacket delivers a compelling promise of things to come — and boy, does Revered Billy nail it. But is it too late for salvation, even if you buy the message? With his shiny read more here »

Manhattan, Brooklyn DJs induce summer sweats BY MICHAEL VAUGHAN  |  My best friend, Mario, is Portuguese. Growing up, I’d play him indie rock. He’d play some bleepy-bloopy computer music, I’d frown, and he’d say, “Bro, in Portugal, I’ll take you clubbing and you’ll get it!” He’d pollute my car speakers for a little while before read more here »

Rev. Jen, on how to have fun in these hard times BY REV. JEN (revjen.com)   |  This month’s column is all about fun! Why? Because “fun” is the most underrated virtue on the planet. Cleanliness might be next to Godliness — but when you are lying on your deathbed (if you are lucky enough read more here »

Photo courtesy of Kino Lorber, Inc.Wiley Wiggins as Martin Beuscher and Patrick Riester as Peter Bishton, in “Computer Chess.” When man and machine face off, audience wins BY SEAN EGAN | A film about a computer based chess tournament certainly doesn’t seem to be particularly cinematic or entertaining in theory — but somehow Andrew Bujalski’s read more here »

Director Todoroff, on fusing physical and political theater BY MARTIN DENTON  (of nytheatre.com)  |  To shake up the usual outdoor theater fare offered in NYC, Elephant Run District is presenting three rarely performed short plays by Bertolt Brecht — two of which required the creation of a special contract from the publishing company Samuel French, read more here »

THE CAPABLES  “This is a typical case of hoarding,” says social worker and reality TV talking head Jenny Bragg Marcus, MSW — speaking to us from a pristine white room after the camera has panned the floor-to-ceiling belongings of a defensive southern matriarch. “But all typical cases are atypically sad,” the condescending Bragg notes, as read more here »

Joshua Oppenheimer examines what can be learned from one’s own crimes BY STEVE ERICKSON  |  Philosopher Hannah Arendt, who came up with the notion of the banality of evil, might not like “The Act of Killing.” In this documentary, evil isn’t committed by anonymous gray bureaucrats, but instead flashy gangsters who dreamed of being Elvis read more here »

NY Classical Theatre brings the Bard to Battery Park BY SCOTT STIFFLER  |  When it comes to finding the perfect spot for their outdoor staging of “The Tempest,” New York Classical Theatre sure nailed it when they chose the Lower Manhattan waterfront. The tip of our island, with its pitch-perfect set pieces (Castle Clinton, the read more here »

By the river, atop the roof, on the stage and in church — all summer long BY SCOTT STIFFLER  | Anyone can slap together a few thematically similar events, put out a press release and tell the world they’ve got a festival. Plenty have — but you won’t find any of those lazy posers in this read more here »