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Adrian Sexton Draws The Death Card

Adrian Sexton Draws The Death Card

By Alice Teeple

Photos by Alice Teeple

Death is not a subject one wishes to consider during the Yule season, but Adrian Sexton stares it down with her new one-woman show, DEATH! A Macabre Cabaret, premiering this weekend at Solocom.

The Titian-haired Sexton is a delightfully unique figure in the NYC comedy scene. Her passion for history, classic cinema, and music has been incorporated into her eclectic stage incarnations: Merchant Ivory films, tarot readers, a long-running improv tribute to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? …and even all four Beatles. Her character-driven comedy channels that of Tracey Ullmann, French & Saunders, and Amy Sedaris, but with a generous twist of Blackadder. She uproariously transcends time and space. 

In this performance, Adrian Sexton reimagines Death as having been cursed by a wizard and forced to live out a human life (Sexton herself), enduring the experience of watching a loved one pass away. Through storytelling, humor and song, she explores the complexities of dying from her personal standpoint. 

Adrian Sexton

“Death is a character that has existed since the dawn of time, so it’s seen some shit!” says Sexton.  “What DOES Death think? What makes Death sad? But Death’s still a heightened version of me…so I’ll throw some Duran Duran in there.”

Sexton notes that dying is still quite taboo, despite it being a universal experience for everyone. Last year, Sexton’s beloved father passed away after a long illness. She hopes to strip the mysteries and fears surrounding mortality, and wants people to cherish those moments of happiness, love and empathy that still exist in the darkest of times. 

“Death is fluid and neutral. It takes king and peasant alike, so there is no empathy in death. And yet, we, the living, can show stunning compassion when someone experiences a loss. Even if you want to be alone and sad, you’re suddenly confronted with others’ feelings and hangups…which in retrospect I found quite humorous. Go away! No…stay! Also, the show takes place over Christmas, which is a ridiculous juxtaposition of joy and grief. I incorporate Christmas songs with lyrics that reflect what I was experiencing. You need to keep laughing.”

Inspiration for this show struck her at a hip-hop class at Freestyle Love Supreme Academy.

“Freestyling my truth was a revolutionary moment. I can be funny AND sad and speak honestly? At the same time? Whoa! That was the seed I needed to have the guts to write something this vulnerable.”

Sexton also credits tarot as a source of inspiration…after repeatedly pulling the Death card when applying to Solocom. She toyed around with various ideas, but all led back to the recent experience of losing her father. Director Zak Sommerfield suggested Sexton simply tell her story for the show. 

‘The Death card doesn’t mean literal death. It’s about endings and new beginnings, so pulling it made me think about what my work will reflect going forward. Imagine if I pulled another card? You’d never hear from me again if I pulled the Hermit!”

Death! A Macabre Cabaret debuts Saturday, 23 November at 7:30 PM at the PIT Underground. Future performances to be determined. 

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Culture Entertainment Events Featured

NYCC Day 2: What You Missed

NYCC 2019
McThor. Accompanied by “Agent Coldstone” (off-camera).

I’m almost embarrassed to have called yesterday “crowded.” As it turns out, significantly more people were comfortable taking off on a Friday. Also, most of the panels and events were limited to the Javits Center, Madison Square Garden, and the Hammerstein Ballroom. Luckily, that concentration meant a lot more cool stuff with less walking. 

Everyone’s Watching The Watchmen

The biggest crowd I saw was for a sneak peek at the upcoming HBO Watchmen panel and preview. This new superhero show, based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore, covers themes of vigilanteism, police militarization, and superheroes punching people. One can see the draw. 

Doing It Write

One of my personal favorite panels at NYCC so far was the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 panel. It featured the authors of Sci Fi/Fantasy’s top short stories over the last year. Talk about a stacked panel. Writers Annalee Newitz, Brenda Peynado, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Seanan McGuire, and N.K. Jemisin (a personal favorite) spent an hour laughing, joking, and exploring the ways they keep science fiction and fantasy fresh at a time where both seem to be everywhere. 

Jump Start

Friday at NYCC was also a big day for Shonen Jump, the powerhouse behind some of mainstream anime’s best-known titles. The day opened up with the Official SHONEN JUMP Panel, giving diehard fans updates on the Japanese manga magazine that launched a thousand animes. Later that day, attendees were offered a My Hero Academia Panel, as well as a sneak peek at MY HERO ONE’S JUSTICE 2, a fighting game based on MHA. 

Nerds of Nerddom (with a small rant)

On Thursday, the NYPL was the source for a lot of more academic panels, with names like “Comic Theory For Kids,” “Truth, Justice, and Civics…The Comic Book Way,” and “#OwnVoices: Why Diversity Matters.”

With the NYPL taking a step back, Friday meant that Javits was filled with those kinds of discussions. Between new-content-specific panels, eager fans could find panels like “From 1969 to the Future: Stories in Space!” and “When it’s More Than Teen Angst: Trauma in Speculative Fiction.”

Maybe this one is just for me, but these are usually my favorite panels at NYCC or otherwise. Don’t get me wrong: I love finding out about new media or catching a preview showing the new season of a favorite show, but I will see all of that eventually on my own. These kinds of panels are opportunities to look at things I already know and love in a new light. They’re how you can enjoy something you already like in a new way. Even if you’re skeptical, find one that sounds vaguely interesting and check it out. It might change your mind.

Today’s Lesson Learned Too Late

It is VERY difficult to get to the NYCC Live Stage, and that area is loud. If you don’t get to the stage early, don’t bother showing up. If you’re 20 feet from the stage, you’re as good as deaf. Instead, hit up the SYFY WIRE fan lounge. They have a big TV that is constantly showing the content of the live stage. There’s comfy seats, phone chargers, and there’s rarely a crowd.

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Culture Entertainment Featured

Interview: Laura Gómez of Orange Is The New Black

Laura Gómez
Laura Gómez. Photo by Erika Morillo.
Laura Gómez
Laura Gómez. Photo by Erika Morillo.

Actress Laura Gómez talks about her career, what’s next, and the art of bringing OITNB’s Blanca Flores to life for seven seasons.

For seven years, Laura Gómez transformed herself into the character of Blanca Flores on the hit show Orange Is the New Black. Blanca began the show as (so it appeared) a satanic bogart haunting the only stall in the prison with a working lock. Through Gómez’s empathetic performance, we watched as Blanca revealed the beautiful and tragic love story buried beneath her first impressions. A story finally concluded at the end of OITNB’s seventh season.

Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black may have introduced many viewers to Gómez, but it was far from the start of her career. She began acting in her native Dominican Republic, though she went to school for advertising. At 21, she moved to NYC to pursue acting as a career. She found a home with the Spanish Repertory Theater, participating in award-winning plays. From there, she branching out into television and movie work, as well as voiceovers. Fans may have seen her in the movie Exposed, opposite Keanu Reeves, in her recurring role in as Selena Cruz in Law & Order: SVU, or on HBO’s limited series Show Me A Hero.

1. How do you feel about how the show left Blanca at the end of season  7? Very satisfied to be honest. Blanca’s storyline in season 7 was very difficult to inhabit and to watch, because it’s such a close depiction of today’s sad reality in the United States. I believe it was somewhat necessary to give the audience some sort of comfort and relief at the end of a very hard season, and Blanca and Diablo’s unconventional love story provided precisely that. 

2. What do you think (or hope) will happen to Blanca after the show ends? I hope she and Diablo live happily ever after.

3. How does it feel to leave Blanca Flores behind? I loved playing this character and her evolution on the show, but acting is one of those professions where you get used to things ending and new chapters beginning, whether it’s a play, at the show, or a movie. We actually had a pretty long run and I feel very grateful for it, but I’m also ready to move on onto a new horizon. 

4. What have you learned during your seven years on the set of OITNB? I’ve learned a lot more than I already knew about our broken prison system. OITNB is a show that educated us all about difficult topics, bringing important conversations to the table. On season 7, we are exposing harsh realities about immigration and detention centers, and even though I’m well informed about the subject, there were new things I learned through Blanca and new character Karla’s stories. Plus, working with such amazing cast and writers, I definitely grew as an actor, 

5. Was it a coincidence that Blanca was from Santo Domingo, or was that written in to match your life? It was described like that from the get-go. I brought my all to the audition and got the part that happened to fit me like a glove. 

6. What is an important issue that you believe OITNB covered well during its run? Oh well, pretty much all of it, from the privatization of prisons to white privilege to Black Lives Matter to transgender issues (remember the beautiful backstory of Sophia -Laverne Cox’ character- on Season 1?) to opioids epidemic to the whole immigration issue around ICE on season 7. Not to mention the fact that it is a show created by a woman with a strong female presence all around. Meaning, it covered that in terms of a male-dominated industry. 

7. What is an important issue that you wish OITNB addressed more, or better? I think we did pretty good overall, all things considered.

8. What is next for you? I just came back from shooting a film back in the Dominican Republic called Sunshine which will hit the festival circuit sometime next year, and right now I’m in the complex process of auditioning for new things. Not something that I can control, so in the meantime, I’m very focused on developing two screenplays -short and feature film- both based on plays that I wrote, which I also plan to direct. 

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Entertainment Events Lifestyle

Exhibition Costas Picadas Odon Wagner

exhibition
Image courtesy of Costas Picadas

Costas Picadas exhibition explores the limits of reality through dreamlike photographs. The Odon Wagner Gallery of Ontario will host Picadas’ first Canadian exhibition, from September 27th through October 20th, so that Canada too can experience Picadas’ unique collections.

exhibition Costas Picadas
Costas Picadas Artist

The exhibition at Odon Wagner will feature 17 photographs, all of which depict scenes that are familiar yet hypnotically alien.  Picadas captures both natural, and urban landscapes. Picadas’ use of architectural elements and nature, coupled with his technological techniques, yields images that feel classic but experiment with the digital world. Picadas highlights the often overlooked significance of familiar surroundings through such techniques.

 

 

Although his images are appealing, what is most captivating about Picadas’ work is what is left out of the image. What remains unshown, like who lives in some of these obscure buildings, prompts the viewer to question the reality of the time and space depicted in the photographs. The observer is placed into Picadas’ potentially alternative reality, engulfing the viewer in the unknown.

exhibition
Image courtesy of Costas Picadas

 

Picadas is applauded for his ability to create surreal images that incorporate light, philosophy, science, and energy into art. Thus he stimulates the mind, and sensation, in tandem.

Costas Picadas was born in Ioannina, Greece. However, he now lives and works in New York City. His Greek roots, and New York experiences, have both influenced his art.  “I’ve been living in NY for 25 years, so most of the work comes from regions in New York City as well as from my homeland in Greece”, says Picadas.

exhibition
Image courtesy of Costas Picadas

Picadas is excited about “the opportunity to reach out to the Canadian population, to introduce them to my work, and to get their reactions”.

Costas Picadas has been featured in many local venues such as the Queens Museum, the Budman Gallery, and the Denise Bibro Gallery. As Picadas expands his artistic influence into Canada, more individuals get the pleasure of viewing sophisticated and intellectual art.