FUNNY AND FURRY!
By Rose Adams She’s just kitten around!
A genderqueer ex-nun
comedian will convert a
Brooklyn Heights cat cafe into a
comedy club on Feb. 8 to launch
her new stand-up album “Not
the Gym Teacher.” The Flatbush
comic said that she is using the
occasion to own the stereotype of
the cat-loving queer person.
“It’s a little bit cliché, so I’m
kind of embracing that stereotype,”
said Kelli Dunham.
The night will feature excerpts
from the album, brand-new
comedy routines, and an audience
Cat Quiz from Mary Phillips-
Sandy, host of the “Let’s Talk
About Cats” podcast.
Dunham said she began
performing cat-related comedy
after she inherited her late
partner’s cat Lulu. Despite Lulu’s
objections, Dunham soon formed
a close connection with the cat
because of their mutual grief —
which became a story she often
told in her routines, Dunham said.
“How she was feeling was
evidence of how I was feeling,”
she said.
“Not The Gym Teacher”
also touches on her experiences
working as a nurse at a Canarsie
high school, where students often
assume Dunham is a gym teacher
due to her butch appearance —
something that she just finds
funny.
“It’s not, ‘I can’t believe you
think I was the gym teacher,’ ” she
Cat comedy: Comedian Kelli Dunham will release her new comedy album at the
Brooklyn Cat Cafe on Feb. 8. Photo by Caroline Ourso
said. “It’s that she’s cooler than me.”
Dunham’s routines also touch
on her experience as a nun, when
she lived in a convent for nearly
two years.
“I was very very bad at that. I
was kicked out after a year and half
for having too much self-esteem,”
Dunham said.
Performing in a cat cafe is
nothing new to the comic, who has
told jokes while on a skateboard
ramp, during a livestock auction, in
a Scottish cave, and on the A train.
She began embracing unorthodox,
and often queer-identified, venues
after getting into a fight with a
heckler at a traditional comedy
club, who called her a “fat d---”
during her show and tried to stab
her afterwards.
“He chased me in the parking
lot with a broken bottle, and I
thought that I either have to find
COURIER L 50 IFE, JAN. 31-FEB. 6, 2020
different venues to perform in, or
get really good at running,” she
said.
The Feb. 8 performance will
be Dunham’s first in a cat café,
and she hopes she can outshine the
dozens of felines who will compete
for the audience’s attention.
“There’s two things you can’t
compete with as a performer. You
can’t compete with a small child
because they’re cuter than you,
and you can’t compete with an
animal,” she said. And cats make
a particularly tough crowd, she
added.
“They’re hecklers. They’re not
giving you anything for free.”
Kelli Dunham at the Brooklyn
Cat Cafe 76 Montague St. between
Hicks Street and Montague Terrace
in Brooklyn Heights, (347) 946–
2286, catcafebk.com. Feb. 8 at 7
pm. $20.
TBy Ben Verde his bar serves up an oldfashioned
musical!
A long-gestating musical
about union organizers in 1918
Florida will take the floor of a
Bedford-Stuyvesant saloon every
Wednesday night in February.
“Ybor City,” which starts its run at
Rustik Tavern on Feb. 5, is named
after a community in Tampa,
Florida, where Cuban workers in
cigar rolling factories fought for
workers’ rights.
The show’s book writer says
that the story of labor organizers
more than a century ago still
resonates with modern audiences,
who are often disconnected from
the labor movement.
“People have forgotten how
hard it was to form a union,” said
Anita Gonzalez.
The playwright’s grandfather
was a cigar roller in Tampa, which
first sparked her interest in the era.
The first stage incarnation of her
project was a staged reading called
“Cigar Memories,” that she held in
2003. Since then, the work has gone
through multiple revisions, and
she teamed up with composer and
lyricist Dan Furman in 2012. The
two collaborated to adapt the story
into a musical, using tunes inspired
by a wide array of historic genres,
including union rally songs, Latin
music, and choral music.
February’s run of performances
will be the first time the work has
been performed by a full cast of
professional actors — but Gonzalez
says it’s still not in its final form,
and that the workshopping process
is an essential part of helping the
performance reach its full potential.
“I’m not calling it’s the last
iteration, I want to see what it looks
like that way,” she said.
The show is co-produced by
Brooklyn Tavern Theatre, a group
that stages plays in bars during
slow nights of the week.
Gonzalez said that performing
inside a bar gives the actors more
creative freedom, freeing them
from the physical constraints of
a normal stage and allowing the
entire watering hole to become
Ybor City.
“Ybor City” at Rustik Tavern
471 Dekalb Ave. between Kent
and Franklin avenues in Bedford-
Stuyvesant, (718) 213–8885, www.
yborcitythemusical.com. Feb. 5,
12, 18–19 and 26 at 7 pm. Free ($20
for reserved seating).
By Jessica Parks An opera written,
composed, and
produced by an
89-year-old Holocaust survivor
now living in Midwood will
give Brooklynites a sobering
glimpse at a desperate period of
Jewish history.
“The Uprising of the
Warsaw Ghetto,” at the
Yeshivah of Flatbush on Feb.
9, tells the story of a Jewish
rebellion against Hitler’s
forces in Warsaw, Poland. In
the first half of the opera,
members of a kibbutz in 1960s
Israel recall tragic tales from
the Polish capital during the
Holocaust; the second act
brings the audience to the
Warsaw ghetto where it all
happened.
The Warsaw ghetto uprising
— a different event than the
later, more successful Warsaw
Uprising — was an armed revolt
by Jewish residents of the Polish
ghetto, who faced deportation
to Nazi-run extermination
camps in 1943.
Bialor, who wrote his first
opera at the age of 82, created
the dramatic piece after learning
that the uprising, which ended
with Nazi soldiers burning the
ghetto and killing an estimated
300,000 Polish Jews, had never
been portrayed on stage.
“There were many people
living there and dying there and
they all had stories,” said Bialor.
“So, I made up a story.”
The opera is rooted in
history, Bialor said, building on
the known facts of the Warsaw
uprising, including the names of
its leaders, and the use of sewers
to travel in and out of the Jewish
ghetto.
“It’s historically based on the
history of the Warsaw ghetto
uprising and their suffering
through the facts that are
known generally,” Bialor said.
“Mordechai Anielewicz was the
leader of the uprising, so I gave
him a girlfriend. They were
escaping through the sewers
and I didn’t create that they did
that. I just embellished upon it.”
Bialor’s opera stands out
among other stories of the
Nazi regime, said its director,
because it highlights the hope
felt by those fighting the
Holocaust, and the victory felt
by those who survived it.
“He always ends with a
message of hope. Even though
it’s a depressing piece of history
to be writing an opera about,”
said Jane Leathers. “Harry has
found a way to bring us hope
and see victory amongst defeat.”
The orchestra, soloists, and
chorus will be led by Pacien
Mazzagatti, the principal
conductor of the New York City
Opera.
Bialor himself survived
the Holocaust by hiding in a
cramped potato cellar with his
sister and two others, below a
barn in Poland for two years.
For nourishment, he and the
other stealthy survivors would
sneak out at night to steal food
and livestock for the farm.
“The Uprising of the Warsaw
Ghetto” at the Yeshivah of
Flatbush 1609 Avenue J,
between E. 16th and E. 17th
streets in Flatbush, www.
eventbrite.com. Feb. 9 at 2:30
pm. $30.
Strike the stage
Still standing: Harry Bialor, an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor, composed the
opera “The Uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto,” playing in Flatbush on Feb. 9.
Photo by Jane Leathers
Many hands make light work: The cast
of “Ybor City” will turn a Bedford-
Stuyvesant bar into a cigar factory.
Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
Songs of hope
Holocaust survivor writes opera
about Warsaw ghetto uprising
Genderqueer ex-nun debuts album at cat cafe
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