(718) 260–2500 Brooklyn Paper’s essential guide to the Borough of Kings January 31–February 6, 2020
Strike zone
This bar serves up an old-fashioned 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.
Gonzalez’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.
“Instead of trying to create the world of Ybor
City — the actor can just stand up and say ‘Look:
we’re in Ybor City,’” she said. “It makes it more
immediate and more direct.”
“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).
— Ben Verde
THEATER
Hello, Dolly’s!
Dolly Parton cover band reviews new Dolly Parton-themed bar
By Bill Roundy
Brooklyn Paper
They’re laughing and drinking and having
a party!
A new bar with a Dolly Parton theme
opened in Williamsburg last month. Is Dolly’s
Swing and Dive any good? To find out,
we turned to the experts — the women behind
Brooklyn’s own Dolly Parton cover
band Doll Parts: Maggie Robinson Katz
and Julia Sirna-Frest.
These two devotees of the sequined
Queen of Country joined our arts editor
on a Sunday afternoon to examine the bar’s
decor, the drinks, and the bathroom, which
is covered sink-to-ceiling with Dolly Parton
album covers.
First impressions
Maggie Robinson Katz: I thought
it would be more trailer park trashy, but
it’s classy.
Julia Sirna-Frest: I do appreciate that
they didn’t go full Barbie pink, or put gingham
on the tables.
Bill Roundy: Apparently one of the inspirations
was Dolly Parton saying “It costs
a lot of money to look this cheap.”
Maggie: Considering the price of New
York real estate, that’s probably true. But
I don’t think it looks cheap. … It’s like a
cool grandma’s basement.
Julia: Like a Midwestern basement bar,
that you always wished you could go, and
now you’re 21.
Maggie: It’s a
good first date place
— it’s comfortable.
Julia: It shows
“I have great taste.
I love Dolly.”
Maggie (pointing):
And I love a
NIGHTLIFE
disco ball.
The bathroom
Maggie: The bathroom! I give it 10
out of 10 Dollys! I just want to live in that
bathroom
Julia: I want to know what happened
to all the records.
Maggie: You can see all the different
changes she’s gone through over the years,
and the different styles she’s had.
Julia: Dolly keeps changing, but she
always is who she is.
Maggie: She’s nostalgic and modern
— which is like this bar!
A photographer arrives, and our reviewers
return to the bathroom to touch
up their makeup. Moments later:
Julia: There’s no mirror in the bathroom!
Shocking!
Maggie: That’s the only downside.
The drinks
Dolly’s Swing and Dive offers a menu of
six $9 cocktails. It also offers eight draft
beers, ranging in price from $4–$8, wines,
and beer-and-shot combos. From the cocktail
list, Maggie chose a Daiquiri-like drink
called Let Me Tango, while Julia selected
the Margarita-like Chapo Chapo.
Julia: The presentation is fantastic —
and they gave me an extra shot! Very refreshing.
Maggie: This is a beautiful mezcal
drink. I like that smoke.
Julia: It’s a very easy-drinking cocktail.
Maybe that’s the danger here!
Maggie: Anywhere else, this would be
a $13 drink.
Final verdict
Julia: How many Dollys do you give
it?
Maggie: I give it… five Dollys.
Julia: Out of five?
Maggie: Yes. Five out of five. How
about you?
Julia: Four out of five. A skosh off because
of no mirror.
BOOKS
Reading picks
Community Bookstore’s pick:
“Fra Keeler,” by Azareen Van Der Vliet
Oloomi
A man buys the home
of the recently deceased
Fra Keeler, and upon
moving in becomes consumed
with the question
of what caused her
mysterious death. His
inquest soon turns inward,
and what follows
is the magisterial narration
of a mind unspun.
Oloomi’s debut novel,
set in the Netherlands, ranks among the works
of Robert Musil and Thomas Bernhard as a master
class in interiority.
— Samuel Partal, Community Bookstore 43
Seventh Ave. between Carroll Street and Garfield
Place in Park Slope, (718) 783–3075, www.
commu nityb ookst ore.net .
Greenlight Bookstore’s pick:
“Interior Chinatown,” by Charles Yu
This is one of the most
unique novels I’ve read
in a while, and quite a
lot to unpack. It tackles
Asian American stereotypes
head-on, and does
it in an outlandish (and at
times very funny) way:
the main character is a
perpetual day player for
all the Asian roles on a
procedural cop show set
in Chinatown. The narrative
constantly breaks the fourth wall, is written
in a second-person perspective, and is also written
in the style of a screenplay. Yu is doing a lot,
and while I’m still undecided about what works
and what doesn’t, the whole book is a bold move,
and for me that seems more important.
— Geo Ong, Greenlight Bookstore 686 Fulton
St. between S. Elliott Place and S. Portland
Avenue in Fort Greene, (718) 246–0200, www.
greenlightbookstore.com .
Word’s picks: “The Crying Book,” by
Heather Christle
A poetic examination
of one of the most basic
of human reactions: crying.
Through the lens of
crying, Christle explores
motherhood, anxiety, depression,
and the connective
tissue that holds us
together. Why do we
cry? Why did Romans
catch and save their tears
in small vials? How did
Didion stop herself from
crying? All answered and
brought close to the realm of the personal in this
deeply moving book.
— Ryan Evans, Word 126 Franklin St. at Milton
Street in Greenpoint, (718) 383–0096, www.
wordbookstores.com .
By Rose Adams
Brooklyn Paper
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
COMEDY
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
Photo by Caroline Ourso
finds funny.
“It’s not, ‘I can’t believe you think
I was the gym teacher,'” she 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 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.”
Funny, furry!
Genderqueer ex-nun debuts
album at B’Heights cat cafe
Cat comedy: Comedian Kelli Dunham will release her new comedy
album at the Brooklyn Cat Cafe on Feb. 8.
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.
New York dolls: Julia Sirna-Frest and Maggie
Robinson Katz, from the Dolly Parton
cover band Doll Parts, toast Dolly’s Swing
and Dive, a Dolly Parton-themed bar in Williamsburg.
(Left) The bathroom of Dolly’s is
coated in Dolly Parton album covers.
Photos by Caroline Ourso
Dolly’s Swing and Dive 101 Kent Ave.
at N. Eighth Street in Williamsburg,
(904) 414–5095, www.dollysbk.com.
Open Mon–Fri, 3 pm–4 am; Sat–Sun,
noon–4 am.
Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
/www.wordbookstores.com
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