(718) 260–2500 Brooklyn Paper’s essential guide to the Borough of Kings June 14–20, 2019
Sister act: The writers of “Fiddler on the Rooftop Bar,” have moved the 1964 musical
to modern-day Williamsburg, with Tevye (right) as a wannabe social media star, and
his three daughters (above) as the California sibling act Haim.
‘Fiddler on the Roof’ moves
the musical to Williamsburg
On the shtet-L-train: Marcia Belsky stars at Tevye in the parody musical “Fiddler on
the Rooftop Bar,” at the Bell House on June 18.
It’s organ-ic music
Brooklynite plays organ at free concert
By Chandler Kidd
Brooklyn Paper
He’s got the funk!
A Brooklyn native will bring
the good news of the funky tunes
to Prospect Park next week. Cory
Henry and his band the Funk Apostles
will open for Tank and the Bangas
at the Bric Celebrate Brooklyn!
Festival on June 20, with Henry singing
and playing a church-style organ.
The musician said he got his start
tickling the keys when he was just a
toddler, listening in on his mother’s
choir rehearsal at the Unity Temple
in Bedford-Stuyvesant, he said.
“I happened to mimic some of
the notes that the choir was singing
on the piano. I started playing
when I was three and began playing
in the church when I was four,”
Henry said.
Henry got his start with gospel
music, but his music pulls from
jazz, R&B, soul, and rock to create
of a ride
THEATER
MUSIC
a musical style that he calls “future
funk.” His early exposure to gospel
records had a powerful influence
on the themes in his current music,
said the artist.
“The main message behind my music
is based on love and fun. When
I used to play in church, I learned
a lot from the gospel records that I
was listening to. I began to make my
own music that was separate from
what I was listening to,” Henry said.
“I now get to talk about things like
love, which the world needs.”
The organ virtuoso previously
played with the Brooklyn band Snarky
Puppy, an instrumental jazz-pop orchestra
that won a pair of Grammys
in 2017. He broke with the group in
2018 to form Cory Henry and the
Funk Apostles, and he has since discovered
a whole new role and set of
responsibilities, he said.
“I am doing so many things that
I wasn’t doing in Snarky Puppy.
Number one being I am the singer
and front man for the Funk Apostles
now,” Henry said. “Being a front
man has been a huge learning experience.”
In addition to his duties as front
man, Henry keeps busy with a host
of different projects, including writing
songs for a solo album, working
with the organ trio New Revival
Project, and recording a new album
with the Funk Apostles that will be
released this summer.
“My biggest challenge at the moment
is putting myself on a deadline
and getting these three separate projects
finished,” Henry said.
TV
Public health care does exist in Brooklyn, and
these doctors want you to know about it!
The latest episode of Medcast Plus, a locally
produced medical television show, aims to inform
Brooklynites about their right to access public
health care from Kings County Hospital.
The episode, which will air on June 15 on Free
Speech TV, focuses on how New York City doctors
care for patients who are uninsured.
During the 30-minute episode, host Dr. Jack
Braha and Dr. Steven Pulitzer tackle some common
misconceptions about citizens who do not
have the luxury of insurance — namely, that
they have no options.
Pulitzer, who is the Chief Medical Officer of
Kings County Hospital, described the services
that the Prospect-Lefferts Gardens medical provider
offers free to those without insurance.
“What Pulitzer and his team are doing is providing
in-patient and out-patient care to those
who have a high deductible, or have to pay outof
pocket,” Braha said.
According to Braha, Kings County provides
innovative preventative care to those who normally
would not be able to afford it. For example,
patients can go to Kings County to attend
a diabetics class, which informs patients how
to eat healthier and take measures to improve
their lives; along with other programs to help
prevent hospitalization.
“I learned from this conversation that Kings
County, especially Dr. Pulitzer, is shifting their
focus for preventative outpatient care, such as social
services and mental health,” Braha said.
The Medcast Plus episode also has a message
for the large population of Brooklynites
who are under-insured, or who stay at home
when they really need to seek out professional
health care.
“I hope those who watch the episode understand
that even if you are uninsured or undocumented,
public hospitals are picking up
where national health care is lacking,” Braha
said. “The main point is, those who are staying
home out of fear of not being able to afford
care should go to city hospitals, because they
will help you out.”
“Medcast Plus” airs on Brooklyn Free Speech
Channel 3 (Channel 79 on Spectrum, 9415 on
Dish, 348 on Direct TV, www.bricartsmedia.org/
tv-shows-videos/brooklyn-free-speech-tv). June
15 at 12:30 a.m., 8:30 a.m., and 2 p.m. Free.
— Chandler Kidd
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
If she were a rich man — she wouldn’t
have a brand new show!
Two Williamsburg comedians have
reinvented a classic Broadway musical as
a gender-bending parody of the real estate
market in Brooklyn’s hottest neighborhoods.
“Fiddler on the Rooftop Bar,”
at the Bell House on June 18, moves the
original tale from a 1905 Russian shtetl to
modern-day Williamsburg, with its characters
forced to move due to circumstances
outside of their control — a constant worry
for renters in popular Kings County nabes,
said one of its writers.
“The powerlessness of it, you really
have no control and it’s a power dictating
what’s going to happen to the place
where you’re going to live,” said Melissa
Stokoski, who created and stars in the
show with Marcia Belsky. “Just the uncertainty
of living in New York, especially
in Williamsburg.”
The two comics, who previously wrote
a parody musical of “The Handmaid’s
Tale,” are familiar with that uncertainty
— in anticipation of the L train’s closure,
they each moved closer to the J and M
trains, only for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to
announce the cancelation of the L-pocalypse
in January.
In their retelling of the 1964 musical,
Tevye — played by Belsky, who dons an
untamed beard and a raspy Russian-Jewish
accent — is a wannabe social media
influencer, working as the superintendent
for a couple of apartments in trendy Williamsburg.
He and his platonic roommate
Golde, along with several other tenants,
including actors portraying the hip band
Haim, consider moving due to the impending
L-train shutdown, then are evicted
when the landlord hears that well-heeled
employees of Amazon will soon be moving
to the neighborhood.
Just as the characters finish plans to
scatter to distant neighborhoods, the allpowerful
Tsar Cuomo announces the subway
closure averted, and the characters
spin conspiracy theories that real-estate
developers knew about the last-minute rescue
far in advance. Belsky discussed similar
theories with her friends, as condos
sprouted up near her former Bushwick
apartment in the months before the governor’s
announcement.
“I was living off the DeKalb L stop
and huge condos were going up and I was
thinking, ‘Don’t they know about the Ltrain
shutdown?’ ” Belsky said.
She and Stokoski said they wanted to
stage the discussions they were having
with friends about the shutdown, to show
how real people talked about the event,
beyond the news cycles and social media
debates.
“We like to make shows that talk in the
way we talk,” she said. “You see the news
takes and the Twitter hot takes, but you
don’t see how people talk among themselves.”
BOOKS
Greenlight
Bookstore’s pick:
“Furious Hours,” by
Casey Cep
Ooh, this book! It’s
got murder, intrigue,
politics, religion, history,
insurance fraud
(which I swear is actually
fascinating!), racial
history during the George
Wallace era, love, and so
much human complexity.
In theory this book is about author Harper
Lee — although she doesn’t even show up until
halfway through the book — and her intense
interest in a serial killing preacher in Alabama,
not far from her childhood home. But actually,
the book is about so much more. If you like big,
sprawling, but keep-it-together non-fiction narrative
books like those from Erik Larson or David
Grann, this book is for you. It is deeply satisfying
non-fiction candy.
— Rebecca Fitting, Greenlight Bookstore
686 Fulton St. between S. Elliott Place and S.
Portland Avenue in Fort Greene, (718) 246–
0200, www.greenlightbookstore.com .
Community
Bookstore’s pick:
“Underland,” by
Robert Macfarlane
The latest from natural
history heavyweight
Robert Macfarlane,
sub-titled “A Deep
Time Journey,” explores
the 4.5 billion-year history
of our planet’s subterranean
depths, and our
impact upon those underground
spaces. “Underland” weaves myth, science,
and prehistory together to explore caves,
graves, mines, telluric currents, the internet-offungus,
and more.
— 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 .
Word’s picks:
“Necessary People,”
by Anna Pitoniak
This sleek, ruthless
yarn about a rich girlpoor
girl friendship that
turns feverishly competitive
is psychologically
masterful and relentlessly
gripping. Pitoniak
has an acute eye
for the telling details
of class and upbringing in 21st-century New
York City.
— Mike Lindgren, Word 126 Franklin St. at
Milton Street in Greenpoint, (718) 383–0096,
www.wordbookstores.com .
“Fiddler on the Rooftop Bar” at the
Bell House 149 Seventh St. between
Second and Third avenues in Gowanus,
(718) 643–6510, www.thebellhouseny.
com. Jun. 18 at 7:30 p.m. $15.
Cory Henry and the Funk Apostles
open for Tank and the Bangas
at Prospect Park Band Shell (enter
at Ninth Street and Prospect Park
West in Park Slope, www.bricartsmedia.
org/cb). June 20 at 7:30
p.m. Free.
Jennifer Walkowiak
Jennifer Walkowiak
Care free
Greg Romenski
Weekend Reads
L
Celebration time! Cory Henry and the Funk Apostles will perform
at the Bric Celebrate Brooklyn! fest on June 20.
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