Speaking of the Brits, I mentioned my article on British street performer Therisa Barber, who lives in New York and performs a ballet mime act in Central Park and the New York subway. Well, three weeks ago she performed in a play produced by a small theater on East 24th Street near Madison Square. Titled "Love, Life and Redemption," and written by a woman named Setor Attipoe, it was about a Toni Morrison-type poet who is scheduled to give a speech about her life's work, and while asleep, she dreams of a group of theater students interpreting her poems as stage pieces. Therisa played one of the students. Except for a few murmurings at the beginning of the play, where she appeared as an ordinary young woman, she had no lines; she appeared as a whitefaced, ghostly mime figure who danced to the recitation of a poem by another actress. It was very surreal to see her look like an eerie apparition, but her approach worked. It was a variation on her living statue act.
After the play, Therisa - transformed back into herself - saw me and gave me a hug. She was so pleased that I made it to her performance - it was pretty much her New York stage debut! - and we rode home on the subway together as far as 42nd Street. It was really nice to see her and talk to her again. She's gone from being the subject of my latest (last?) profile article to being a dear friend of mine (yes, that was the ladyfriend I alluded to in an earlier post!) . Therisa is one of the sweetest, nicest, most engaging people I have met in a long time. I'm hoping this young woman will be the stage success she came to the Big Apple to become. :-)
As for the article. . . er, uh, I'm still trying to get it published. :-O
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