Natalya and I had been mulling venues for a while. Given the collective nature of the project, the group spilts rental cost equally (founders pay for promotional materials, and writer/directors props & sets for their piece) which is a great way for us to find a performance space for the cost of less than a cinema ticket each.
Performing for just one night also keeps us on our toes and highlights the performance art character and transitory quality of what we’re trying to achieve, while broadcasting live allows us to access a large audience aside from the crowd actually in the venue, and archive the event. It’s theatre and film, but not as you know it.
But, while we’d been offered a number of traditional off-Broadway venues, we were/are keen to have the show in an art space to keep to the informal, interactive, multi-art focus and grassroots nature of the group. However, venue hunting has proved a surprisingly difficult Goldilocks and the Three Bears type task, with each space too small or too large or just not quite right.

We greatly enjoyed performing at Galapagos (now renamed Public Assembly) back in April and, while it was the perfect size to accommodate our cast/crew of about 20 and house an audience of about 80, there was no way to guarantee the booking on the main stage, which meant competing with various bands throughout the evening as the doors opened and closed. Also, our aim is to create a different experience each time, so a new space was important.
This time round, we emailed around and both Brian Chirls and Lance Weiler recommended I talk to Fritz Donnelly, a filmmaker finalist in From Here to Awesome, and also very plugged into the alternative exhibition scene. He in turn recommended we check out a space called Slip, and after a call to the lovely proprietress Christina herself, Natalya and I went down to check it out, as well as some of Fritz’s films which were showing that night.

Slip turned out to be a secret tiny jewel nestled incongruously between a Crops for Girls hair salon and a clothing wholesalers; a beacon of smart avant garde creativity quietly and unassumingly tucked away amidst a Lower East Side sea of matching….yawn….lumberjack shirt dumb-not -so-ironic drunken chaos.

After mistakenly walking past the unmarked venue a few times, I pushed back a heavy curtain to find a small room filled with fifteen or so people sitting on haphazard chairs, drinking rum and coke out of plastic cups, laughing and talking and mesmerized by the makeshift screen in front of them.

I noticed faces I recognized but couldn’t immediately place, until I realized that they were a bunch of filmmakers/actors – including Susan Buice, Taryn O Wiehahn and Roger Ingraham – that I’d watched on Justin TV as they streamed live from their set a month or so ago, and now involved in the participatory film As The Dust Settles – the Neo-Bohemian filmmakers, as I’d heard someone once call them.

A pink tights clad Fritz warmly welcomed me, and like a perfect dinner party host personally introduced everyone one by one, while Christina offered refills and chatted with me and Natalya about the space. Unfortunately we knew instantly it was too small for us, but I couldn’t help be fascinated by the energy they created there, and she was keen to help with suggestions of friend’s spaces that were larger.

We watched a series of Fritz’s incredible short films/essays, created under the nomenclature To The Hills, one of which was shot in the space itself, and another shot using his Nokia N95 – to great effect – then broke to talk some more. DVDs were raffled off to support the evening, and stuffed animal toys that were crafted at one of their previous sessions were brought out, with the largest creation tried on by Natalya, who then proceeded to test out Friday night street reactions, to some bemusement by the bridge and tunnel crowd standing in line for the club next door.

We moved on to watch some of Richard Sandler’s fascinating feature (and all edited in camera he told us!) The Gods of Times Square as more people filtered in and out casually. The atmosphere was lively, supportive and so genuinely friendly – a real treat. The night finished with chatting and late night pizza a few blocks away – Fritz resplendent in his pink tights – and I arrived back home to an email from Christina introducing me to a friend of hers who runs the Catherine Slip Studio space (unfortunately too expensive for us – this time round). The next day, I received another from Fritz, thoughtfully listing the people I met (see below).

Overall, while the venue did not work for us for this particular show with Me & Them, it was so great to meet a community of imaginative, like-minded people creating consistently and supporting, sharing and connecting others.  Thanks guys it was a blast – and I will be back very soon.
I’d meant to interview Christina on camera about the how, why and what of the space, but ran out of time.  Instead I hope to include these in a audio post at a later date – check back soon.