Ode to Intimations of Mortality

Young Jean Lee is known for her incredibly daring, if not divisive theatrical voice and insistence on tackling difficult subject matters in her plays like The Shipment or Lear. It was especially because of the structures of her last plays that I was so intrigued when it was announced that she would be premiering her 13P show, We're Gonna Die, at Joe's Pub last April. And it would have music in it. And she would star in it.

While perhaps less of a musical, per se, and more of a cabaret, this show still manages to blend story and music (played by band Future Wife) in an incredibly affecting, personal way. By turns winning and almost gleeful while still dealing with painfully personal anecdotes about loneliness, the show manages to hit a lot of raw nerves without being gratuitous or manipulative. Instead, it's a strangely intimate but safely withheld performance bearing simple but truthful lyrics, dreamy music, and relatable stories about glimpses into our own mortality.

While the show ended its run a couple of months ago, you can (and should!) watch the entirety of the show through Joe's Pub's Livestream channel or in the video below:

joespub on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Spending Christmas Alone

In speaking of the holidays, just had to post this gem from brilliant playwright Young Jean Lee's new collaboration with Tim Simmonds as a part of One-Woman Show, the next show to be produced by 13P. Listen to the song "I'm Spending Christmas Alone" here, which is a fantastic tune that sharply captures the seemingly depressing, surprisingly liberating idea of spending the holidays like any other days. Here are some sample lyrics The New York Times ArtsBeat Blog posted that I absolutely love:

I wake up Christmas morning
No presents and no tree
No friends or neighbors calling
No loving family
I pour a bowl of cereal and turn on the TV
A hundred different channels
A hundred shows for me.