Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Song and Dance: Milo Cramer’s SCHOOL PICTURES and Jenn Freeman’s IS IT THURSDAY YET? artfully animate personal experiences

• By drediman
• December 16, 2023
• No Comments

This past week, I took came across a pair of performances that artfully – through song and dance, respectively – animated personal experiences. Read on for my thoughts on them.

SCHOOL PICTURES
Playwrights Horizons
Through December 16

Thanks to its final extension, I was able to catch Milo Cramer’s show School Pictures (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) at the Peter J. Sharp Theater. First staged at Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater, the work comes to New York as part of Playwrights Horizons’ mini fall repertory of quirky solo shows (the other shows on tap were Ikechukwu Ufomadu’s Amusements and Alexandra Tatarsk’s Sad Boys in Harpy Land). Charming and endearing, the work is essentially a collection of songs that reflect upon Cramer’s experience tutoring kids to get into competitive high schools (each song represents a student). In these intimate portraits, Cramer channels each student with uncanny and winning insight. Necessarily episodic, School Pictures is an altogether beguiling piece of theater that highlights the individualism of each child and the idiosyncrasies of teaching/learning. Lasting just an hour long, the song cycle is deceptively simple, elegantly and stealthily weaving in larger concerns, in particular the inequities of the New York Public School system. Indeed, what starts off as merely amusing eventual amasses a gravity that belies the playful construction of Cramer’s ditties. In both writing and performance, Cramer is a sensitive yet observational voice – the ideal vehicle to convey the subtleties and intricacies of learning in this day and age, especially in the city. I left the theater surprised at how moved I was by this unusual and disarming little show.

IS IT THURSDAY YET?
Perelman Performing Arts Center
Through December 23

Over the years, New York audiences have been privy to works of theater that have illuminated the condition of autism. Beyond How to Dance in Ohio currently on Broadway, there were also the Tony-winning stage adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, as well as Tectonic Theater Project’s Off-Broadway play Uncommon Sense. This December at the brand new Perelman Performing Arts Center, you’ll also find Jenn Freeman’s dance theater hybrid Is It Thursday Yet? (RECOMMENDED), which arrives in New York after a run on the west coast at La Jolla Playhouse. A collaboration between Freeman and Tony-winning choreographer Sonya Tayeh (who also directs), the piece is a response to Freeman’s autism diagnosis at the age of 33. Performed by Freeman herself, the dance solo is set against a multimedia collage comprised of evocative live music by Holland Andrews, therapy audio recordings, and home video footage. As a choreographic journey of self-discovery through movement, the work is thematically arranged – perhaps too neatly so. Freeman’s disposition throughout is cool and introspective, simply letting her restless, searching movements do the articulating. Even if her dancing ultimately registers as more analytical rather than emotionally expressive, it’s a valid choice that works, especially for a piece centered on self reflection. In summary, Is It Thursday Yet? is a unique and welcome addition to the growing number of shows that navigate the complexities and nuances of autism.