Jukebox Jackie
Opening Night: May 30, 2012
Closing: June 10, 2012
Theater: La MaMa E.T.C.
Backed by a full rock band, Justin Vivian Bond, Bridget Everett, Cole Escola and Steel Burkhardt are among those featured in the cast of JUKEBOX JACKIE: Snatches of Jackie Curtis — a collage of scenes, poetry, music and dance culled from the works of Jackie Curtis, who performed as both a man and a woman throughout his career in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, stating, "I’m not a boy, not a girl. I’m just me, Jackie."
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June 1, 2012
An appropriate air of disorderly fabulousness pervades “Jukebox Jackie,” a scrapbook of a show at La MaMa that pays spirited tribute to Jackie Curtis, one of the pioneering gender adventurers who orbited Andy Warhol in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Conceived and directed by Scott Wittman, lyricist for the bubbly musical “Hairspray” and the television series “Smash,” the show features a cast of four embodying various aspects of the Curtis persona — or really I should say personae — as they reel through an evening of classic glitter-rock hits from the era, in between selections from Curtis’s songs, plays, poems and journals.
READ THE REVIEWMay 30, 2012
It’s easy to embrace a show that knows what it is. The sometimes trippy, always terrifically performed “Jukebox Jackie” at La MaMa does. Subtitled “Snatches of Jackie Curtis,” the bio-cabaret celebrates in near-random bursts the short, shimmering life of a New York original who rose to downtown acclaim in the late ’60s.
READ THE REVIEWMay 30, 2012
“Jukebox Jackie” is a mad little extravaganza that celebrates Jackie Curtis, a gender-bending performer and writer who was, among other things, a Warhol superstar and a downtown pioneer of the glitter rock scene of the 1970s. Opening on Wednesday at La MaMa, “Jukebox Jackie” is a collage of scenes, poetry, film and songs written by or associated with Curtis, who died of a heroin overdose in 1985. Don’t expect to get a comprehensive biography here so much as an atmospheric impression of a self-dramatizing glamour puss who thrived on the stardust of old movies and late nights in the back room at Max’s Kansas City.
READ THE REVIEWMay 31, 2012
“Jukebox Jackie” sets out to restore some karmic balance to the universe, by giving audiences an overdue primer on what made the late, great artist tick. This self-professed “collage” has elements of a biopic, a celebrity confession beach read, a poetry slam, a rock concert and a few other things that (like its subject) can’t be defined or described. You just know it when you see it…and what you see is more than enough to make you a Jackie convert.
READ THE REVIEWMay 31, 2012
We learn all we need to know about the title character of "Jukebox Jackie: Snatches of Jackie Curtis" when, posed in a spotlight, our hero whips off his sunglasses to reveal—more sunglasses! Jackie Curtis, Andy Warhol star and glam-rock inspiration, did not hide behind his theatrical exterior. Theatricality was, for him, authenticity. Therefore, bringing Curtis back to the stage in the circular form of the musical revue is only natural (so to speak), as is splitting him into different "selves" that mix his public performances and private diaries. Surrounding him with a set (by Scott Pask) as pink and glittery as Marilyn Monroe’s closet and casting Mx. Justin Vivian Bond, cabaret royalty and successor in many ways to Curtis, are also smart choices. "Jukebox Jackie," conceived and directed by Scott Wittman, is a jukebox musical for the downtown crowd, built almost entirely from Curtis’ (mostly) original songs, films, plays, and poetry.
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