Author: Dan Metz

Categories
Beauty Health

Pisterzi: Cutting Through the Chaff

Pisterzi Italian Grooming Art changes the way New York men look at grooming with a unique approach to the barbershop experience.

  

An unlikely shelter hides in the heart of downtown. Freezing winds, erratic snows, and city stress fall away in Pisterzi Italian Grooming Art’s latest Atelier, an authentic Italian barbershop in SOHO that brings new levels to the barbershop experience. Italian Master Barber Gian Antonio Pisterzi, the company’s founder, created Pisterzi Italian Grooming Art to make his own mark with an Italian style unique to the city with locations in Milan and NYC. His newest location, at 367 W Broadway, is the first to match with the colors and textures of his brand, a space that he can claim as his own. The new space embraces an intimate boutique feel of a sanctuary, which Pisterzi aims to enhance with the shop’s two private rooms where clients can enjoy one-on-one services and get pampered by the expert hands of Pisterzi barbers. Pisterzi wants to create a bubble that lets both parties focus on the barbershop experience, and to let all else fall to the wayside. 

“The grooming market has grown in the past years” says Gian Antonio Pisterzi. “More men are now taking time for themselves and do not look for a simple haircut anymore. Throughout my experience, I came to know and understand better the desires and needs of customers and I have been trying to translate them into the services we provide at the ateliers. Opening a second location in the Big Apple was a step that I was longing to take, and doing it in the energetic heart of New York, felt like the right choice to make.”

Pisterzi Italian Grooming Art has also launched a new line of high-end products, which includes gels, serums, conditioners for beard and hair, cosmetics with multiple functions, and more specific treatments. The launch will also include three fragrances entirely created and produced in Italy. Born within an elegant and sophisticated Italian lifestyle, the products will also be sustainable: they will use 100% recycled paper, post-consumer aluminum, and will have reusable, refillable containers. 

Pisterzi is a graduate of the prestigious Steiner Academy in London and a beholder of extensive experience as an international Master Barber in luxury brands such as Dolce & Gabbana and Acqua di Parma. Just recently, he added to his board Andrea Pirlo, the Internationally renowned soccer champion. Pirlo, who is a big aficionado of cosmetic products for personal care and well-being, faces this new challenge with enthusiasm: “I had the pleasure of personally meeting Gian Antonio Pisterzi in New York and I was struck by the culture expressed by his know-how and unique care that Barberia Pisterzi offers to its customers. I immediately wished I could be the protagonist of this enterprise which, today, evolves through a range of high-level products and a restyling of the barbershops in a sustainable way.”

Pisterzi’s other NYC atelier is located at Cipriani Club 55 in Wall Street. Check out their website for more.

Categories
Business Culture Entertainment Music NYC

Making Waves

Blonde Records’ Founder Rebecca Autumn Sansom (first left) Seeks Inclusivity with Wavy Awards.

OCTOBER 23RD, 2021 MARKED THE FIRST EVER WAVY AWARDS SHOW, the name making  a play on digital audio WAV files. The show is  a celebration of “historically excluded talent,”  including musicians that are women, members  of the LGBTQ+ community, and persons with  disabilities. As each presenter took the stage at  Abrons Arts Center, they leaned into the mic and  described themselves — their hair color, outfit, or  personal aesthetic — for blind audience members  and nominees. The awards also featured two  American Sign Language interpreters who  took turns interpreting the speeches and  performances. For the brainchild of Blonde Records Founder Rebecca Autumn Sansom, The  Wavy Awards marked an ending, as well as a new  beginning, in her career.  

Sansom never intended to get into the music  industry. She considers herself a “filmmaker  trapped in an artist’s body.” She was at Stanford  doing performance and theater when she met  “M the Myth,” an artist, collaborator, and then undergrad. “I’m a filmmaker, so I’m drawn to  captivating subjects. So really, I would just film  these people. And then I realized after helping  M with their music video campaign for ‘Let’s Get  Drunk Anyway,’ that cheerleading artists, filming  them, and encouraging their careers is a job  called management.” She formed Blonde Artist  Management in New York City, named after  Marilyn Monroe, with whom she identifies and  felt might have lived with different support and  management.  

For five years, Sansom ran Blonde Artist Management. This past year she also founded  and ran Blonde Records and Blonde Music News, a weekly NYC music podcast. The Wavys were a big step for Blonde and its mission, but  also for Sansom, who is the first to recognize her  own privileges and those whose lack of privilege  often leaves them out of the spotlight.  

The Wavy Awards was always going to be a pivot point for Sansom. “The Wavys was going to be my last grand gesture,” says Sansom, “and then I was going to gather information and see what the next steps were for Blonde.” 

Wavy Awards 2021. Photo by Stephanie Aguello.

The ball started rolling in December 2020,  after a year of weekly Blonde Music News episodes. “I told (my team) about this idea and how we have enough people, enough artists to have a pretty robust pool to glean  from.”  There were eleven people at the first meeting. Then the team started expanding, with partnerships with organizations like Rampd  (Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities), local news website Scenes from the Underground, and Shira Gans from the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment. By the time the event actually happened, Sansom and partners were staring down a full house. 

The response was overwhelming. The Wavys have gone from a one-off event, into an annual awards show. It helped Sansom find a new direction; she will continue to support her coterie of artists, but the Wavy Awards has become her flagship effort. Blonde Music News, for example, has rebranded as Wavy Music News. “New York is the creative capital of the world and draws a lot of diversity,” says Sansom, “I think creating accessible spaces is the most important thing we can do right now, with the momentum that we have.”

In addition to the Wavys, Sansom has a film, Reckoning with the Primal Wound, coming out in 2022. It has already been accepted into seven film festivals. DT

For more information on The Wavy Awards, visit thewavys.org.

Categories
Culture Living Music

Glow Up

SHINE ON The PAC's translucent marble walls will light up from the inside at night.

SHINE ON The PAC’s translucent marble walls will light up from the inside at night. Photography by Luxigon.

The Perelman Performing Arts Center will bring beauty and closure to downtown.

IN THE WAKE OF THE SEPTEMBER 11TH ATTACKS on the World Trade Center complex, great architectural minds gathered around the devastation to rebuild. Nearly 20 years later, their plan is coming to fruition. The Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center, or PAC, will mark the final construction effort in the decades- long project.

The building, a massive cube wrapped in translucent marble and laminated with insulated glass, will let in sunlight during the day and emit a visible glow from internal lights at night. The inside will feature three modular theater spaces and a rehearsal room, all with movable walls and seating, capable of 11 unique configurations to accommodate audiences of 99 – 1200 people. With the last steel beam placed this summer, the PAC is looking to host its first performance in 2023.

“I think it’s extraordinary,” says PAC Creative Director Bill Rauch, “that there was an impulse to include arts and culture as part of the rebuilding, and we kept that impulse alive and nurtured it.”

The PAC was a cornerstone piece of the original 2003 recovery plan. The project was designed by the Brooklyn-based firm REX, replacing the earlier choice of Frank Ghery, in collaboration with theater designer Charcoalblue and executive architect Davis Brody Bond. Rockwell Group is handling the design of the restaurant and lobby space. The planners hoped that it would be the cultural lynchpin of the World Trade Center, helping to redefine Lower Manhattan as a cultural destination.

“In the planning for the recovery and rebuilding of the World Trade Center,” says PAC president Leslie Koch, “[former] Mayor Bloomberg articulated the importance of integrating the arts into a vision for Lower Manhattan as a dynamic 24/7 neighborhood with workers, residents, and visitors.

“Now,” Koch continues, “18 years after the World Trade Center plan was adopted, Lower Manhattan is thriving, with tens of thousands of residents, media, and technology firms joining the financial anchors of New York City and literally millions of visitors. As the city emerges from the pandemic, the Performing Arts Center, with Mike Bloomberg as our chair, will again be both an icon and a catalyst of New York’s resurgence.”

The PAC is also dedicated to reaching out to the community, both locally and citywide. They hired Jenna Chrisphonte as their Director of Civic Alliances, charged with cultivating relationships with community-based organizations and groups, marginalized populations, and community officials across all five boroughs. They also hope that the building can be a resource to the local community. The first level will be accessible to the public, open until midnight every night. It will feature a cafe and bar, lobby area, dance podium, and performance art space, the latter two of which will periodically have free performances.

Rauch hopes that PAC will be a symbol of its surroundings and of human resilience.“Whether the art is tragic or joyful, all the work that we do is in celebration of humanity,” he says. “There’s a reason why [the PAC] glows from within.” DT

For more information, visit theperelman.org.

Categories
Art Culture Lifestyle Living NYC Theater

Signs of the Times

Broadway SIGNs.
SIGNmation showcases deaf talent with Broadway SIGNs. Photo by Steve Thornton.
Broadway SIGNs.
SIGNmation showcases deaf talent with Broadway SIGNs. Photo by Steve Thornton.

DEAF AND HARD-OF-HEARING AUDIENCE MEMBERS recently gathered at Off-Broadway’s Triad Theatre for Broadway SIGNs! theatrical showcase R-E-S-P-E-C-T!, featuring song, dance, storytelling, and more. In the front row, American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters voiced for deaf artists as they took the stage. Hosted by Mervin Primeaux-O’Bryant, the show featured performances by artists of all backgrounds, from Broadway’s Treshelle Edmond and Amelia Hensley, to ASL rap performer and ASL instructor Gabriel Silva, to Sunshine 2.0, a performance troupe debuting from Rochester’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf.

Broadway SIGNs! productions offer collaborations for deaf artists and Broadway talent to promote ASL and deaf culture in the performing arts. The showcase is a regular event, pulling together performers from the deaf and hard-of-hearing performance community. SIGNmation was founded in 1990 by Jo-Ann Dean, inspired by a stage door encounter with Tony-winning deaf actress Phyllis Frelich in New York City.

“She invited me to Deaf West Theatre,” explains Dean. “Upon meeting incredible deaf and ASL artists, I sought a way to bring ASL intomainstream culture, to give artists a platform and to promote the visibility of ASL on stage, in theatre, and in film, and champion accessibility to the arts.” Dean is now a coproducer on A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet starring Alex Wyse, Ben Fankhauser, and Bryonha Marie Parham with book and lyrics by Wyse & Fankhauser. As the story goes, two nobodies dream of writing one hit song for everybody, sung by one aging diva.

The musical comedy lead producer Cody Lassen has opened doors to new producers and welcomes some of Broadway’s first ASL-interpreted performances for the musical. Dean and SIGNmation welcome Wall Street to sponsor accessibility as stages reopen.

Edmond, 31, who has performed in Broadway productions of Spring Awakening and Children of a Lesser God, was given her own day of recognition in 2016 by the City Council of Los Angeles, which designated September 28 as “Treshelle Edmond Day.” This year, she performed a one-woman show in New York City called “Light Up Within,” which follows her journey to find her identity.

“It means the world to me that I was provided a platform to perform in American Sign Language,” she says. “I love that SIGNmation believes in culturally-accessible content for arts, theatre, film, and television to make sure everyone is included.”

Gabriel Silva, who performed Empire’s “Chasing the Sky” at the showcase, is also a father and teacher with the Sign Language Center, an educational program owned and run by Alan Roth and taught exclusively by deaf instructors. It is also a sponsor of Broadway SIGNs!

“I never planned to teach,” he says, until Roth saw him perform and asked him to teach one class. “One class became two, and then three and four. It was like a new undiscovered talent that I didn’t know I had.” But Silva remains a performer first and foremost, including in LA with Dean’s ASL Cabaret. This year marked his first Broadway SIGNs! performance. “I always knew I was talented,” says Silva, “but I wasn’t sure how to show the world. SIGNmation has given me a platform to grow as an artist and opportunities to meet and collaborate with other deaf artists.” He continues, “I’m forever appreciative for Jo-Ann and everything she does for us as a community.” DT

For more information, visit signmation.com

RESOURCES

SIGNmation

signmation.com

A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet

reginacomet.com

Sign Language Center

signlanguagecenter.com

New York Deaf Theatre

newyorkdeaftheatre.org

Hands On

handson.org

New York Metro RID

nycmetrorid.org

Categories
Culture Events Featured Theater

An ASL Performance for Regina Comet

Regina Comet
Photo credit Matthew Murphy

“A Commerical Jingle for Reginia Comet” is *running* an ASL-interpreted performance of their show on November 20th at 3pm. The performance is part of a partnership with Broadway SIGNs! and show producer Jo-Ann Dean. Regina Comet is the story of two nobodies dreaming of writing one hit song for everybody…and a diva. It stars Alex Wyse (Spring Awakening, Waitress) and Ben Fankhauser (Newsies) as two struggling songwriters and Bryonha Marie Parham (Prince of Broadway) as the eponymous Regina Comet. Wyse and Fankhauser also wrote and composed the book for the show. Tickets are available at reginacomet.com.

Since their opening in September, Regina Comet has drawn audiences, laughs, and rave reviews, including from this website. The show follows two struggling songwriters, so anonymous that they go unnamed in the show and are billed as “Man 2” and “Other Man,” who get the chance of a lifetime when over-the-hill diva Regina Comet hires them to write a new song to advertise her new fragrance, “Relevance.” The results are creative, endearing, and hilarious. 

The November 20th ASL-interpreted show also marks one of the last performances of the show at the DR2 theatre. 

So hop online now and check out A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet, running through November 21st, 2021.

Regina Comet Description

Categories
Art Culture Entertainment Featured NYC Theater

A Musical Success for Regina Comet

Bryonha Marie Parham as Regina Comet singing in A Commerical Jingle for Regina Comet
Bryonha Marie Parham as Regina Comet

`What would you do if you finally got your chance to shine? Maybe it’s your first chance. Maybe it’s your last. In A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet, two writers and a diva get that chance when the diva, Regina Comet, hires two jingle writers to create a song for her upcoming fragrance release, Relevance. The musical is goofy, charming, and tons of fun in a joke-a-minute journey through the emotions behind the creative process. 

Regina is a star in decline. In an age of Instagram, she’s lost too many of the nuances of the 13-18 demographic that used to be her fanbase. Audiences don’t get an exact age, but we get the feeling the new tween fanbase is made up of the kids or even grandkids of the fans who once flocked to Comet’s concerts. Desperate to draw the spotlight again, her managers convince her that her best shot at teens catching her scent is through a fragrance, which she names Relevance. But all is not well: her commercial efforts have fallen short and, in a last bid to make things happen, she hires out a songwriting pair— the cheapest option available— to pen a jingle that will blast Regina’s career back into outer space. The show follows the efforts of the two songwriters— never named but billed as Man 2 and Other Man— and Comet as the three claw desperately at the promise of relevance and success. 

The characters put their heads together to create One Hit Song
The characters put their heads together to create One Hit Song

At the heart of the show beats Ben Fankhauser and Alex Wyse, who play Man 2 and Other Man and co-wrote the music, book, and lyrics for the show. Inspired by their real-life friendship and a desire to carve out their place in New York City theatre, the show is a comedy-of-errors reflection of the pair’s real search for musical success. And it is clear that the pair are in on the joke. When Fankhauser’s Man 2 is struck by musical inspiration, he pushes aside the show’s music director and keyboardist Alex Goldie Golden and takes over the music mid-song. To play bumbling, struggling versions of themselves in a musical with hit after hit is, to borrow a modern phrase, quite the flex. 

Bryonha Marie Parham likewise shines as Regina Comet, commanding her scenes in a role she fills with perfection and enthusiasm that perfectly matches the show’s sometimes serious, sometimes absurd tone. Comet, who could be a plot device with a solo, comes alive under Parham’s stewardship, aided by the actress’s input in the creative process.

A Commerical Jingle for Regina Comet is a welcome return to live theater— light-hearted, fun, simple, and straightforward. It is the perfect way to venture back out into public, into theater, and head home laughing. 

A Commerical Jingle for Regina Comet is playing at the DR2 Theatre. Learn more and get tickets at reginacomet.com