Annie Get Your Bat

Annie Lanzillotto's The Flat Earth: WheredaFFFhuck Did New York Go?--part of Dixon Place's 2008 Hot! Festival--is one woman's backlash against the forces of real estate development that are rendering our city unrecognizable to anyone with more than a minute's worth of memory in their heads.

Lanzillotto packs a lot into this roaring (and roaringly funny) 90-minute extravaganza in a vest-pocket performance space. Her monologue (with a quiet assist from Audrey Kindred and Caitlin Michener, who dance a bit, too) is a thing of wonder--stuffed with color and volume ("I'm not yelling! It's just my accent!"), geological and historical factoids, urban folklore and personal stories of loss and survival, all delivered with a killer combination of Italian-American and butch dyke charm. This is powerful, skillful, poetic performance, born of "the edges of the city where my journeys began" and filled with "buttons and epithets" (a delightful mis-speaking--for "epaulets"--if not deliberate). Lanzillotto will remind you that "neighborhood" means "where the butcher comes to your funeral" and help you get in touch with your Inner Glitter. In her smackdown between Pachelbel and Joan Jett, guess who wins?

Get onboard Annie's houseboat. You've got just two more chances--tonight and tomorrow--and Dixon Place isn't exactly roomy. So, hurry!

Dixon Place
Annie Lanzillotto