Billy McEntee has been fortunate to work for arts non-profits in Boston, Denver, Berkeley, and now New York. His writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Vanity Fair, American Theatre, HowlRound, Observer, and others. He's usually getting wine at Dandelion or eating cookies at Archestratus.
TASTE is back for its 10th anniversary! The TASTE Williamsburg Greenpoint Festival will take place on Sunday, September 15 from 1–4 PM at East River State Park (90 Kent Ave) in Williamsburg.
TASTE Williamsburg Greenpoint is a celebration of North Brooklyn’s local flavor, benefitting the Firehouse North Brooklyn Community Center. Now in its 10th year (!), the block party style tasting event will return to the scenic Williamsburg waterfront, bringing the neighborhood’s top restaurants, bars and independent merchants together with over 2,000 attendees to eat and drink for a great cause.
Confirmed restaurant and bar participants to date include Tacocina, Leuca, Barano, Lighthouse, Zona Rosa, Baba’s Pierogies and more, with more to be announced in the coming weeks.
Ticket sales will begin today via Eventbrite, here. Early bird tickets will start at $50 for general admission (8 food ‘tastes’ and all you can drink beverages), and VIP tickets start at $100 for all you can eat and drink, with early access to the event, and a gifting lounge with seating.
Proceeds from the event will once again go to benefit the Firehouse North Brooklyn Community Center, located in the former Engine 212 Firehouse at 134 Wythe Avenue, which is working to re-open as a crucial hub for the local community. After several years of successful fundraising towards the $2.8M goal, the project is nearly fully funded, with just $250,000 to go, and entering into the construction phase. Eat up while supporting a good cause!
We’ve profiled myriad artists in our Thursday Spotlight series, but it’s rare we get the pleasure of speaking with a podcaster, especially one whose comedic prowess is as fierce as Stewart Fullerton’s. New to Greenpoint (but not the city), Stewart has been hosting a weekly podcast Stayin’ Humble with Stew for almost six months where she rebels against, celebrates, and (per the title) humbles pop culture and those who stir it.
The podcast is nihilistic with a life-affirming, souther gothic spin, and is rich in millennial upspeak without an ounce of irony. Stayin’ Humble with Stew highlights how New York rains on each of our parades when we step outside in Ray Bans, high on Kimmy Schmidt levels of hopeful and entrepreneurial spirit. Personal recounts pepper the episodes (a funny one follows our hostess through the Pride parade, forgetting her wallet in the gay shuffle while dizzy on stolen treats from Slack’s Narnia closet full of expensive snacks), as do tips on Venmo etiquette (it’s not that hard), how to feel about Taylor Swift (sentiments change like the weather), and who should be the face of the Me Too movement (spoiler: it’s Brad Pitt). Follow her on Insta here, and dive into her saucy responses below!
Greenpointers: She’s new to the nabe! How has it treated you? Any fave spots yet? Stewart Fullerton: I am absolutely loving this neighborhood. Everyone here is SO hot and the girls here wear the most creative flats I’ve ever seen. The second I moved all my stuff in I needed to go shopping for trendier clothes and a pair of clogs. I live right around the corner from Goldie’s Bar which is where I’m currently spending my paycheck. I also LOVE Three’s Brewing, best beer/ burger combo in the game. For my margaritas: Calexico, great happy hour. And shout out to Variety Coffee.
This pod has been going strong for a couple months now, I believe. What was the impetus for creating Stayin’ Humble with Stew? People have always told me I have the perfect face for podcasting. JK. As a comedian, you have to think of yourself as your own business and do anything you can do to get your name out there. Once I realized I wanted to start a podcast I knew I wanted it to be about celebrity culture in some way. Celebrities are not from the same planet as us mere mortals and I have always been obsessed with that. I also wanted my podcast to feel like a slumber party where I am catching up with my listeners. So I just combined my two favorite things, talking bad about celebrities and updating people on the humbling things that happen in my life. Also, starting a podcast is the new gluten free: everyone’s doing it!
Theresa Buchheisteris a successful artist because she is a generous one; through multiple festivals and off-the-beaten-path venues, clandestine locales and dive hives, she has created myriad opportunities for creators of various stripes to express themselves and their craft. How fitting that she should rise to be The Brick’s new Artistic Director.
The Brick (579 Metropolitan Avenue) has long been a haven for comediennes, interpreters of classics, and everything in between. Now, Theresa — founder of the lauded and Brooklyn-based Exponential Festival — takes her vast producorial and artistic know-how to Williamsburg’s vital and ever-evolving destination for cutting-edge theatrical experience. Get to know this indefatigable artist in this week’s Thursday Spotlight!
Greenpointers: We cover artists in Greenpoint, Bushwick, and Williamsburg — but it’s certainly not uncommon for folks to move in and out of the boroughs. If memory serves, you’ve moved around quite a bit during your time in New York, but so much of your work has touched these neighborhoods, right?
Theresa Buchheister: Indeed. The first shows I did in the early 2000s were more in the East Village and LES, as that is where weird and wild stuff was still happening. But, as that started to really really change around 2008, I found myself more and more in Brooklyn doing shows in the backs of CC Rentals (as part of the Night Market), on boats on the Gowanus Canal (with Jeff Stark), and in DIY music venues (RIP Silent Barn, Secret Project Robot, Shea Stadium, soon The Glove), as well as lovely theatrical spaces, like The Brick.
Title:Point was a part of Silent Barn for almost four years, and that was the first home we ever had. It really taught us a lot about what is possible when you have even a little patch of land to build on. Vital Joint is in East Williamsburg and we started doing things there almost three years ago, which has also been a great home base, especially being on the same block as Panoply Performance Lab, now called Parallel. There is a vibrance that comes from relentlessly working with artists of all practices and learning from them and also struggling to make things work — I have dealt with more dead rats and sewage and toilets than I ever predicted I would.
I love Brooklyn. It is my home. It is where amazing people live and venues come and go. But we all still keep finding ways.
National Sawdust is a leading non-profit music venue dedicated to building new audiences for classical and new music
National Sawdust, the hot-on-the-rise performing arts institution in Williamsburg, announced its landmark fifth anniversary, “Take Root.” This season will be focused on celebrating the artistic process, from incubation to dissemination, while honoring the local and global artistic community that National Sawdust serves.
An artistic home for creatives and an incubator of vital new works, National Sawdust has practiced a devotion to representation of voices. In its fifth season, National Sawdust deepens its ties to its community and digs into its roots with the Artists-In-Residence program, which takes artists’ work from incubation to dissemination. This season’s class of residents are Lucy Dhegrae, Ash Koosha, Against The Grain Theatre, Kinds of Kings, Mwenso & The Shakes, and Sonic.
For its fifth season, National Sawdust is dedicating a week to each of its diverse National Sawdust Curators to better ensure that the organization’s curatorial model provides an invaluable platform for the artists selected and guided by the curators to advance their careers through performances on National Sawdust’s stage. This season’s curators are Black Thought (Tariq Trotter) and Ted Hearne.
“Take Root” also sees the public debut of National Sawdust’s partnership with Juilliard: the BluePrint Fellowship Program, a dual-track career, project mentoring, and commissioning course designed to leverage the extensive project development and presenting experience of the National Sawdust team and guest women and female-identifying mentors to help bridge the fellows’ training and bring their interdisciplinary projects to completion at National Sawdust. Guest composers for this first round, spearheaded by Prestini, include Prestini, Claire Chase, Reena Esmail, Nathalie Joachim, Alex Temple, and Laura Kaminsky.
Also, National Sawdust continues to stretch the boundaries of creative possibility through the launch of a long-term sound partnership with legendary Berkeley company Meyer Sound. With the installation of Meyer Sound’s Constellation® acoustic system as well as its immersive component Spacemap®, National Sawdust builds upon its already stellar reputation as a place for bold experimentation and creativity. Spacemap’s sophisticated, multi-channel panning system provides artists an extraordinary amount of freedom to explore and play with three-dimensional spatial sound, while Constellation offers an almost unlimited palette of acoustic possibilities with the press of a button.
Brooklyn celebrates artists of all stripes, but it’s rare you get one as versatile as Josh Craig. A professional DJ and, now, also a zine publisher, Josh has been a staple in the Brooklyn community for a few years. Now, he’s pulling double duty as he paves the way for his new publication, 11-18. Get to know this disk-spinning neighbor in this week’s Thursday Spotlight!
Greenpointers: Do you live in the neighborhood, and if so for how long? How’s it treated you?
Josh Craig: Currently I’m residing in Mallorca, Spain but I’ve been in Greenpoint for a good three years now. It’s treated me well. I’ve made some solid relationships, leveled up as a creator here and built my 1st home recording studio.
How did you get your start as a DJ, and what advice would you share with young artists getting their start?
I got my start DJing as a kid in New Jersey going to DMS parties on Fulton Street in Newark and making mix CDs for my friends with the Jersey Club tracks everyone loved at the raves we attended. Those mix CDs were my first stab at DJing. It wasn’t until I moved to Bushwick like six, seven years ago that I started playing records in clubs. Shouts to KLIENFELD of Suavehaus who put me on game.
The advice I have for any young artists getting started is to play what you feel in ya heart. Play your friends music not just top 40. Support only what is real and invest in some turntables. Vinyl helps too.
Wythe Hotel (80 Wythe Avenue) is now hosting Sunset Songs, a five-part series curated by IAMSOUND at Lemon’s — the newest summer rooftop concept by Jon Neidich and Golden Age Hospitality. Zsela, a rising singer and songwriter of melodic, folksy ballads popular with the bicoastal art and fashion scene, recently kicked off the program, and the lineup continues on various Tuesdays this summer.
Attendance to Sunset Songs is free with RSVP, and guests are encouraged to secure their spot early. See below for the full details!
WHO: Sunset Songs curated by IAMSOUND
WHERE: Lemon’s at Wythe Hotel, 80 Wythe Avenue, Brooklyn NY
WHEN: See artwork above for various Tuesday dates from 6–9 PM
The Franklin Guesthouse has been motherless for years, but at long last Madre has arrived.
Serving a curated menu that veers toward comfort food and offering a homey-chic ambiance germane to birthday dinners and happy hours alike, Madre indeed evokes a maternal vibe at 214 Franklin Street. But don’t let the name confuse you: Madre is neither a Mexican restaurant nor a tapas bar. Instead, it serves a delectable medley of new-American cuisine with plenty of punch in its dozen or so dishes. Come for the dollar oysters, stay for everything else.
Shuga Pie Supreme is thrilled to present The Goodbye Party by Charlie O’Leary, directed by Charles Quittner, at Boscoe Barles Backyard (290 North 6 Street) this Friday through Sunday at 8.
This outdoor, site-specific play centers on a goodbye party for the (semi-)fictional Stevie. “I wanted to write a play about the impossibility of letting go, a play that was a tribute to my time in New York, but mostly I just wanted to trick this group of collaborators into hanging out with me for a week. I think this play is a reflection of that,” says O’Leary. “Also, it’s a pizza party.”
This 60-minute musical play will feature Ae Andreas (AKA God Complex, BK Drag King of the Year), Robert Dowling (Ding Dong It’s The Ocean), Chris Ignacio, and Curry Whitmire. Anne Ciarlone produces the play with music by David Carl, Nikolai Mishler, and Charlie O’Leary. “I’ve always wanted to do a backyard-in-Brooklyn play, despite never actually having lived there,” O’Leary adds. “I’m so glad that Boscoe Barles has given me the opportunity to join the ranks of low-budget site-specific theatremakers all the borough over.”
Tickets are a suggested donation of $12 and can be reserved at goodbyeparty.bpt.me.
Shuga Pie Supreme is a Brooklyn-based performance company of fleeting trifles and pizza parties “having fun with futitlity” (The New York Times). They previously produced Cowboy at Target Margin, …Coriolanus and It’s Cymbeline 🤷🏻 at the Brick, He Hurt Himself in His Confusion at The Glove, and Toxic if Swallowed at AmericanAF and The LGBT Center.
One of Carri’s #DrawingADay portraits, as seen on her Instagram
Carri Skoczek has enjoyed a decades-spanning career, in which time she has shown from everywhere from the Coney Island Mermaid Parade to Clem’s Bar. Now, she’s enjoying the dedication and regiment of #DrawingADay, using social media as a vehicle to exhibit (and often sell) her works. She also has a show now at Figureworks (168 North 6th Street) where her interest in dolls of all shapes and sizes is on full display. Get to know this local artist and her versatile craft in today’s Thursday Spotlight!
Greenpointers: You’ve had a number of shows in Brooklyn and have lived here for a bit. Can you briefly describe your trajectory and how you came to live in the borough?
Carri Skoczek: I moved to Brooklyn when i was 40 in 1997, a year after meeting my New York-born and bred partner in crime, David Hurd, in New Orleans at Jazz Fest. It was magical. We discovered we had the same friends.
Kerry Smith from the Right Bank Cafe insisted I run his gallery, which I did from 1997 to 2001. It was the perfect way to meet local artists and gallerists in the heyday of the Williamsburg art scene.
My first solo show in Brooklyn was at the Williamsburg Art and Historical Society in 1997. I curated an annual mermaid show celebrating the Coney Island Mermaid Parade for 10 years. I was also an award-winning participant in the parade. (I was a costume designer in Milwaukee for 12 years and that satisfied my urge to play dress up and design costumes for my friends.) I’ve shown at Holland Tunnel Gallery since the beginning. Participated in every annual epic group show Ritchie Timperio put on at sideshow gallery. I also had a solo show there in 2016. I was represented by Causey Contemporary from 1999 until she closed the gallery doors in 2015.
I’ve been in funky group shows in the local bars. I did a drunk girl show at Clem’s Bar in the late 90s. Two drunk girl chalkboard drawings are still in the window.
North 3rd Street Market, an indoor food hall located in the heart of Williamsburg, is hosting a free Summer Block Party on Saturday, July 13th from 12–4 PM to celebrate our vibrant community neighbors, five just-added vendors, and the season! Festivities at 103 North 3rd Street are open to the public.
Guests and neighbors can expect:
Arcade games (skeeball, pop-shot, etc)
Live DJ sets
Kid-friendly activities like face painting and temporary tattoo artists
Food and drink from tons of vendors: Baba’s Pierogis (whimsical Polish specialties), Brooklyn Shave Ice (colorful and nostalgic shaved ice desserts), Bun (Vietnamese-style salads and sandwiches), Champion Coffee (a mainstay for over a decade), Chuko (Japanese for “vintage,” this is a classic ramen bistro), Di Farra Pizza (a family-owned business since 1965), Diggy’s Dogs (hot dogs with DIY toppings), East Wind Snack Shop (serving traditional Chinese specialties), Gracie Baked (an experimental bakery), Greenberg’s Bagels (named after the first Jewish player in the MLB!), JaJaJa (serving south-of-the-border cuisine with a Brooklyn flair), Kalamaki (Greek cuisine), Lobster Joint (a Greenpoint gem),Sweet Road Bevs (health-focused juices), Tap NYC (authentic Brazilian crepes), The Little Red Planet (children’s designs), VISH (a hummus bar).
