Orange Monsoon plays again tonight with Shugamilk, Have Blue at The Jungle and Anal Pudding will be making the trip down the I-90 from Buffalo along with Peanut Brittle Sattelite to play at The Electric Supply Co. (292 Flushing Ave).  This band features the Buffalo infringement’s music coordinator Curt Rotterdam.  This show will also be underground shows and the one at The Jungle will end with a jam.

This type of show and the infringement have a history.  In 2006, a good half of the theatre and music shows at the Ottawa infringement were basement shows and in Montreal last year, all of the fundraisers and even some events during the fest, namely visual arts and spoken-word were done this way.  There’s something about the free-flowing, jamming and no-need-for-a-“proper”-space nature of these events that just screams infringement.

This year’s Brooklyn infringement is a two-day affair.  Weekend infringements have happened before, most notably in Toronto 2004 and can be a real fun way to experience the infringement for the first time.  Also, this can whet the appetite for more infringing and lay the groundwork for future infringement festivals to take place in the same community.

An infringement in April (the first time this has happened) is also a great early way to kick off a circuit that will roll into Montreal in June and run at least into August when Buffalo wraps up and may even go longer and feature more communities rising up and infringing artistically.

To attend tonight’s show in Brooklyn, you need to RSVP to brooklyn@infringementfestival.com and to keep up to date on the 2009 circuit, keep checking this page.

PHOTO: Orange Monsoon on stage last night at Don Pedro (by Gwen Sanchirico)

Manny Fried at the opening of the space that bears his name.

by Jason C. McLean

Manny Fried was once called the worst subversive in Buffalo.  Now this actor, playwright, union organizer and all-around artistic activist has a theatre named after him thanks, appropriately, to Buffalo’s Subversive Theatre Collective.

“We hope to represent the connection between theatre and community activism,” says Kurt Schneiderman, Subversive’s artistic director and the co-founder and ‘overall scheduling dude’ of Buffalo’s infringement festival, “Fried is the embodiment of that connection.”

Fried began his career as an actor in New York City in the 30s and 40s and moonlighted as a factory worker.  He felt an ethical obligation to join a union and eventually rose to a leadership role.  After red-baiting and government crackdowns, he was forced out in 1956 and blacklisted for 16 years.

During his exile, Fried turned once again to theatre, writing dozens of plays theatrically documenting what had happened to him and others in the union movement.  In 1970’s Drop Hammer, Fried tackles the bitter differences that ripped apart one of Buffalo’s industrial unions in the 50s.  Subversive is currently presenting this work at the Manny Fried Playhose.

After Saturday’s performance, Fried will speak.  Not only will he be taking the stage in a venue named for him, but in a building where auto workers once built cars for the Pierce Arrow corporation.

Buffalo is filled with abandoned buildings and low real-estate prices.  According to Schneiderman, the collision of the two factors helped to make it possible for an activist collective like Subversive to get its own space, something that is a bit of a rarity in other communities.

“Buffalo also has the most theatres per capita,” Schneiderman adds, “it also has many themed theatres.  There’s an Irish Classical theatre, a theatre for the Gay community, a Jewish Repertory theatre.  They speak very explicitly to a specific niche.”

There wasn’t a theatre in Buffalo specifically dedicated to work trying to bring about social change and now thanks to the Manny Fried, that void has been filled.  This is a good fit because, according to Schneiderman, Buffalo has a long history of activism.  In fact, the University of Buffalo was even considered the Berkley of the north by many back in the 60s.

construction of the Manny Fried Playhouse

The Manny Fried Playhose will house Subversive productions and also be a venue in this summer’s Buffalo infringement festival.  It is through this event that Schneiderman met a dance troupe that has their own space in the Great Arrow.  They introduced him to the building that may very well become Subversive’s long-term home.

Schneiderman is happy with the potential that such a place brings and observes that groups without a home are “always a victim of the winds of fate.”

Some of the old reactions do persist, including the almost hostile one from members of the theatre community to the group’s policy of making all events pay-what-you-can, but Schneiderman doesn’t want to stop making shows accessible to all, regardless of their income.  In fact, he doesn’t want to change much in hopes of getting a broader audience.

“Focus on what makes you different rather than what makes you the same” he states, “and don’t let anyone talk you out of it.”

“I believed in the American Dream, that everybody has an opportunity,” he said in a telephone interview from New York, “but people said that it’s just not true in my case.”

Having lost his right leg to bone cancer (osteogenic sarcoma) in 1975, Corbin found that he wasn’t getting any scripts or auditions and eventually realized that he wasn’t going to get any work as an actor by waiting around for it.

He was walking down a street in Harlem one day when it hit him. If he wanted work as an actor, he’d have to make a show for himself.

This led to the creation of his critically-acclaimed one-man show “….four one-legged men!” which premiered at last year’s Buffalo infringement Festival.

In a series of short pieces, Corbin plays four different characters, each with one leg, in four different time periods.

“We’re people with the same types of trials,” he says of the characters in his show and physically unique people in general, “this show is about the universal human spirit in all of us.”

Looking for a place to perform it was the next step. The Franklin Furnace Foundation let him know about the Buffalo infringement Festival and he applied.

He credits the fest with helping him dust off the demons that were torturing him at the time: the loss of his grandmother and the loss of love. He tried sex and religion but realized that what really works is performing

“I wasn’t rejected,” Corbin remembers, “I was supported; they helped me put it up there. It let me know that I could probably produce it myself in New York City.”

The show has received rave reviews, both in Buffalo and later when it played The Producers Club in the heart of Manhattan’s Theatre District. Corbin was able to produce the show himself with support from just about every source available to individual artists including: The Franklin Furnace and Jerome Foundations, The New York State Council on the Arts, and The New York Foundation for the Arts.

Corbin is now considered an “emerging artist” who is on the verge of contributing something major to the world of theater and performance art.

He feels his show offers a service that can open doors so more physically unique people can get their stories told. Corbin argues that while many people in the theatre world say they support and show diversity, there is a resistance to presenting physically disabled characters in a rounded way.

“I show people with disabilities as multi-dimensional,” Corbin comments, “theatre needs a facelift, we need new ideas.”

Those new ideas will be presented this June as “….four one-legged men!” comes to the Montreal infringement Festival.

Corbin has never been to Montreal and is very excited about coming to play.

“People who go out of the country come back more rounded, with a broader perspective on life” he observes, “I’m looking forward to performing again.”

And judging by the buzz already building on message boards and through word of mouth, Montrealers are excited about Corbin’s show, too.