The Devil and Daisy Dirt, a bluegrass tall tale about the Jersey Devil with live music and an 8′ wearable puppet, written and directed by Alex Dawson at UNDER St. Marks (94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009) slips in for a limited engagement, September 26-28.
For us NJersians (and pretty much anybody else) the below description really wets the appetite for the potential off-Broadway theatre goer.
“On the night of an annual appetite contest called “I 8 the Devil,” Daisy Dirt finds something strange – winged and antlered, wounded but alive – in the dumpster behind Lucille’s Luncheonette (aka the Devil’s Diner). With the help of a Piney palm reader named Effie and a piece of magic muscle meat from the basement game locker, Daisy evades a villainous poacher named Tasty (Murder) and risks everything to save it. Think Pine Barrens “Our Town” meets cryptid E.T., with a shoulder-shot Jersey Devil instead of a stranded extraterrestrial, deer hunters instead of federal agents, and a portal that opens above the Apple Pie Hill fire tower after a midnight lightning strike instead of an alien mothership shaped like a Christmas tree ornament. All backed by a high lonesome sound.”
As far as off-Broadway goes, this play sounds a hoot. Really, all of NYC theatre is something special, but it has been my experience that you see the most interesting stuff in the basements, rehearsal spaces and off-Broadway theatres that little the city and its surroundings (even out in Jersey.) A bluegrass musical telling the tale of one of NJ’s most iconic legends…with a puppet as one of the features, really, can you miss this?
Get tickets here: Frigid New York. And while you’re at it, check out the rest of the Frigid stuff. What that particular play program presents is like no other, and worth checking out fully.
