KIP ROSSER

REVIEW EXCERPTS

Click on a show title to be taken to the review.
Productions in gray, not reviewed.

kr@performancekr.com

Let Me Hip You - Buckley
18th Street Theatre, NYC

Joseph Hurley, SoHo News:
...Obsessed with the wisdom and edge present in the rare recordings of an obscure saloon comic who billed himself as Lord Buckley, Rosser and fellow actor James Leach have put together a two-headed toy of an evening, a Pushmi-Pullyu of deep talent and even a ricocheting brilliance.

...[Buckley's] idiom was an unlikely blend of toffee-nosed Englishness and an early form of black-derived street jive, though Buckley was white. His mental meanderings, as well as a number of his disciplined set pieces are present in Let Me Hip You!, but the event is much more (and more demanding of the audience) than a neatly recreated serving up of a vanished comedian's legacy.

...Rosser and Leach have found a left-field metaphor for their show and it holds, with no strings showing. Their Buckley is presented through actor personas derived from street interviews with derelicts; human self-abandonment, they argue, affords ideal opportunity for life scrutiny.

...There's talent here, with brains in abundance.


Don Shewey, SoHo News:
...Let Me Hip You! ...takes the audience on an extraordinary trip from a Gotham gutter into a slyly self-conscious theater and then into the wild world of the late Lord Buckley's hipster poetry and back to wine-splashed earth. The verbal vitality and mad humor of Buckley's beat variations... ...find a happy medium in the overgrown urchin antics of Rosser and Leach, who have more on their minds than just imitating old comedy raps. They end by convincing us to see each other not as anonymous mobile units in the big city but as little sparks of divine humanity, "gardenias in the garden of the Naz."


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The Lady's Not for Burning - Fry
Equity Library Theater, NYC

Richard F. Shepard, The New York Times:
The Equity Library Theater, one of the city's most important institutions for giving a showcase to New York's professional acting population, has opened its 41st season with one of the tougher nuts it has tried to crack, Christopher Fry's "Lady's Not for Burning."

...This is a play rich in elegant language, a poetic comedy set in the 1400's. It is a play of words rather than a play of action, and the similes, metaphors, platitudes, and epigrams are luxuriantly, brilliantly, and even wittily couched in an inexhaustible lexicon of the English language.

...Under Kip Rosser's direction, the cast valiantly copes with the words, and some indeed succeed very well. Stephen Burks, as the mayor's clerk achieves an admirable clarity. Lynn Archer is quite amusing as the mayor's sister, a vapid woman, and Lisabeth Bartlett is fetching as the suspected witch. Zeke Zaccaro is particularly funny as the wavering chaplain and Robert Molnar comes across with innate, if eccentric majesty as the mayor striving to do his job.


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Woman in the Animal Kingdom - Sabaugh
Fringe Festival, Henry Street Theatre Settlement, NYC

Sharon Glassman, Fringe Festival's Review:
...Blindness is America's # 3 fear after AIDS and cancer. Theater by the Blind hopes to change the image of the blind to one of independence, not disability.

...The heroine of Woman in the Animal Kingdom is a legally blind sculptor, Agnes, played by playwright/actor Pamela Sabaugh, who is visually impaired. As the play begins, a cop busts Agnes for defacing an offensive subway poster, an encounter that smartly questions who's really blind, and to whom.

... Ms. Sabaugh's writing contains laugh-out-loud lines...

... What is palpable, and rousing, is the cast's teamwork. When not physically part of the action in one of the PVC pipe delineated areas on stage, they actively watch from the borders. "Woman" is the first co-production by Ms. Sabaugh and two of her fellow actors; hopefully, more will follow.


Joshua Tanzer, OffOffOff.com:
...a perceptive, sexy and sometimes funny exploration of the female psyche in the male jungle.


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Macbett - Ionesco
Revolving Shakespeare, Greenwich Street Theatre, NYC

Victor Gluck, Backstage:
Finally, in the Ionesco Festival, it was the last of the staged full length plays that got it entirely right: Ionesco's delightfully wacky Shakespeare parody, MACBETT.

...the credit for this inventing [sic] and witty ...production goes to director Kip Rosser and set and lighting designer Roman J. Tatarowicz...

... the nine cast members were also well attuned to the zaniness of the production style.


Martin Denton, NY Theatre.com:
... director Kip Rosser must be congratulated for providing New York with a belated but very necessary look at this neglected work from one of the 20th century's master playwrights."

... "Rosser and his Revolving Shakespeare colleagues have elected to mount something akin to a pageant around Macbett. With set/lighting designer Roman Tatarowicz and costume designer Jim Parks, Rosser has filled the stage with gorgeous, resonant images of warfare and statecraft [sic] that provide commentary; sometimes ironic, sometimes not on the dubious virtues of each."

..."It makes for a clear, comprehensible vision. "

..."It's also very funny, in places, and very smart. Rosser has cast the piece well, with solid work in the leading roles..." ..." and excellent support from five actors who play what feels like a thousand different roles. This is as expert an ensemble as you'll find off-off Broadway. My cultural education has been enhanced by this worthy production; I had a pretty good time, too. See Macbett for either reason.


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Steel Magnolias - Harlings
Somerset Valley Players, Somerset Valley Theatre, NJ

Stuart Duncan, Princeton Packet:
....the current revival at Somerset Valley Players is most welcome. Call that doubly welcome, since the drama, directed by Kip Rosser, has a marvelous cast and first-rate values throughout.

Before we pass 18 months with these ladies (in four scenes over two acts), we will know what the author means with his title. We will see and feel the steel and virtually smell the magnolias. Director Rosser has a fine company, magnificently cast and polished to a bright shine.

Director Rosser's touches are everywhere; the pace is superb, the stage movements almost unnoticed, but absolutely accurate, the emotions of the drama always true and often very moving. The set is one of the best ever on the Somerset stage..


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Unholy Secrets of the Theremin - Rosser, Anderson
NY International Fringe Festival, 2005 -- Linhart Theatre @ 440 Studios, NYC

Steve Chasey, NYtheatre.com:
The fueling energy of this play is the dynamic between Rosser and Anderson. Anderson's deep-throated enunciation and startling stares into the audience carefully balance Rosser's spirited antics and snappy dance moves. The duo bounces off each other well, creating moments of pithy morals and humor. Their routine takes the audience through the life of the inventor of the Theremin, spiraling quickly through brief captures of his frenetic mindset, all strung between actual Theremin performances by Rosser. The general pacing of the show escalates in intensity, building up a fervor that accomplishes its goal, to mimic the "unholy" madness of the Theremin's creator. ...

... the spark between the two eclectic characters on stage (or three, or four, depending on how many times they are "possessed") is undeniably captivating. The duo's direction of the show, like any good staging, is seamless and nearly invisible; the mayhem that Rosser and Anderson unleash on the stage bends and flows according to their will. It emerges much like the music of the Theremin, as an intricate, mysterious dance.


Ron Cohen, Backstage:
...the performance piece bounces dizzily from comic shtick to metaphysical ponderings as it fills the audience in on Theremin's event-filled life ...

They prove to be a deft comic team, versatile actors, and splendid musicians. Interspersed throughout the piece are musical interludes, startlingly beautiful demonstrations of the theremin's eerie musicality. Rosser plays the theremin and Anderson provides full-bodied keyboard accompaniment in renditions of such diverse numbers as "Nessun Dorma" from Puccini's "Turandot," the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby," and the George and Ira Gershwin-Dubose Heyward "My Man's Gone Now" from "Porgy and Bess."

The two interpret Theremin's exploration and manipulation of electromagnetic waves as a search for the secrets of the universe. But they do so in a mainly lighthearted fashion. When the pair set about producing music, however, it's indeed like hearing the music of the spheres.


Margaret Cross, BroadwayWorld.com:
Kip Rosser and Jef Anderson are the authors and performers of "Unholy Secrets of the Theremin", play many roles, including trading off their own personas as "Kip Rosser" and "Jef Anderson". Mr. Rosser, whose white East Indian garb and benignly insane smile brought to mind Peter Sellers in "The Party", is a virtuoso of the evening's titular instrument. Mr. Anderson, wild-eyed and clad in a black Napoleonic uniform, provides piano accompaniment.

The pair have a fantastic chemistry... moving and well written ... both are exceptional musicians...


Hy Bender, hyreviews.com:
Kip Rosser portrays an eccentric Russian wearing a white fez with long yellow tassel - who plays the theremin like some mad priest of an otherworldly Ether. In real life, Rosser is a playwright and director, and a highly talented actor. Jef Anderson portrays an equally strange character, clad in a black outfit a ship's captain might have worn several centuries ago. Also a fine actor, Anderson provides expert keyboard accompaniment to Rosser's theremin playing.

In between this musical magic, the duo tell some outrageous yet apparently true tales of the device's inventor.

Rosser's and Anderson's characters are consistently fun; and the show provides a rare opportunity to see a theremin being played with equal measures of skill and humor.


Howard Moscovitz, electro-music.com:
An electro-hit!

On Saturday, August 27, I was lucky enough to catch the last performance of Unholy Secrets of the Theremin, by Kip Rosser and Jef Anderson. This is a wonderfully thoughtful, humorous, musical performance of Theremin and Piano with dramatic dialog. It was a spellbinding experience. I wish everyone who loves eccentric genius and electronic music could have seen this show; it was very exciting.

Kip Rosser... is an outstanding Theremin player. Jef Anderson is a superb pianist. They performed 11 pieces for Theremin and piano. In between there was some pretty clever mind-bending dialog.

With their dialog, Rosser and Anderson told the fascinating story of Leon Theremin. Theremin lived a brilliant but tortured life. He was a creative engineering genius trapped in the twisted communist system, always on a short leash and just one step away from elimination by Stalin's regime. The dialog very cleverly tells this twisted story with humor, absurdity and profundity. While the invention of the Theremin is presented, it is just one of many facinating aspects to Theremin's life.

There were striking costumes and even a delightful choreography. It was good music and great fun.


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