In the world of musical theatre, anything can happen, and often does. This is especially true at the New York International Fringe Festival.  Dinosaurs can sing and dance in one show and bring a fresh energy to musical theatre traditions that may seem, um, prehistoric…and the next day, at another show, the genre can seem as extinct as dinosaurs.  I’ve seen musicals with feminist themes, set centuries and worlds apart: one involving an 18-year-old woman who wants to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps and be a grand wizard and the other an assertive woman coming to NYC to program computers and wishing she could de-program the sexist men. 

It's said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Likewise, so are the cobblestone streets that lead to the New School Drama Center at 151 Bank Street, on the grounds of the old Westbeth Theatre. And one would hope, but hope against hope, that perhaps a play like Michel Tremblay's Manon/Sandra, running therein as part of this year's Fringe Festival and translated from its original form by John Van Burek, might be less of a fresh hell than what was unleashed upon an unsuspecting public who gathered to bear witness.

In the 1933 film I’m No Angel, Mae West says, "When I’m good I’m very, very, good – and when I’m bad, I’m better.” This past Saturday night, Anne Marie Finnie, as Mae West, showed us just how very good she is at bringing Mae back to life.

The delightful evening at The Actor's Temple began with event organizer LindaAnn Loschiavo, author of the play, Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship & Secrets,

By the mid-1990s, when she decided she was here in to stay in the Big Apple, Texas native Faye Lane had already begun grabbing any and all audience possible as an actress, singer, poetess, storyteller and all-around really nice person, with a brilliant mix of sophistication and a down-home quality that proved her as sincerely sweet as a strawberry pie.

This week, Penny Landau, aka: The TV Junkie, takes a break from her usual column. Instead of talking to the TV, she's talking to actress/singer EMILY BERGL, who, on Thursday, August 26^th will be making her New York cabaret debut. Born in the UK to an Irish mother and a British father, Bergl grew up mainly in Chicago. Although she films in LA and other locations, she considers New York City her home. Emily talked about her film, stage and TV work (she joins the cast of “Desperate Housewives” this fall), but foremost on her mind, is her cabaret debut this week at Metropolitan Room.

Eight years back was slump time for the funny and talented comic, Jim David. So when Mom said she had a friend who had a friend who was looking for a director, he went back home to Thermal City, NC, to direct an amateur theatre production of A Streetcar Named Desire. After all, when you’ve been a costumed chicken delivering singing telegrams for a living while climbing the ladder of success, this must have sounded pretty good! As David says “It’s all who you know!” Besides which, he told his friends he’d been hired by “the most up-and-coming experimental theatre in the South.”

(Editor’s Note: Here is our observer/interviewer on the scene bringing you up to date as  Metropolitan Room’s NYC singing contest gets down to its finalists, with the winner getting a run at the club and a CD recording of it.  It’s been sold out, so call (212)206-0440 right away for one of the last two nights, August 23 and 30, when the winners are chosen…or be content to listen to the buzz from our fly on the wall,