Photos: Penny Arcade's LONGING LASTS LONGER Opens At The Players Club

On Thursday, April 27th White Horse Theater Company in association with Salt Pillar Productions presented the legendary Penny Arcade and her show Longing Lasts Longer at the prestigious private members club, The Players NYC (16 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY 10003). The piece was written, conceived, and performed by Arcade, with design and direction by Steve Zehentner.

Longing Lasts Longer is a unique blend of stand-up comedy and memoir set in a riveting rock and roll soundscape mixed live by Penny Arcade's collaborator of 29 years, Steve Zehentner. Longing Lasts Longer has been performed in 46 cities world-wide, winning Edinburgh's Herald Angel Award, the Scotsman Fringe First Award, and the Adelaide Fringe Award. Longing Lasts Longer is fierce, visionary and ultimately a forward-looking critique of the erasure of history, the rise of nostalgia and the pervasiveness of cultural amnesia created by international gentrification seen through the lens of New York City. Longing Lasts Longer is a crack in our planet's post-gentrified landscape and shines a light on the path to individual authenticity.

In Longing Lasts Longer, Penny Arcade dares to tackle the straight jacket that binds today's youth culture to the normalization of self-censorship and injects fresh air in the current lockdown of gentrification, the erasure of history and the cultural amnesia affecting not only our cities but our minds. As the new tide of political correctness threatens to sink radical comedy under the weight of New York City's suburbanization, the international performance legend whose name has become globally synonymous with "Downtown New York Art," makes it safe to think and laugh at the same time. Longing Lasts Longer is an evening of dangerous ideas and radical inquiry into what it means to be human, right here, right now.

No one in theatre, comedy or rock 'n roll does anything even remotely similar to Penny Arcade, where she combines poetics, comedy, and rock 'n roll into what can only be called cultural critique you can dance to. The camaraderie between her and longtime collaborator Steve Zehentner, as he live mixes the unique sound score made up of 100 song loops from some of the best popular music of the past 60 years, is infectious. You will be dancing in your seat!

Photo Credit: John Robert Hoffman.

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