Acting in New York City
After graduation, Cote moved to New York, where he joined Purgatorio Ink Theater, the company of his former Bard professor, Assurbanipal Babilla. [4]
With Babilla and Purgatorio, Cote acted in several plays at notable Off-Off-Broadway venues: The Rise and Fall of H. M. Dick at P.S. 122; Suddenly Something Recklessly Gay or Cirque de Ca-Ca and All About Jeez or The Sacred Squirt, both at La MaMa E.T.C.; Homo Americanus at Bouwerie Lane Theatre; The Sisters Karamazov at One Dream Theatre; and Othello and the Circumcisèd Turk at the Vineyard Theatre. All productions were written, designed and directed by Babilla. [5] In 1998, Cote directed Babilla in his monologue, Something Something Über Alles (Das Jackpot) at the Emerging Collector on Second Avenue. The production ran for three months. It took part in the New York International Fringe Festival and had a limited run at the Kraine Theater in early 1999.
Throughout this period, Cote acted in work by various writers and directors associated with Richard Foreman's Ontological Hysteric Theater, housed in St. Marks Church. He worked with writer-directors such as Robert Cucuzza (Be Emphatic!), DJ Mendel (Tom, Dick & Harry), Anne DeMare, Judy Elkan and others.
In 1997, Cote played a Large Male Dwarf in Foreman's Pearls for Pigs. [6] The production opened at Hartford Stage and toured France, Italy, Los Angeles, Portland, Dartmouth and New York City. In 1999, he appeared in Richard Maxwell's Cowboys & Indians at Soho Rep and Cucuzza's Speed Freaks at the Ontological. Cucuzza later filmed Speed Freaks, and Cote reprised his role as dim-witted drug chef Karl. [7]
Career in arts journalism
In 1996, Cote co-founded and edited OFF, a journal for alternative theater with actor and graphics designer Jenny Woodward. This free 'zine dedicated to experimental, off-off theater was distributed to theaters mostly below 14th Street. [8] It continued until 1998. In 1998/99, Cote edited EdgeNY, a free indie magazine also devoted to off-off theater. From 1999 to 2000, he worked as theater editor at the national arts listings site CultureFinder.com.
In August 2000, Cote became staff theater writer at Time Out New York . [9] He wrote reviews, listings, previews and other reporting for the weekly magazine. In 2003, he became theater editor and chief drama critic. He reviewed a wide range of plays, musicals and experimental pieces from Broadway to Off-Off-Broadway. Cote left Time Out in April 2017. [10] To date, he is the longest-serving theater editor and chief drama critic of the magazine. [10] As a critic and reporter, he freelances for The Village Voice , What Should We Do?, IN New York and other places. [11]
Over the years, his reporting and reviews have appeared in The New York Times , American Theatre , Opera News , The Guardian , The Times (UK), Slate and elsewhere. In 2004, he began as a regular contributing critic on NY1's weekend theater program, On Stage. [12]
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