Lola Pashalinski

Last updated

Lola Pashalinski is an American theatre artist known for her work as a founding member of Charles Ludlam's Ridiculous Theatrical Company.

Contents

Early life

Born Regina Hirsch in Brooklyn, New York, [1] Pashalinki's father was an insurance salesman. She spent her young adulthood "bounc[ing] around from odd job to odd job 'mostly in publishing' and briefly attended college before dropping out." [2]

Career

Pashalinski became involved in theatre as an assistant director with John Vaccaro's Playhouse of the Ridiculous, a resident company at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, during the 1960s. She left the Playhouse of the Ridiculous with Ludlam when he and John Vaccarro had a disagreement during rehearsals for Conquest of the Universe in 1967. [3]

Ludlam then founded his Ridiculous Theatrical Company, and Pashalinski was a founding member, working with the company from its establishment in 1967 until 1980. [1] During those years, she appeared in 17 of the company's productions, [2] including as Lola Lola in Corn (1973), Brunhilde in Der Ring Gott Farblonjet (1977), [4] and Miss Cubbidge in Bluebeard (1970). [5] Black-Eyed Susan, Mario Montez, [6] and John Brockmeyer [7] also performed in that production of Bluebeard, which took place at La MaMa. Mary Brecht [8] and Leandro Katz did design for the production. [9] She also performed alongside Black-Eyed Susan, Brockmeyer, and Ethyl Eichelberger in Eichelberger's Phedre and Oedipus at La MaMa in 1977. [10]

After leaving the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, Pashalinski appeared in a range of theatrical productions and in film and television. In 1981, she played the jester Trinculo in The Tempest , directed by Lee Breuer at Central Park's Delacorte Theater. [11] She then worked with Richard Foreman, appearing in his 1983 production of Egyptology (My Head Was a Sledgehammer) at The Public Theater and his 1987 production of Film is Evil, Radio Is Good [12] at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. [13] She performed in Tom Eyen's Give My Regards to Off-Off-Broadway at La MaMa in 1987. [14]

She also worked several times with director/choreographer David Gordon, appearing in his 1983 collaboration with JoAnne Akalitis and Philip Glass, The Photographer , at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, [15] his 1992 production of The Mysteries And What's So Funny at the Joyce Theater, also with music by Glass, and his 1996 production of Punch and Judy Get Divorced. [16] In 1999, she portrayed Gordon in his Autobiography of a Liar at Danspace Project. [17] [18]

She also appeared in film and television, including as the psychiatrist in Mary Harron's I Shot Andy Warhol , [19] as Narc in Peter Sellar's The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez , [20] as Mona Black in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, [21] as Hedy Wormenhoven on One Life to Live , [2] and in smaller roles in All Good Things, [22] The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd , and The Equalizer . [2]

In 1999, she and her partner Linda Chapman performed in a play they wrote called Gertrude & Alice: A Likeness to Loving, based on the relationship between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. [23] "I've always loved Gertrude Stein and felt that as a gay woman, I understood her in a way that many biographers did not," Pashalinski told journalist Simi Horowitz for a profile published in Backstage in 2005. "I wanted to explode the myth of what Stein was about... and the play gave me the chance to work with Linda." [2] Pashalinksi again portrayed Stein in 2022, in performance artist John Kelly's Underneath the Skin at La MaMa . [24]

Awards

Pashalinski won Obie Awards for Distinguished Performance by an Actress for her performances in the Ridiculous Theatrical Company productions Corn (1973) and Der Ring Gott Farblonjet (1977), and for her performance in Gertrude & Alice (2000). [25]

Theater

YearTitleRoleNotes
1970BluebeardMiss Cubbish
1973CornLola Lola Obie Award For Distinguished Performance by an Actress
1977Der Ring Gott FarblonjetBrunhilde Obie Award For Distinguished Performance by an Actress
1981 The Tempest Trinculo
1983Egyptology (My Head Was a Sledgehammer)nurse
1987Film is Evil, Radio Is GoodHelena Sovianavitch
1999/2000Gertrude & Alice: A Likeness to LovingGertrude Obie Award For Distinguished Performance by an Actress
2022Underneath the SkinGertrude Stein(remotely)

Film

YearTitleRoleNotes
1986The Sorrows of DoloresGypsy Woman
1987 Anna Producer
1987 Ironweed Fat Woman with Turkey
1991 The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez Narc
1992 Me and Veronica Mabel
1994 North Operator
1995The Pesky SuitorBabeshort film
1996 I Shot Andy Warhol Psychiatrist
1997 Arresting Gena Mrs. Meanie
1997BrokersRoz
1998 Godzilla Pharmacist
1998 Claire Dolan Salon Client #2
1998 Pecker Pelt Room Announcervoice
1999 Sweet and Lowdown Blanche's Friend
2001 The Sleepy Time Gal Adoption Agency Director
2001 K-PAX Russian Woman
2006 Little Children Bridget
2009 The Private Lives of Pippa Lee Mrs. Mankievitz
2010 All Good Things Woman at Luxor
2011 Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close Mona Black
2019 A Call to Spy Hilda Atkins

Television

YearTitleRoleNotes
1987 The Equalizer Vera PolivkaEpisode: "Encounter in a Closed Room"
1989 The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd ZekiaEpisode: "Here's a Rough Way to Learn a Foreign Language"
1998 Remember WENN Mrs. EtruscanEpisode: "Some Time, Some Station"
1999 As the World Turns Rosie2 episodes
1999 Now and Again OlgaEpisode: "Pulp Turkey"
2009 30 Rock Cleaning Lady Episode: "Retreat to Move Forward"
2014 Louie Mrs. FrameEpisode: "Back"
2014 The Blacklist ApoloniaEpisode: "Monarch Douglas Bank (No. 112)"
2015 Deadbeat DottieEpisode: "Last Dance with Edith Jane"
2019 Broad City NeighborEpisode: "SheWork and Shit Bucket"
2020 High Maintenance CoraEpisode: "Soup"

Related Research Articles

Charles Braun Ludlam was an American actor, director, and playwright.

Ethyl Eichelberger was an Obie award-winning American drag performer, playwright, and actor. He became an influential figure in experimental theater and writing, and wrote nearly forty plays portraying women such as Jocasta, Medea, Nefertiti, Clytemnestra, and Lucrezia Borgia. He became more widely known as a commercial actor in the 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jan Miner</span> American actress (1917-2004)

Jan Miner was an American actress best known for her role as the character "Madge", the manicurist in Palmolive dish-washing detergent television commercials beginning in the 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Foreman</span> American dramatist (born 1937)

Richard Foreman is an American avant-garde playwright and the founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater.

Theatre of the Ridiculous is a theatrical genre that began in New York City in the 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Alice</span> American actress (1936–2022)

Mary Alice Smith, known professionally as Mary Alice, was an American television, film, and stage actress. Alice was known for her roles as Leticia "Lettie" Bostic on the sitcom A Different World (1987–1989) and Effie Williams in the 1976 musical drama Sparkle, and won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress for her recurring role on the series I'll Fly Away. Alice also performed on the stage, and received a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her appearance in the 1987 production of August Wilson's Fences.

The Mystery of Irma Vep is a play in three acts by Charles Ludlam. It is a satire of several theatrical, literary and film genres, including Victorian melodrama, farce, the penny dreadful, Wuthering Heights and the Alfred Hitchcock film Rebecca (1940). The title refers to the name of a character in the 1915 French movie serial Les Vampires and is an anagram of the word "vampire."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mario Montez</span> Puerto Rican actor

René Rivera,, known professionally as Mario Montez, was one of the Warhol superstars, appearing in thirteen of Andy Warhol's underground films from 1964 to 1966. He took his name as a male homage to the actress Maria Montez, an important gay icon in the 1950s and 1960s. Before appearing in Warhol's films, he appeared in Jack Smith's underground films Flaming Creatures and Normal Love. Montez also stars in the Ron Rice film Chumlum, made in 1964. Mario Montez, was "a staple in the New York underground scene of the 1960s and '70s."

Martha Clarke is an American theater director and choreographer noted for her multidisciplinary approach to theatre, dance, and opera productions. Her best-known original work is The Garden of Earthly Delights, an exploration in theatre, dance, music and flying of the famous painting of the same name by Hieronymus Bosch. The production was honored with a Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience, an Obie Award for Richard Peaslee's original score, and a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for choreography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club</span> Theater in Manhattan, New York

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is an Off-Off-Broadway theater founded in 1961 by African-American theatre director, producer, and fashion designer Ellen Stewart. Located in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, the theater began in the basement boutique where Stewart sold her fashion designs. Stewart turned the space into a theater at night, focusing on the work of young playwrights.

Carson Wilford Leach was an American theatre director, set designer, film director, screenwriter, and professor.

Michael Townsend Smith is an American playwright, theatre director, impresario, critic, and lighting designer.

Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights (1938) is a libretto for an opera by the American modernist playwright and poet Gertrude Stein. The text has become a rite of passage for avant-garde theatre artists from the United States: La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, Judson Poets' Group, The Living Theatre, Richard Foreman, Robert Wilson, and The Wooster Group have all produced the piece.

Edward Einhorn is an American playwright, theater director, and novelist.

Stage Blood is a comedy by Charles Ludlam, a spoof in which events taking place in the life of a third-rate theater company, touring Shakespeare's Hamlet, loosely mirror the plot of Hamlet itself. The cast was headed by Ridiculous Theatrical Company veterans Black-Eyed Susan, Lola Pashalinski, Bill Vehr, Jack Mallory, John D. Brockmeyer and Ludlam himself, who played the dual roles of actor Carleton Stone Jr. and Hamlet. It opened off-Broadway at the Evergreen Theatre on December 8, 1974, where it played 45 performances. It was revived at the Truck and Warehouse Theatre on July 1, 1977, and again at the Charles Ludlam Theatre on May 24, 1978.

Leandro Katz is an Argentine-born writer, visual artist and filmmaker known primarily for his films and photographic installations. His works include long-term, multi-media projects that delve into Latin American history through a combination of scholarly research, anthropology, photography, moving images and printed texts.

Black-Eyed Susan is an American actress based in New York City, New York.

Sheila Dabney is an American actress, best known for her co-starring role in the 1987 lesbian feminist film She Must Be Seeing Things alongside Lois Weaver and directed by Sheila McLaughlin.

Rina Yerushalmi is an Israeli theater director and choreographer. Yerushalmi received an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2001 and the Israel Prize in Theatre in 2008, among other awards and recognition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johan Petri</span>

Johan Petri is a Swedish theatre director, dramatist, and theatre scholar. His work takes place in a field formed by authors of late modernism, contemporary poetry, postdramatic theatre, improvised and contemporary classical music.

References

Notes

  1. 1 2 Hodges, Benjamin A. (2009). The Play that Changed My Life: America's Foremost Playwrights on the Plays that Influenced Them . Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN   9781557837400.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Horowitz, Simi (November 5, 2019). "Lola Pashalinski: Evoking a Sense of Menace". Backstage . Retrieved March 3, 2018.
  3. ↑ Ludlam, Charles (1992). Ridiculous Theatre: Scourge of Human Folly: the Essays and Opinions of Charles Ludlam. New York: Theatre Communications Group. ISBN   1-55936-041-0.
  4. ↑ Gussow, Mel (1998). Theatre on the Edge: New Visions, New Voices. Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN   9781557833112.
  5. ↑ "Flyer: "The Ridiculous Theatrical Company presents Bluebeard" (1970)". La MaMa Archives Digital Collections. 1970.
  6. ↑ Dunning, Jennifer (August 5, 1988) "Bill Vehr, 48, Actor Who Was Director Of 70's Cult Classics" The New York Times
  7. ↑ "John Brockmeyer, Leading Actor, 50, In Plays by Ludlam (Published 1990)". December 18, 1990 – via NYTimes.com.
  8. ↑ Gussow, Mel (June 28, 1998). "Mary Brecht, 65; Designed Costumes for Theater (Published 1998)" – via NYTimes.com.
  9. ↑ La MaMa Archives Digital Collections. "Production: Bluebeard (1970)". Accessed May 29, 2018.
  10. ↑ La MaMa Archives Digital Collections. "Production: Phedre and Oedipus (1977)". Accessed May 29, 2018.
  11. ↑ Rich, Frank (1981-07-10). "Theater: Raul Julia in Park 'Tempest'". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  12. ↑ Foreman, Richard (1987). "Film Is Evil: Radio Is Good". The Drama Review: TDR. 31 (4): 149–176. doi:10.2307/1145842. JSTOR   1145842.
  13. ↑ Gussow, Mel (1987-05-05). "STAGE: 'FILM IS EVIL: RADIO IS GOOD'". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  14. ↑ La MaMa Archives Digital Collections. "Production: Give My Regards to Off-Off-Broadway (1987)". Accessed May 29, 2018.
  15. ↑ "The Photographer (dress rehearsal) 1983-10". NYPL Digital Collections. Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  16. ↑ "A.R.T. - American Repertory Theater". americanrepertorytheater.org. Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  17. ↑ "1999 - Autobiography of a Liar" Archiveography (Under Construction"
  18. ↑ Anderson, Jack (December 13, 1999) "Reminiscences With Literally No Holds Barred" The New York Times
  19. ↑ I Shot Andy Warhol (1996) , retrieved 2018-03-03.
  20. ↑ "Lola Pashalinski". To the best of our KNOWLEDGE. Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  21. ↑ Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) , retrieved 2018-03-03.
  22. ↑ Jarecki, Andrew (2010-12-09), All Good Things , retrieved 2018-03-03.
  23. ↑ Carr, C. (May 25, 1999). "Inventing the Century". The Village Voice. Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  24. ↑ Dale, Michael (December 5, 2022) "Michael Dale's Theatre Crawl - 'If Shakespeare had a psychiatrist we would not have had his plays or sonnets.'" OnStage
  25. ↑ Isherwood, Charles (1999-06-14). "Gertrude and Alice: A Likeness to Loving". Variety. Retrieved 2018-03-03.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.