village voice

best of new york 2007
essay shopping & services arts & entertainment bars & clubs
eats & treats sex, sports, and recreation people & places interviews
illustration by Jason Edmiston
Best New York Theater Production That May Never Appear In New York - Gatz

In a wonderful party scene in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, various characters cling to one another as a band plays "Ain't We Got Fun." To answer the band's question, no, fun we ain't got—namely, we ain't got Elevator Repair Service's version of The Great Gatsby, entitled Gatz. And Gatz is very, very fun. Though Elevator Repair Service is a New York–based company and created and rehearsed Gatz in our fair city, the Fitzgerald estate has prevented the group from performing the piece in New York. (Apparently, they fear audiences might confuse ERS's seven-hour performance-art version with a straightforward adaptation by Simon Levy, which opened at the Guthrie in Minneapolis to middling reviews and which may be bound for Broadway—though this transfer seems unlikely.) This spring, however, ERS will debut its take on The Sound and the Fury at New York Theatre Workshop—the Faulkner estate, apparently, has a stronger taste for avant-garde theater collectives.

Other Arts & Entertainment categories:

Best one-off fluke in NYC rap history
"This Is Why I'm Hot"

Best savior of the printed word
826NYC

Best rising theater director
Annie Kauffman

Best place to get on point
Baryshnikov Arts Center

Best way to honor street musicians
Buskers Hall of Fame

Best murder mystery by phone
Canal Street Station Installation

Best hardcore band led by dogs
Caninus

Best child of Andy Warhol
Cary Leibowitz

Best reason to start working on your rubber-band ball
City Reliquary

Best way to relive your teen angst
Cringe Night

Best spot to find deranged '50s and '60s music
Crypt Records

Best venue to see experimental dance
Dance Theater Workshop

Best overtly political gallery
Daneyal Mahmood

Best New York movie this year (so far)
Day Night Day Night

Most completely terrifying stage presence
Dirty Projectors

Best café to write in
Doma

Best Saturday-morning radio show
Felix Hernandez

Best New York theater production that may never appear in New York
Gatz

Best neo-Britpop/Northern Soul revival/art- damaged band comprising some ex-Yalies who now live in Brooklyn
Harlem Shakes

Best MFA writing program
Hunter College

Best foreign theater director we wish was a New York theater director
Ivo van Hove

Best (and hottest) teacher
Jo Boobs

Best documentarian of New York's indie- rock scene
Joly MacFie

Best tribute to Stevie Wonder
Keistar's Annual Wonder-Full: Stevie Wonder Tribute Party

Best martial-arts comedian
Master Lee

Best multi-colored tower that isn't the Empire State Building
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Clock Tower

Best pop-cult composer
Michael Friedman

Best NYC rock album
Mirrored

Best break-out theater company
Nature Theater of Oklahoma

Best museum to contemplate La Deutsche Vita
Neue Galerie

Best music shop to go digital
Other Music Digital

Best MP3 blog/zine hybrid that will add to your intelligence without insulting it
paperthinwalls.com

Best punk-comedy cabaret act
Puttin' on the Ritz

Best antidote to the burgeoning Bushwick arts scene
Ralphy's Towing

Best coffeehouse folk album for those sensitive to media overexposure
Real Life

Best reason Tuesday should be the new Friday
Slavic Soul Party

Best local publisher of global mysteries
Soho Press

Best be(a)st
Taylor Mac

Best place to hear self-important design professionals talk about themselves (and sometimes each other), and occasionally also see some excellent work
The American Institute of Graphic Arts

Best way to impress your friends with your newfound art smarts
The Contemporaries

Best didactic gallery
The Grey Art Gallery

Best crowd participation at the movies
The Magic Johnson Theater

Best provocative playwrights
Thomas Bradshaw or Young Jean Lee

Best made-up musical genre
Upper West Side Soweto

Best way to get smart about dance
Works & Process