Royally Delicious Cuisine @ Spree 09

The Royally Delicious Cuisine Co. at the Buffalo Spree Best of Buffalo 2009 party. Below are some of the tweets our guests sent:

Great Presentation!

Fantastic. Lovely. Divine even.

Pain is death.

Love the business cards!

The herring was "magnifique!"

Truly Royally Delicious - Queen Karen

Better than you can imagine.

Wonderfully light. I have never experienced anything like it.

The only tastes I didn't feel guilty about later.

Yum-o. Very light and refreshing.

Asian sensation.

Very odd. Tastes like nothing.

You are just fabulous darling just fabulous - Lady Hope

The most delicious cuisine. All the fragrances are fit for a king. The vittles are princely. - Lou Milazzo

Absolutely marvelous. Royally delightful.

I swear I have never tasted anything like it. - Lord Turmoric

I don't like the smoky flavor of the salmon but the drink was a nectar.

Tweet tweet.

Better to be a town twit than a town twat.

I love it.

Cuisine de rien.

Julie would be jealous. Tres bien extraordinaire.

Giant star fireworks.

Finally the royalty has arrived.

Lo cal, great taste!

The fluffiest, most delectable cuisine ever imagined.

Especially Buffalo!

Here, at long last, is a taste of our performance in and around the crowd at Shea's last summer as part of Buffalo Spree's 2008 Best Of WNY party. (Sidenote: Guess which self-acclaimed improvisational satirical collective nabbed an award that night as Best Experimental Act?)



Sad you missed us? Weep not, for we've been invited back THIS year:

Best of WNY 2009
Thursday, June 25
Shea's Performing Arts Center
5:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Tickets are $30 in advance and $40 on the day of the party--and either way it's a bargain, given the amount of food you'll get to try, the wine you'll taste, the goodies you'll take home, and the friends you'll run into, to say nothing of a once-in-a-lifetime Dream Cab show. All the proceeds benefit Camp Good Days & Special Times.

Want tickets? Just click here.

We're still here! (Still blogging away, too!)

OK, OK, so we're still not the most diligent of self-promoters, but we've been steadily Dream Cab-bing away all along. At the moment we are working on WoyUbu, an epic collaboration with the Intermedia Performance Studio at UB and a veritable army of robots and the humans who make them run. It's so epic, in fact, that some of us have been working on this thing for over two years now--but next month, every Friday and Saturday from March 13 to 28 at 1716 Main in Buffalo, you'll finally be able to see the end result.

In the meantime, you can watch the production come together through this behind-the-scenes blog, with entries by the director, performers, tech masterminds, and other parties. (That's right--shocking as it may sound, we are working with an outside director, learning lines, rehearsing for more than a week ... It's a whole new world for the Real Dream!)

"Especially Buffalo" Films at the Spree Party

What's New

You're probably wondering what the Real Dream Cabaret has been up to lately because "keeping our website and blog up to date" is clearly not part of the answer. Though not technically a RDC project, several cabbers (Jack Papier, Ronawanda, The Why Not Guy, Elizabeth and Eamonn) portrayed pretty much an entire town in Brian and Holly's epic cinematic retelling of the Scarlet Letter, starring our own Claire as Hester Prynn. The film premiered to a packed house at Hallwalls in February and got raving reviews. Squeaky Wheel's Peep Show brought out our romantic side as we gave Speed Dating another shot. Ronawanda, Elizabeth, Doug and The Why Not Guy were looking for love but alas, it wasn't meant to be. March was easier. So easy, in fact, that we presented the Easy Show for one night only at Rust Belt Books. The evening featured not one but two splashy musical numbers, topical Spitzer/Hooker jokes and Anna Chiaretta. All three seemed popular. We also learned just how prolific Holly is (answer: very). In preparation for the perpetually upcoming Outlaw Show we're enjoying the ongoing Real Dream Cabaret Book/Movie Club. So far we've watched Steal This Movie, Bonnie and Clyde, Paper Moon, Dogville and Breathless.

Ok, you're all caught up!

One night only!

Hallwalls presents...

INSIDE AND OUT:
INFECTED DISTRICTS AND MEMORY LANES

A Multi Media Extravaganza
Featuring Film, Performance and Music by

MARK STREET
THE REAL DREAM CABARET
OPEN MUSIC ENSEMBLE

Friday, April 13, 2007 at 8 pm
Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center
341 Delaware Ave, Buffalo NY
Tickets $7 general - $5 students and seniors - $4 members


Carpetbagger film artist Mark Street and Buffalo cognoscenti THE REAL DREAM CABARET and members of the OPEN MUSIC ENSEMBLE join forces to meditate on climate change, that elusive inside/outside chasm, and how this city can be read differently depending on your vantage point. This rollicking, untamed evening of live performance, film and music will include interviews conducted on city streets about global warming, madcap anachronistic vignettes, hand painted 16mm film footage, archival images of the ‘77 blizzard, sublime and winsome footage of the Ohio St. bridge and a short movie of a former resident rediscovering a love of bowling first discovered on the Polish East Side in the late 1960’s.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Brooklyn-based MARK STREET is this year’s Hallwalls Arts Residency Project media artist in residence. Street’s works have screened at: Museum of Modern Art, NY, Whitney Museum, Toronto Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, London Film Festival, Festival du Cinema Nouveau, Montreal, Oberhausen Film Festival, Viennale International Film Festival, Vienna,VIPER Film Festival, Zurich, European Media Arts Festival, Pacific Film Archive, SF Cinematheque, San Francisco International Film Festival, NY Underground Film Festival, Reel NY, CH 13 WNET NY, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Black Maria Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival. “My work ranges from abstract hand-manipulated pieces to work that involves found footage, to feature length improvised narratives. Each film attempts to investigate new terrain, and avoids being confined by a specific look or mood....I like to work the surface of film to create rich visuals which I shape in a very intuitive, personal way. Since I started making films in 1983 I've always gone back to painting, bleaching and marking frames one by one; I'm exhilarated by this tactile relationship with film material. I like the way these abstract films allow the viewer to be drawn into unfamiliar worlds ... My interests in film and videomaking are restless and peripatetic. I've made films about the American flag, soft-core pornography, a Brooklyn walk, a trip to Mexico, day-to-day life in Tampa, Florida and three high school girls celebrating their graduation. Each new project sends me spinning in a new direction. Because I reject the constraints of traditional production values and develop my own process for each new film, any subject seems possible.”

Go to SHELL

THE REAL DREAM CABARET
presents
THE SHELL OF SENSE
Fridays and Saturdays at 9 p.m.
at Rust Belt Books
202 Allen Street, Buffalo, NY
(716)885-9535

Admission: Your hourly wage.

conceived and performed by
Lieu-Lieu Deux-Flores, Kitty Jung,
Sigmund the Satisfactory,
Ronawanda, Dora, Jack Papier,
Piaget the Mute Swine,
and special guest Corbeau Morreau




featuring a different house band and guests artists each weekend:

September 22-23, 2006
HOUSE BAND: Pam Swarts & company
GUEST ARTISTS:
Kendall
Julie Perini
Don Metz

September 29-30, 2006
HOUSE BAND: Open Music Ensemble
GUEST ARTISTS:
Lara Buckley
Dana Block
Stephanie Rothenberg
Aaron Piepszny

October 6-7, 2006
HOUSE BAND: Dimetrodon
GUEST ARTISTS:
Heather Connor
Annette Daniels-Taylor
Can of Worms (Oct 7)

October 13-14, 2006
HOUSE BAND: TBA
GUEST ARTISTS:
Kristianne Meal
Nimbus Dance
members of Babik
Raw Deal


(Note: weekly lineup is subject to change;
this post will be updated as needed.)

Advance tickets available at Rust Belt Books.
Seating is very limited, so don't delay!

PICTURE this

I know we're not usually so overt on our blog, but I am in a promotional mood at the moment, so bear with me.

We are part of this festival:



Our new show THE PICTURE runs Thursday, July 27-Sunday, July 30 at Squeaky Wheel. It has something to do with Oscar Wilde, McCauley Culkin, and a magic cat. The show after that runs Sept. 23-Oct. 15 at Rust Belt Books. It's about Judas, Oprah Winfrey, and lying.

Also, watch for us on the TV show Crossroads on Adelphia Channel 13 in Buffalo on Tuesday, July 25, from 3-4 p.m.

OK, I've got it out of my system now.

10 pictures of DORIAN GRAY

In preparation for our next show, behold a collection of video clips inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray:

1. Long live 80s music video!



(That's semi-obscure synthpopper Robert Marlowe's "The Face of Dorian Gray," in case you were wondering.)

2. Who knew? Turns out the book is really a warning about the dangers of internet porn, more than 100 years before the fact:



3. Pretty much the entire 1945 movie adaptation, in the form of 9 minutes' worth of stills subtitled in French:



4. A verrrrrrrry short Spanish art-film version of the story:



5. A table full of high school girls take the opposite approach to the problem of adaptation: instead of trying to condense a novel into a three-minute video clip, they devote three verrrrrry long minutes to two lines. Hooray for the American educational system for producing tomorrow's avant-garde today!



6. Just what is it with the giggly high-school girls and their baffling inside jokes about Dorian G?



(Is it possible she has him confused with David Copperfield?)

7. By contrast, high-school-age boys (okay, he's 19) deliver fairly straightforward book reports (curiously never spelling out the obvious connection between the two novels under consideration) :



8. Ah, now we get to the heart of the problem: here's what the kids are really doing when they're supposed to be discussing the book in class...



9. I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with the book, but it's my favorite video with the keyword "Dorian" :



10. To close, two lilting ballads by a band who take their name from Wilde's immortal tale. I'm quite certain old Oscar would approve of the wry, subtle wit of their lyrics:

What To Do?

Hi everyone, it's the Real Dream Cabaret's beloved Why (Not!) Guy here. Thank you. Sorry for not posting more lately, but I've been a bit down. I'm really interested in getting back into the dating scene again, but I just don't have the time for a long, drawn out "dinner and a movie" when we might not even be compatible anyway. I wish there was a way to, you know, speed up the dating process. Dating, but with more speed. A speedy way of dating. Oh well, sucks to be me I guess.

Jeepers Creepers, it's a PEEPshow

Here's where you'll find us next:


Catch REAL CREAM PRODUCTIONS
(aka THE REAL DREAM CABARET)
in room 825 of the Hotel Lenox (140 North St., Buffalo, NY)
as part of PEEP SHOW, A Love and Sex Art Party
(a fundraiser for Squeaky Wheel)
SATURDAY, February 25, 2006, from 8:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m.

Real Cream Productions will be shooting a series of
specialty films all night long (mainly from 9 to midnight).
Visit often—new movies every 15 minutes!
We’ll also be conducting OPEN AUDITIONS,
so here’s your chance to strut your sexy stuff.

Admission to PEEPSHOW is $12 in advance, $15 at the door.
Advance tickets are being sold at New World Record & Talking Leaves Books.

The party will feature over 20 artists' installations
in hotel rooms on the 8th floor.
Live music, silent art & gift auction, performance art,
film/video screenings, striptease acts,
and of course much drinking and dancing...
throughout the hotel...
ALL NIGHT LONG!

Click here for more info on PEEPSHOW.

Sorry Guys!

Just a quick note to let everyone know I won't be able to make it to the John Lennon tribute at Nietzche's next Thursday. I'm heading up to Montreal for a week or so - all this war stuff has really got me freaking out, and I need to just hole up in a hotel room with my Stephin Merritt CDs and a Lil' Abner anthology. I got kick-ass rates for a room at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel on priceline.com. Watch, there probably won't be a bed.

It's All a Sham!!!

The truth will come out!!! Freedom-hating Al Qaeda supporters and "alleged" "entertainers" the Real Dream Cabaret are trying to ruin everything that decent Americans hold dear. These flag-burning baby-killing cross-dressing Toyota-driving foreign film-watching Bush-bashing "actors" want you to think the new Supreme Justice Tim was chosen for his fairness and balance, and for winning certain "challenges" at the Super Intense Decision Show. As Bob Novak would say, this is bullshit! Nothing could be further from the truth! He is actually a personal friend of several RDC members chosen because he could be counted on to advance their ultra-left wing special interest agenda. I have it on good authority from a secret operative working undercover with these degenerates that Gay Sasquatch marriage is only the first step down a slippery slope of immorality where family values have long since been eroded away by the powerful current of the atheists pissing on the Bible and the Second Amendment of the Constitution. What next? Loch Ness Monster adoptions? Bat Boy serving in the military? After all, God created Adam and Eve not Gay Sasquatch and Steve.

.

Ronawanda

Y'all, I have just made a HUGE decision: I am going to be performing with the rest of the Real Dream Cabaret at Squeaky Wheel in Buffalo after all! My former manager and longtime lover Monte Stein called me out of the BLUE last week to try and persuade me to do a gig at the Teacher's Pet School Supply Store in Atlanta, but that place just gave me the CREEPS for some reason when I was down there for a visit. Monte never did know what was best for me, so after several sleepless nights I just burst into song--as I so often do--and said/sang, "I am TELLING you, I am NOT GOING!"

It was the hardest decision I have had to make since that whole Nader/Gore mess back in 2000. And by an amazing coincidence, the next Cabaret show is all about decisions, which is why it's called the SUPER INTENSE DECISION SHOW. Here's the dates and times. Pay attention cuz they're kinda funny:

Thursday, August 4th at 8 PM
Friday, August 5th at 9 PM
Saturday, August 6th at 2 PM
Sunday August 7th at 4 PM

Cost: Your Hourly Wage

The show is part of the Buffalo InFRINGEment Festival, which features over 125 performances in 11 days, from July 28-August 7. There's all kinds of amazing events, like puppet shows and street performances and an all-female version of Glengarry Glen Ross and one play that takes place in a series of parked cars. This site will give you all the details on all the shows. Oh, and this site contains viewer feedback on individual shows, the whole festival, etc.See y'all there!

Subcommander Zero

It was inevitable. Subcommander One and I, Lutheran terrorists for the past two years, sending our message of Christian ideals through violence, have gone straight. Because we were quickly rising on the FBI's most wanted list, the government has decided to co-opt our activities, hiring us to run terrorist drills across the country. We've been hired so the government can show all the good people of America, through extreme role-playing and broadcasts on local news channels, how effective the government is at erradicating terrorism. It's just really nice that all the hard work we've done has finally paid off with a big check from George W. It's also interesting that when people don't feel threatened they seem to listen to our message more. We've had more recruits to our radical Lutheran cause since becoming professional United States terrorists than through all of our bomb threats, kidnappings and plane hijackings combined! We'll be performing our terrorist drill all across the country this summer. If you want to see how effective your government is, come check us out at the following venues:

Bop Brick Oven Pizza in Baltimore, MD on July 2nd
Golfzilla Driving Range in Temple Hills, MD on July 3rd
Chevy Chase Arcade and Barbershop in Washington DC on July 4th
Touchables: The Bra Store in Philadelphia, PA on July 6th
Tong-Tong Chinese Restaurant in Cleveland, OH on July 8th
Wesley's Shoe Corral in Chicago, IL on July 10th
A Sight for Sport Eyes in Portland, OR on July 12
Good Vibrators in San Francisco, CA on July 14th
Northridge Skateland in Northridge, CA on July 15th
Camelback Sunset Chapel Funeral Home in Phoenix, AZ on July 17th
Zinger Hardware and General Store in Austin, TX on July 20th
Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Cafe in New Orleans, LA on July 22nd
The Teacher's Pet School Supply Store in Atlanta, GA on July 24th
American Artificial Limbs and Braces in Miami, FL on July 26th
Happy Holiday Tours in New York, NY on July 28th

We'll then be returing to our home town to show them what the US government is made of at Buffalo's First Annual Infringement Festival in Buffalo, NY August 4th - 7th.

We hope to see you at one of these great events!

Love,
Subcommander Zero

Building a better rainbow

Y'all, it is so exciting to be part of the Buffalo Pride Parade this Sunday. I am proud all the time, and I try to explore the other six deadly sins as often as my busy schedule permits, too.

My Cabaret family and I are using the parade as a golden opportunity to kick off our exciting new campaign to BUILD A BETTER RAINBOW. The pride flag is pretty and all, but it just seems kind of ... limiting sometimes. There are all kinds of colors in the universe, ya know. And if they can add a new color of M&M's, shouldn't we be able to spruce up our own brand a little more?

This is all about freedom of choice, so head right over to our online poll and cast your vote today! And share your comments, either there or right here.

See you at the parade!
Ronawanda

PS. That's Sunday, June 5, starting at Kleinhan's at 1PM and heading up Elmwood Avenue to Bidwell Park.

North Ronawanda

Hey Ronawanda,

I just wanted to say how fabulous you looked at Mr. Ehmke's performance at the Burchfield-Penney. You're really going all out these days, with all your beautiful flowers pinned to your clothes. I guess it just shows that you can be as beautiful as I am if you prepare yourself for more that three minutes. I do think Mr. Ehmke did hog the show a bit, giving you a mere 5 minutes of time, when you should have been running the show. I think you should take a page from my book, and send him away in a tempest, so you can claim your rightful place as the Queen of Everything. I'm hoping he'll give you a bit more time when you visit my hometown of North Tonawanda on May 21st at the Carnegie Art Center. I'll be very disappointed if I come for the cream filling and all I get is stale Hostess cake. Not that I don't like Mr. Ehmke. He just doesn't have your grand charms. He doesn't give candy to strangers, either. Well, Miranda sends her love (though she's giving most of her love to some Slick Willy who claims he used to be president. That little hussy, leaving me home all alone night after night, with nothing but Despearte Housewives and a bottle of Tequila Rose to keep me company, sobbing over lost loves, aching for some attention). And we should get together real soon. We haven't had a girls night out in ages.

Love,
North Ronawanda

Ronawanda

Y'all, I totally have to put in a plug for my cameo appearance in my alter ego's show this weekend (4/28-4/30/05). You can get the details here. It ain't the Cabaret, but I'll be there, all the same. Hope you will be, too. (Plus the Cabaret's own Kitty Jung and Jack Papier directed it--bold new territory for one and all.)

And y'all be watchin' here for news on the return of the Real Dream, too. One place you'll probably find us this summer is at the upcoming Buffalo Infringement Festival at the end of July and the beginning of August. Click on the site and y'all can not only find out about the festival but propose a performance of yer own! It's gonna be a sweaty summer funfest you won't wanna miss.

Man in Black

Dearest Claire,

I have been watching you for quite some time. We will meet in due time, and when we do, you will scream out in the joy of pain and ectasy.

Love,
The Man in Black

Claire

I am so freaked out!

First I was stalked by this cult of three at the Tri-Main Center this weekend, and now I think there's a madman out to kill me! Oh, what am I going to do? I came home last night, and my door was unlocked, and I'm certain that I locked it on the way out. Then, when I took out the trash, there was a man dressed all in black standing at the end of my driveway. I was so terrified I didn't even take the trash out! Then, to top it all off, I had a dream that someone brutally stabbed me last night. My blood was just pouring out of my belly, and I could barely breath because of the gaping stab wound in my chest. I woke up gasping for air. Someone help!