Local performance artist
might not be the only guy man enough to play Baby in
Dirty Dancing
, but he was the only guy who thoroughly pulled it off last year when the
produced a
of the 1987 hit. That Dibeler did so with such considerable aplomb was no surprise to anybody who has witnessed any of his solo or group performances, which blithely hopscotch through a wonderfully odd collision of gender, sexuality, pop culture, dance, and raw humanity. He's the sort of performer who knows how to harness the comic discomfort of public nudity and marry it to the sometimes overwhelming and genuine emotions of cynical musical schmaltz. That he's absolutely fearless certainly doesn't hurt. Dibeler unveils his latest performance,
Girlfriend
, this Friday and Saturday at the Lumberhaus. He describes the performance in an e-mail as "part commercial pop radio, part experimental dance, part monologue, and part classical theater" in which he and Kaitlin Garren explore the "complications of growing up as disenchanted, depraved youth" in the 1990s. Arguably the weekend's best bet for taking you someplace you didn't want to go that will make you thankful you did.
April 15 and 16, Lumberhaus (1801 Falls Road), $5-$7 sliding scale.
ALSO OPENING THIS WEEK
, MICA's
, opens its production of Amiri Baraka's
Dutchman
April 14 at the Gateway building's BBOX theater; it runs through April 17.
Variations on Chaos
opens April 15 at the Lof/t; it runs through April 23.
10 X 10
--a selection of 10 10-minute plays--opens April 15 and runs through May 1. Previews of
Crime and Punishment
started this week, with the play officially opening April 20 and running through May 15. And the
open their production of
Six Degrees of Separation
April 15; it runs through May 15.
ONE NIGHT ONLY
The
presents a sneak peek of parts of its latest original musical production,
Shovel in the Dirt
, at the
April 17 from 9:30
-12:30
. Camay Calloway Murphy and Randy Smith's
Satchmo and Baby Dolly
explores the relationship between Louis Armstrong and Baltimore native Blanche Calloway at the
April 16 at 3
.
CLOSING
production of
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot
ends April 16.
production of Lydia Diamond's
ends April 17.
production of Adam Bock's
ends April 16.
production of Paula Vogel's
ends April 17.
