STEVEN TANENBAUM WRITER/DIRECTOR/PRODUCER Steven Tanenbaum is the writer and director of the critically acclaimed, cult hit, MONO, which will celebrate its 2-year anniversary and 300th performance this August. MONO has been spotlighted on "The Today Show" and designated as "Critics' Pick" by TimeOut New York, New York Magazine, Paper Mag, Citysearch, Show Business Weekly and more. Don Lyons of the New York Post raved about it as "an engaging, promising sample of new, fresh lively kind of theatre"; New York Magazine called it “inventive, nasty and a surprising success”; TimeOut New York praised “the bawdy bar comedy” as “a cult hit,” and Where Magazine listed it among "the best of what to do and see in town" for being "shocking, engaging and the kind of off-the-beaten-track theatre for which NYC is notorious." MONO has also been featured on Japanese, Israeli, British and French television. MONO captures the essence of the hip, multi-cultural microcosm of downtown Manhattan. Set in a typical Lower East Side bar, it exploits our insatiable appetite for voyeurism. The audience serve as patrons and eavesdrop on the real-life character developments and conflicts of contemporary archetypes like the nerd in leather pants, the rehab dropout, an urbanologist who cotton swabs you for samples, a two-timing French sock puppet and more. Innovative, unorthodox and literally engaging, the show infiltrates the audience with actors and encourages you to "turn on your cell phones"! Mr. Tanenbaum's last show, the critical hit, Q101 or How To Get To Rikers, documented his experience as a teacher on Riker's Island in a maxi-maxi security facility and eventually in the prison's AIDS ward. From a bare stage, he described through a series of anecdotes his one-year stint in what he calls “the university of incarceration.” The Village Voice raved “Tanenbaum's sincerity is thorough and powerful, his simple, good intentions showing through with remarkable clarity.” Tanenbaum's new play, Your Best Friend, will have a staged reading on December 4th and is scheduled to begin its run next spring. His screenplay, Superbad is in pre-production and scheduled to begin filming at the end of the year. He is an accomplished storyteller, published monologist and playwright, who, in addition to his work in theatre and film, is playwright-in-residence for the non-profit Loco-Motion Dance Theatre for Children. He is currently co-producing “Demystifying the Myth”, a documentary about child abuse scheduled to air on PBS in 2003. “In a weird way, both kids and criminals have taught me what it means to be true to myself.” His other works include Blink at the 1999 International NYC Fringe Festival; Drive Like Jackson Pollock at the Vineyard Theatre; and The Summer They Stopped Making 'Ludes or How Taking Peyote Turned Me Into A Coyote at MTW. Read the interview nytheatre.com did with the Steven Tenenbaum |