I’m so excited to announce my first NYC show, an new work called KNB: The Musical, writ­ten, com­posed, and directed fel­low Yalie Christopher Carter Sanderson. I’m in the cho­rus (another first!), and it’s been a great way to start off work­ing in a new city and meet incred­i­ble, tal­ented new people.

If you’re in the area, I hope you can check it out. Tickets are cheap ($15!), and the sched­ule is a lit­tle weird. I’ve heard that the prime-time shows sell quickly, so reserve online now!

Gorilla Repertory presents
the New York Int’l Fringe Fest. pro­duc­tion of

KNB

The Romatical, Comical, Nautical Musical

writ­ten and directed by Christopher Carter Sanderson
musi­cal direc­tor: Allison Tartalia / chore­o­g­ra­pher: Erin Porvaznika

All’s Fair in Love and the Global War on Terror? A sailor won­ders what is mak­ing his life truly mis­er­able as his Navy Reserve Boat Unit sings and dances its way toward impend­ing deployment.

The Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts, Pace Univ. [map]

Sunday 8/10, 6:45pm
Thursday 8/14, 3:00pm
Sunday 8/17, 1:45pm
Thursday 8/21, 7:30pm
Saturday 8/23, 9:45 (pm, i hope)

tick­ets ($15! Cheap!) are avail­able on the Fringe Website

Happy Holidays to one and all! You know how I like to cel­e­brate? Tap Dancing!

That’s right—you can see me in the Cornerstone Productions Holiday show, The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, a song-and-dance spec­tac­u­lar which, for me, rep­re­sents sev­eral firsts:

• First time imper­son­at­ing Elvis in front of a pay­ing audience
• First time lift­ing a scantily-clad vamp over my head mid-dance
• NOT the first time danc­ing onstage with girls in their under­wear (that would have been 1998, in Santa Monica Playhouse’s pro­duc­tion of Backstreet, a musi­cal based on Sholom Asch’s God of Vengeance, for which I also co-wrote book, music, and lyrics)

Interested in see­ing the musi­cal spec­tac­u­lar that’s blaz­ing like a meteor across the Connecticut shore­line? Contact me for info…

As ever, I’ll be appear­ing in New Haven Theater Company’s The Funny Stages, CT’s only night of improv com­edy and music, this month on Wednesday, November 14, at 8pm, in the back room of  New Haven’s BAR (254 Crown Street). Tickets are $5, and you can bring in BAR’s deli­cious pizza and house brews.

We’re appear­ing this month with the Keith and Mazer Trio, fronted by the phe­nom­e­nally tal­ented Megan Keith.

The show starts at 8pm and should go until about 10:30 or 11, but don’t feel like you have to show up (or stay!) for the whole thing. NHTC started doing these monthly com­edy shows because we wanted to cre­ate an alter­na­tive the­ater expe­ri­ence, one where you don’t have to decide to buy a sub­scrip­tion months in advance to pay an extortionist’s price for the priv­i­lege of sit­ting in an uncom­fort­able seat and not mov­ing for three hours. Come, go, eat, drink, flirt, leave, return, stay, laugh, heckle… it’s all good. See you there.

I’m going to be appear­ing at Long Wharf Theatre this Monday, November 5, in the thrilling con­clu­sion of the New England Region’s year of 365 Days/365 Plays, by Suzan-Lori Parks.

Working with New Haven Theater Company, I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in this project since November, 2006—the New Haven Advocate called our Black Friday store­front the­ater the “most widely seen 365 event” in New Haven—and it will be a blast to wrap the project up by per­form­ing the Third Constant, Inaction in Action, and the final play of the year on the Long Wharf mainstage.

I’m once again involved in Suzan-Lori Parks’s 365 Days / 365 Plays, this time per­form­ing Week 8 in Parking Meter spaces all around New Haven. For more infor­ma­tion, see this post on the New Haven Theater Company site.

I’m going to be per­form­ing with New Haven Theater Company, our local, grass­roots, butt-kicking, rev­o­lu­tion­ary the­ater con­cern, at 900 Chapel Street on BLACK FRIDAY and SATURDAY, November 24 and 25, between Noon and 8pm both days.

We’re doing a con­tin­u­ous marathon of per­for­mances from the 365 Days / 365 Plays cycle by Suzan-Lori Parks. Visit the National Festival Site for more infor­ma­tion about the project. Or just show up to watch, help, or act. It’s going to be a wild time.

I’m per­form­ing this week­end in the pre­miere pro­duc­tion of Teatro Del Sol y de La Luna, the Latino Theater Wing of the New Haven Theater Company. I play the cen­tral nar­ra­tor char­ac­ter, Pedro, in “The Wake of Pedro de Urdemalas”, an adap­ta­tion of Latin American folk­lore using singing, dance, and storytelling.

Though sum­mer has ended, and with it the pro­duc­tions of Much Ado about Nothing and Robin Hood I worked on, you can get your fix of Matt at New Haven Theater Company’s This Just In: New Haven’s Spontaneous Newscast every Wednesday night.