An interview with Bubble Schmeisis writer/performer Nick Cassenbaum in conversation with Theresa Buchheister, The Brick Artistic Director, 2020-2024.

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Theresa Buchheister

Hi Nick! Tell me about your bath house fascination. How did you get into bath house culture and why is it the ideal home for this self-exploratory show?

Nick Cassenbaum

So, I first went to the schvitz with my grandad. For years I would hear about it from the older men in the family. Kind of this mythical place. And when I heard it still existed and that my grandad still went! I jumped at the chance to go. And it truly was a special place. Full of all these old Jewish men at one second shouting and being aggressive and at one moment washing each other and looking after each other. It felt like it was stuck in time. That it could have been in London or the shtetl in Russia in the 1800s.

In terms of why make a show. Well I spent a long time walking around the streets of east London. Kind of like the lower east side. Looking for that authentic Jewish culture and not finding it. When I found it in the baths in such a naked way! I knew this was it. Knew I had to make a show about it. 

TB

Oh that is so cool. My grandad would nottttt have taken any of us kids to a bathhouse. Marking this down as another topic for me and my therapist. So, as you have grown more and more into yourself, what kinds of habits or rituals do you do/have – knowingly, unconsciously, carve out time for, daily/weekly/yearly, with others, solo…?

NC

Hahahah I mean. Maybe you got off lightly. Nothing like scrubbing your naked grandfather to bring you down to earth. 

I really love going to the barbers. Having my head shaved properly, hot towels. I used to go twice a month! But I can’t really afford to so much. So it’s now a couple of times a year which makes it a bit more special. 

Also London in the spring is amazing. A bit of a ritual for me is just walking around the city. Try and find a new bit each time. There is always something to soak up. 

Me and my kid bake cakes together too. That’s becoming quite a thing.

TB

Oooooh wonderful. It’s cool that one is a ritual with another person, but a barber, so it is also an exchange of goods and services. And then one is a solo ritual that is different all the time, walking around. And then one is with a loved one, making something together. Do you have any photos of the cakes you make? I am a cake gawker. Probably ever since the 1985 TV version of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. The various cakes in that…. mmmmm I close my eyes and see them. 
Do you have any obsessions or fascinations that have compelled you over the years as an artist?

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NC

Have attached one! Bare in mind it was decorated by a three year old with no self control. 
Obsessions yes. Fascinations. Yes. In my work I’ve always been fascinated by rhythms. The rhythms peoples speak and tell stories. I love the fact you can almost guide and control the energy of a room through the rhythm of telling a story. 

I have also been fascinated by how given the chance and the opportunity audience members can and will do anything and be hilarious. I discovered this as a street performer but also got obsessed with variety shows and game shows where hosts would get the best out of an audience. 
I also just love jokes!

TB

Oh my god I LOVE this totally maximalist cake. Ha! 

Here’s the YouTube of Alice cutting the cake, in the scene with the Lion (Ernest Borgnine) and the Unicorn (Beau Bridges). And the delicious blue Eat Me cake.

Ok! Riffing off of your obsessions:

1. Do you have a favorite song and/or one that just gets stuck in your head?

2. Is there an audience interaction that truly surprised or upended you in some way?

3. Tell me a joke.

NC

I see what you mean about these cakes. Pretty hypnotising.

1. Any old iron! the Peter Sellers version. I’d say this song is in a constant loop in my head like some London pastiche stereotype.

2. So many to choose from. I spent years as a street performer. Being threatened, told to shut up, leave people alone. Also cracking a smile on the scariest looking men was always something I tried and often succeeded to do. There was this one time where a group of drunks came up to me and kept trying to get me to drop character telling me I was lying to them. I wouldn’t drop. They all went away and then an hour later came back with what looked like king of the drunks. I again didn’t drop the character. He put up his hand and said, leave him alone boys. He’s just doing his job.   People are just really funny. Oh there was another time I was doing Bubble Schmeisis and a big group of elderly people came. One of them fell asleep and right at the end of the show and woke up with a jolt and said WHERE AM I? WHAT’S GOING ON? I said to her don’t worry, we’re nearly finished. I live for stuff like that. 

3. Joke.

TB

This is great. I love an interview filled with hyperlinks (no, really, I do).

Speaking of audiences, it seems like many different sorts have seen Bubble Schmeisis. When you think of the responses that you have gotten, the people who have seen it and connected to it, who do you think in NY should come see this show? I always encourage people to think more specifically than – EVERYONE. 3rd grade teachers? People that like weird 2nd dates? Bike enthusiasts? Jugglers? Young lawyers?

NC

Yeh, I have taken this show just about everywhere and have always been fascinated by the people it connected with. A very common response I get…I’ll come back with my parents. So bring the whole fam!I would say people who has immigration in their family history, people who aren’t WASPS- I found that a lot of people in the UK who weren’t Jewish but working class really connect to the themes. Left wing Jews, Right wing Jewish boomers and all Jews in between. Klezmer fans and of course people who like a sauna or shvitz! 

TB

That is lovely. I dig it.

Last question (because I think we have so much good shit) – Do you hope to do anything else while you are in NY?

NC

What do I hope to do. Eat as much as I can. I’ve never been to Queens so want to go there and chow down. I want to go to the Russian baths in Brighton Beach. I do love Coney Island so plan to go there again as well as catch as many other shows as I can!

TB

Thanks for this back n forth, Nick! I hope you have a wonderful time in The Brick and in New York!

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An interview with I’M REPEATING MYSELF writer/creator Chad Kaydo and director Carsen Joenk. In conversation with Ann Marie Dorr, The Brick Interim Producing Artistic Director, 2024-2025.

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Ann Marie Dorr

Carsen–Who is Chad?

Carsen Joenk

Oh, my God, that is the hard ball. Who is Chad?

Um, okay… Well, yeah, actually, I’m kind of like…I was feeling like I should maybe think of some sort of like a poetic textual answer, but I’m going to say that Chad is Chad Kaydo who’s living in New York City and is a Hunter grad writing interesting, beautiful plays. And that includes this one, in which there are many more Chads.

And I think that’s as much investigating as I feel like I can do for just the “who is Chad?” on this one? 

Chad Kaydo

So boring, so factual. 

CJ

Yeah, the facts, I’m going with the facts of what I know, what I know is true, versus all the inside stuff I might feel.

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AMD

Okay, so Chad – who is Chad REALLY? Who REALLY is Chad?

CK

I mean, oh, I guess the real answer is, if I knew, I wouldn’t have written this play! But Chad is Alma Cuervo

and Matthew Antoci and Jon Norman Schneider

and Enette Fremont

and Frankie Placidi. 

That’s what the play kind of is, that I don’t know that we know who we are sometimes, or we think we do, and that idea can get in the way.

AMD

Yes, especially when you’re a playwright, I think. When you’re like, let me mine the depths and corners of the brain and the soul and try to put something on paper.

CK

Yeah, which perhaps I will never do again, but we’ll see. I mean, never something that feels so blatantly like, yeah, like, you know, beat to beat, life to stage.

AMD

You won’t have a sequel then?

CJ

“I’m Still Repeating Myself,” yeah, “I’m Repeating Myself Again,” yeah.

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AMD

Oh, this is a sneaky, fun question I actually thought of in the shower, and then I forgot to write it down. When you repeat yourself, what are the words that you most often feel that you repeat, or sounds, or like syntaxical lexical things that you repeat the most?

CK

I was with my cousin, who’s mentioned in the play, actually, this summer, and she and her daughter kept making fun of me, because—there’s probably a word for them, but someone’s talking, and you go, “mmmmm.” And they kept saying I sounded like Michael Barbaro on The Daily, To me, those sounds are just, saying to someone, I’m listening, I’m interested. And I think it comes from interviewing people on the phone in my past life as a journalist where, like you want don’t want people to stop talking, you want them to know you’re interested and you’re listening. So you go, yeah, mmmm.

CJ

Wow.

Active listening, listening. Yes. 

CK

How do you repeat yourself, Carsen?

CJ

I certainly have phrases that I say a lot, and I go through phases of saying certain phrases a lot. I have been saying the word “totally” a lot recently, and then to myself, I’ll have, like, I’ve newly started to investigate some repetitive mantras of like, calming or soothing or getting excited about something. I don’t know if they work yet, but I’m trying to, like, actively repeat things to myself now in a new way, but all of the classic, like, Midwestern active listening phrases, “no worries.” Or like, when people—what’s that when people say “no problem” in sort of different ways, or, “sorry.” 

CK

I do “totally,” totally, totally, totally. 

CJ

Yes, so much now, and I cannot get myself to stop saying it. I need a little jar.

AMD

You could put a “totally” jar in the rehearsal room? 

CJ

Yeah, totally we have an “aunt” jar. Everyone in the Midwest says, aunt like “ant.”

AMD

So what is the hottest, sexiest, horniest part of this play…right now?

CK

I mean, there are many conversations about porn, and some of them, some of them take unexpected swerves, hopefully that starts sending to other places. But yeah, probably the first one.

CJ

I’m gonna say there’s a part in one of those porn sections that talks about what happens if you actually were like into something that would be like, good for your life. And then there’s a scene in the play called “Test.” And I actually think that is, in some ways, like the hottest part, in some way, because it’s so, like, beautiful and so supportive that there’s something that is very hot in a loving way about this section.

CK

I love that. Like that act of care is hot in its own way. 

Your mantras reminded me that I decided my one word—like instead of a New Year’s resolution, I picked a word to focus on: care. Not like self care, not like bubble baths, but like truly what are you doing? That are you doing to yourself, that is like actually helping yourself? And then also for others. And I feel like this play is very much about caring for others in some way.

AMD

But the others are all Chad.

CK

Well… there are other people in the play. Everyone who plays me plays several other people as well. 

AMD

Yeah, your whole family! And beyond!

Just because Peter wanted to ask it. And now I’m curious, what is the most boring moment in the play right now? 

CK

I always think all my plays are boring, but I love that. I mean, that’s my intention. I think the boring moments of life carry everything in them. Like the minutia is what our entire lives are. So, yeah, I used to be afraid of it. Now I’m like, no, that’s just what it is. I don’t truly think this play is boring, but I’m okay with like — there’s an early conversation in the play with Chad and Chad’s mother, and they’re trying to work out the semantics of if someone lives across the street or down the street, and it’s like a page, and Christine Scarfuto, the dramaturg keeps trying to make me trim it. And I was like, no, it’s funny. And it’s real to me that it goes for that long. I trust Christine implicitly, except on that page.

AMD

That’s the baby that can’t die.

CK

I just want that moment to feel as long as it would in real life. And yeah, there are moments that need to move, but that I feel like we can sit in for a minute. But yeah, so far, what’s the most boring? I think that’s a good answer.

CJ

I think that it’s kind of part of experiencing the play, is thinking about what’s real. So I think there is a little bit of “to each their own” in terms of what they’re looking for from a story. And so, yeah, I think different people will have a different experience of what they need or crave from the story. And so it’s like, kind of a weak answer, like, I don’t know, some people might be uninterested in the real, and some people might be incredibly interested in the real. And I think that’s kind of part of the experiment, a little bit too, is, yeah, understanding how the real, even if there are quote, unquote boring parts, affect you as a whole.

So I do think that there’s a good answer. 

CK

Totally.

AMD

That’s the name of the sequel, Repeating Myself: 

ALL

Totally.

An interview with artist Nora Chellew during her exhibit The Salt That You Bring to the Table at Brick Aux Gallery, November 14, 2024 – January 29, 2025. In conversation with Garrick Neuner, Fall 2024 Intern.

How did the spatial configuration of Brick Aux Gallery play into your design of the exhibition? How did the work evolve from leaving your studio to arriving at the Gallery?

I definitely view this body of work as installation work, responsive to the configuration of the space it is in, and only complete in its presentation. The Dowsing Drawing artworks can’t drape their ribbons or make their charcoal drawings until they are mounted on the wall. Pellicle (Easter Mold) combines two isolated components – an LED circuit and scoby cast – that do not connect until they are installed.

In terms of the gallery itself, I appreciate that Brick Aux is both intimate and expansive. This duality suits the works, which are petite but dramatic, and best seen as a collection with plenty of breathing room. The gallery also has nooks and crannies afforded by relief columns that I knew I wanted to play with. Aux is not a perfectly rectangular place, and I didn’t want to pretend that it was. Responding to architectural nuances is much more fun and allows the overall effect to feel more intentional.

What artists do you find this work in conversation with?

Honestly, I would love to hear other folks’ take on this, who have more distance from the work. But for me, two artists that come to mind are Sarah Sze and Adriana Ramić. I think that this show resonates with Sze’s pendulum works, which are both witchy and robotic. And I haven’t stopped thinking about Ramić’s Standard Human Mesh Recovery System exhibition, which feels like it could befriend this work through the shared notion of creating a lab-kitchen space. In general, I often think about Lara Favaretto’s crumbling confetti cube works, which capture ideas of passive performance and the potential energy of objects.

I also hope that my pieces are in conversation with the creative outputs of those who have worked with me over the course of this show. It’s been a privilege and a pleasure to invite makers into this exhibition space, and to develop ideas together or in tandem. Lameesa Mallic, an amazing designer, worked with me to create a show title font and a post card design that encapsulates the energy of this exhibition perfectly. Grace Patterson, jack of all trades, has interests in ritual that overlap with mine: I’m so happy that she could expertly lead the pomander-making workshop we held on December 15th.

I love your description of your process as “sorcery and experimentation!” At what points in your process did you have specific end goals in mind, and at what points were you inspired by unexpected outcomes? At what points did the process feel traditionally sculptural?

Thank you! Experimentation is absolutely a part of the process for me. I have the grandest failures and the most lush discoveries while I’m testing something new. I sketch my ideas frequently and usually have a clear vision of what my intentions are. That said, I am always and forever using new mediums. By testing new ingredients, I assume a certain level of unpredictability when making.

The entire process has felt sculptural to me. For instance, while this exhibition incorporates nontraditional materials, there is a throughline of mold making and casting, seen in Caudal Pes (Pomander) Stage Right, Caudal Pes (Pomander) Stage Left, Sconce (Pomander), and Pellicule (Easter Mold). This is where I have to shout out Jude Tallichet, my moldmaking and casting mentor and friend. She has taught me so much about process, and I’m always inspired by her artwork.

I’m happy to give examples of failures I experienced while putting together this show, because I think it’s important that we don’t expect success in our first attempts. Pellicle (Easter Mold) is the third iteration of a kombucha scoby cast. The first version looked like a haunted object from a horror movie; the second looked like an excretion. Third time really was the charm for this sculpture. Developing the circuitry for the Dowsing Drawing egg works was also a journey. I initially built a completely different type of circuit. I don’t regularly mess around with microcomputers, so this took time to figure out. Once it was finally complete, it did not move the eggs in the way I wanted it to. Without the welcoming community at NYC Resistor, especially Max Marrone, I couldn’t have made a big shift to a new type of circuit (complete with 3D printed components) that ended up being the winner.

With your intensive experimentation in food mediums, how has your perception of these products changed? Can you look at an egg the same way again?

I think that I am constantly looking at materials and seeing their possibilities. I’ve long felt that all objects, edible or otherwise, are full of potential. Having grown up in a Brooklyn neighborhood that marks the passing of seasons and holidays through food, I’ve recognized ingredients as instruments of decoration and celebration from a young age. From braided Easter bread (with actual whole shelled eggs in it) to marzipan lambs, to pizzelle cookies printed like snowflakes, I’ve been privy to a whole world of edible sculpture from my earliest days.

Thank you so much! Lastly, I want to ask about the title of the exhibition. How did you decide on a mondegreen, or mistaken lyric, from a Lana del Rey song?

I enjoy a fun, playful title, and this mistaken Lana del Rey lyric is just that, in my eyes. Beyond that, I knew that this phrase was exactly the combination of elements I was searching for in this show title. It includes “salt,” a food-word for preservation and flavoring; “bring” an action word suggesting movement; and “table” a space for gathering, exhibiting, and enjoying a finished product. It’s witchy, new, old, collective, and culinary. Another suitable title would have been Stone Soup, with reference to the incredible fable my friend Jurrell Lewis recently reminded me of. 

“It’s noir-shaped, but like all good noirs, there is more here than meets the eye—or ear. In Joey’s floridly contempo-queeny stylings, cliches meet cliches with cannibalistic ferocity, as the play’s quartet of queers—all played by the virtuosic actor-playwright David Greenspan—become exponentially queerer in their pursuits for one another.” – Jess Barbagallo for The Brooklyn Rail

Read the interview

“…in the tiny yet mighty Williamsburg venue The Brick, there is a solo performance occurring around a table on an otherwise empty stage… On Set With Theda Bara—written by Joey Merlo and performed by off-kilter-theater royalty David Greenspan—embodies exactly the kind of gutsy weirdness and rich, invigorating audience connection that can arise from the challenge of a limited set of tools.”

– Sara Holdren, Vulture

Read the full review

“Joey Merlo’s On Set with Theda Bara, an eerie seance-play performed by David Greenspan, who channels multitudes.” – Helen Shaw

Read The New Yorker’s Full Winter Culture Preview

“Dyer is intent on a kind of holy failure: he runs technical cues from a cell phone, which he hands to the audience, encouraging them to whack away at the controls, and he tries to invoke a supernatural power by painting a pentacle, an effort that collapses mid-ritual. Is he talking metaphorically about success here? Is the Devil not taking his calls? Yes and yes.”⁠
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Read Helen Shaw’s full review of Faust (The Broken Show) in The New Yorker

“Room, Room, Room, in the many Mansions of eternal glory for Thee and for everyone is part concert, part queer church service, part rave, and all big, tender, welcoming energy.”

Read Sara Holdren’s full review in Vulture / NY Mag

“On Set with Theda Bara uses the mythology of the silent film star and anti-hero Theda Bara as a metaphor for queerness,” says playwright Merlo. “I’m a lyrical playwright who loves the campy, surreal, and melodramatic. My plays explore the cracks between the boundaries of what’s ‘real’ and what isn’t—by fusing the two, I attempt to locate my own existence within the realm of the fantastic. Theda Bara was written in a fever-dream state, literally, as I was very sick at the time and mostly bedridden. From that state, I used a cinematically imagistic narrative to create a play that transcends the traditional theatrical experience and invites a collaboration between audience, performer, and text.”

Read Andrew Gans’ full preview on Playbill.

“Bent Duo unsettles traditional notions of music making; nothing is taken at face (or ear) value. They shift the sonic field through what they call their “radical faerie dance,” communicating queer bodies in motion. What was under the surface becomes legible, and the more audible these queer sonics become.”

Read John P. Hastings full feature on Bent Duo on Brooklyn Rail.

“Anthony Braxton’s music is difficult to program even among forward-thinking institutions. Leave it to the scrappy companies to get the work done.”

Read Seth Colter Walls’ full review in the New York Times.

“Room, Room, Room delves into the end of the world, expanding definitions of gender identity and what it means to create a utopian society. It also contemplates, death. “

Read Joey Sims full preview on his Substack – Transitions

“Our existence is an elaborate joke: a stroke of dumb luck, a glint in the universe’s eye. What better way to acknowledge that fact than through a psychedelic cabaret, guided by the blind prophet of the Underworld themself? Part musical and part otherworldly burlesque, Hyperfantasia served the wild, the wonderful, and everything in between.”

Read Theo Armstrong’s full review on Culturebot.

“Experimental company Object Collection has transformed The Brick into a madhouse of assorted knickknacks, like six different living rooms all happening at once.”

Read Joey Sims full review on The Broadway Blog.