OBF: Who is in the cast? 
Bella: There are surprises in every moment, especially in our cast of entertainers; Nina La Voix from New York, Miss Theresa from Columbus, Bianca Coal from New Mexico. Also, our ladies from Le Femme Mystique Burlesque; Eliza Sidecar, Mahsitti Jaade, Sable Champagne and Cece Noir as well as Veranda L'Ni and Abby Downton, with possibly more to be added. They are giving their time to entertain for this evening’s good cause. 

OBF: What should we expect from this show? 
Bella: Interaction! There is the ugly sweater contest that will win you some unexpected holiday gifts and, should you get lucky, some random picks will get you more free goodies. There is the awkward family photo booth where you, your friends, and family can goof off and create some holiday treasures. It's not all holiday themed; we have a bit of everything in this show, and I think it will put you in the right amount of holiday spirit.

OBF: Le Femme Mystique Burlesque has had a busy year. 
The troupe is very community oriented; can you tell us why?
Bella: When I started this group, I wanted it to be more than just a show. I wanted to do something for our community that not only grows it but allows us to support each other in different ways. We are cause-oriented and we stand for those with no voices. I'm happy to say every single one of the girls stands for the rights of equality both for women and LGBTQ. We support our audience in any way we can. Through the last 10 years, it has become apparent that we do it for the love of our community and our city. 

This holiday season let's help make some ones light a little brighter. 
Part of the proceeds of the show will be donated to the charity of the evening. 
You can in fact give more if you are so inclined; on our website we will be hosting a link for 
donations for the Providence House for a whole month. 

This is the last Le Femme Mystique show of the season. They will be back February with Sweetheart Showcase at Beachland Ballroom, The Home of Cleveland's Best Burlesque!

Midnight Passenger hails from Cleveland, It's formed by Vocalist Tony Zaro, Guitarists Jim Janek & Dan Metyk, Bassist Ricky Zaborowski and Drummer Shane Zigler. After a full year they will soon release their first full length album that has a secret release date and name, Recently the band via their facebook gave their fans the chance to listen to the album in full. 
Their melodies go from upbeat catchy & fast paste to dark, emotional and moody. 
The album has a great flow lyrically and musically and the growth is noted from their first released EP "Long Time Waiting". 
Recently sign to Cleveland Record label Cellar Door, Midnight Passenger has been in the wave lengths appearing in multiple music festivals like Weapons of Masscreation and Rendezvous.
Songs like Bones, Radiating, Wolf's Den and  Wading show the bands flexibility and evolution, 
We had some time to talk to Tony Zaro about the new album and all it's challenges. 

OBF: The new album is moody with highs and lows. Can you tell us about the recording process?
Tony MP: Initially we were going to record an EP with the material we had. Since half of the songs were pop and the other half was darker and more dreary we decided to cater to the idea that the record has this sort of sun/moon feel, which are subjects I reference in the lyrics. We took our time with the recording, constantly going over things and making them better.

OBF: What is the album about?
Tony MP: That's definitely a hard question to answer, mainly because it’s a concept record. It's all about one subject, but from multiple directions. If you're familiar with the episode of The Twilight Zone where the girl has reconstructive face surgery and they take the bandages off and she's a beautiful woman but all the doctors react as if she's a monster; but when the camera pans out, they're, in fact, the monsters. A sort of beauty is in the eye of the beholder, sort of blind perspective. More or less, the record is about a man who goes through these outward changes and is shunned by everyone around him. Not because his inward personality changed, but because his outward appearance became appalling to what the antagonist considered the norm. Specifically the song "The Wolf's Den" there is a line "I'm foaming at the mouth but I feel okay, yeah my claws are coming out but I feel okay" really explains that transformation. Maybe in hindsight it's a personal explanation of myself, but that would only my subconscious talking. I never intended it to be about me, but maybe it is.

OBF: What do you love and hate about writing?
Tony MP: I love the outcome and some of the things I do to get into the mood. For instance, sitting in the woods while slightly afraid of what's in the night and literally things just spew out on paper. Maybe because I want to get the hell out of there, or maybe just from sheer inspiration. Things that usually frustrate me are either hitting a writer’s block or when I write the lyrics and they don't fit the music well.

OBF: When do you expect the album to be released?
Tony MP: We are initially trying to keep the release date a secret of sorts, mainly to help build anticipation, but to give a hint, it's a "new" record and it took us a "year" to complete. Hint hint.

OBF: Tell us about your summer in the Cleveland Music Scene?
Tony MP: Our summer was awesome! We had a lot of new opportunities, like signing with the local label Cellardoor. Also, getting a chance to play a couple festivals really helped spread the word about our band. Definitely the Fashion meets Music festival. It was cool to drive down to Columbus and see the whole town celebrating great music. Not to mention we had the opportunity to play at The Brothers Drake which offered fantastic mead.

OBF: How do you think this album develops MP as an artist?
Tony MP: I really feel like it helped us expand our interests. We delved into things we weren't really used to, which helped us create some things we weren't actually sure we were capable of. But in order to understand that you'll have to listen to the record.

OBF: How have you grown as MP since your debut album?
Tony MP: We are definitely tighter as a band, and our live show has progressed greatly since our last record. I think we all collectively know our individual role better, too. Sometimes when writing we'd have that feel of "too many cooks in the kitchen" and learned to back off when either of us wasn't needed.

Catch Midnight Passenger at The Beachland Ballroom Dec 5th, 2014 for Ottawa EP Release Show
Show at 8:30pm tickets are $10.00 adv / $12.00 door All Ages. 
Facebook Invite 

Find Midnight Passenger 
Bandcamp 
Faceboo.com/Midnightpassenger
Twitter.com/mpchirps
Youtube.com/midnightpassenger


Booking Contact 
CellarDoor

Tis' The Season for A Christmas Shimmy, We are excited to know The World Famous Pontani Sisters are Coming to Town. All the way from NYC they bring us a whole new show with an amazing cast of international stars as well as local cast. 
You will be seeing Helen Pontani, Main Attraction, The Miss Exotic World 2008 Angie Pontani and The Magic man Albert Cadabra. We caught up with Angie Pontani to talk tour, costumes and glitter for this upcoming holiday season! 


OBF-Thank you for making the time to talk to us, 
We are excited to have The Burlesque-A-Pades in The Rustbelt this holiday season. 

AP-Thank you, we can't wait!

OBF-Tis' the time for some teasing, Tell us about the new show 

AP-A Christmas Shimmy as a production. It reads there will be 
"elements of the timeless Dickens tale" are we expecting a full play?
Ha! No, this isn't a sit down, please unwrap your lozenge before we begin kind of experience. It's more like the play boiled down to the really important and truncated parts and with showgirls. Imagine a sort of burlesque muppets.  Essentially Albert has lost his way and ya' know, maybe he needs some foxy ghosts with important moral messages and fabulous fan kicks to show him the way! 

OBF-What can the audience expect from this wonderful show? 

AP-It's a wild and fast ride of burlesque, variety, magic, comedy and ensemble dance numbers in the spirit of the holidays. We do a lot of shows and this really is my favorite, from the costumes to the music and the comedy,  even Grinch loves this revue. 

OBF-How many costume changes will be involved? 

AP-All in, there will be 26 costume changes per night, so over the duration of the tour the cast will have changed costumes over 400 times!  That might be more costume changes then at a Cher concert!

OBF-tell us a bit on what you have been upto with the cast of
 burlesque-a-pades for the last few months? 

AP-We have been busy rehearsing since the end of October. This show requires a lot of attention and practice, there is a lifetime of entertainment in 90 minutes, which means the cast is constantly in motion and everyone wears a lot of hats (literally) in this production. 

OBF- What is your favorite thing about the holiday season ? 

AP- I love the feeling of the holidays, the decorations everywhere, the music, the general feeling surrounding the holiday. Before we toured in December, I loved being home, putting up my tree, baking cookies and all that good stuff. But now after being on the road for the past 5 years I've come to look forward to celebrating the month burlesque-a-pades style, we decorate the car, burn a pine tree candle in our hotels, play secret santa and of course we get to travel city to city and share the spirit of the holidays with our amazing audiences. The holidays provide a lot of opportunities to have a great time with family and friends, we get to do that on-stage too!

OBF-What is the most challenging thing in this tour? -

AP- Any tour can be really challenging, it's an exhausting schedule. You work every night and travel every day. Some of the big challenges of doing that in December and in the parts of the country that we are going through is of course the weather. Last years snowpocalypse was brutal, it turned 4 hour drives into 8 hour drives. The other major challenges are buying holiday presents, it's hard to find time to shop when you are on the road from December 5th till the 24th, and of course missing out on the holidays and the holiday prep back home always gets me a bit misty eyed!


To Attend Burlesque-A-Pades please click on the picture below for details!
12/11 Skully's Columbus 
Guest Strip Poker and Pandora Foxx

12/12 The Rex Pittsburgh 
Special Guest Bella Sin

12/13 Beachland Ballroom Cleveland 
Special Guest Pinch and Squeal

12/14 The Huma Room at Hop Cat Detroit 

Special Guest Lushes La Moan and Gala Delish

The moment you step inside a Theater Ninja Production there is a journey to be experienced. This journey was conceived by Ray Caspio and brought to life by the humble cast of actors and actresses that blurred the lines of gender and sexuality under the direction of Jeremy Paul. 
All of this is accompanied by the composition of Eric M.C. Gonzalez. 
In a small pop style theater you are transported to a true work of Victorian burlesque. 


The everyday life of an individual and the reality of many make for an emotional journey. The interaction with the audience starts immediately with a comedic sketch that eases you 
into the following magic that appears on stage. The scenes are simple, yet powerful, as the play unravels in front of your eyes. 

The conversation of real issues mixed with comedic moments, passionate words and real life emotion make Tingle Tangle a part of all of us. The presentation made that very clear at the beginning of the show. The music of Tingle Tangle is moody and it's apparent that with the audience there are feelings being felt, conversations being had, and thoughts being developed.
We took some time to sit down with Ray Caspio and talk about 
The Theater Ninjas and Tingle Tangle.

Why do you think the audience has connected with it so much? 
I think it's the honesty of the piece. Nobody is hiding in this show and when we show each other our hearts — who we truly are — it's impossible to not connect and relate.


How have you connected to the audience? 
Theater Ninjas has been working for years on genuinely connecting with audiences. Each show does it in a slightly different way but always with care and respect for the audience. We want everyone to feel comfortable in our spaces: to feel GOOD. It's an art form we're constantly evolving that's been a part of both my training and Jeremy Paul's (Theater Ninjas' Artistic Director and TingleTangle's director) training. Our audience relationship has been an integral part of The Excavation & The Excavation @ the Cleveland Museum of Art, Code: Preludes, Marble Cities,NICK&JEREMY, and now, TingleTangle, where we're speaking directly with you. We see each other in this intimate space so the show becomes different every night depending on who's in the audience.

What makes this play so unique to you and the theater ninjas ? 
This is certainly the most personal show I've ever done. I'm talking about my experiences as a married gay man in Ohio, whether that's through monologues or songs. Improv is also a part of the show and the scenes, which were created through improv, are some of the funniest we've ever done. That's thanks to this brave ensemble who created and attack this material every night. Every artist who is a part of this piece has given their heart and soul to it.

How do you feel after this run of shows is over, Do you have any plans to extend it any further?
I'm so excited and grateful we were able to extend it to Sunday. Since this show is part of Theater Ninjas' "Preludes" system, that means it will continue to evolve and come back in different forms...which I believe you'll see in 2015! Social and political changes in terms of LGBTQ issues will help form new content. Response from audiences and critics has been fantastic, we've sold out over half of the shows, and we love doing it, so you'll definitely see TingleTangle again.

"I'm trying not to think of this run ending. It's more than what I dreamed of." 

What is after Tingle Table as far as projects? 
In January, Theater Ninjas will co-produce Fire On the Water at Cleveland Public Theatre, which Jeremy Paul is co-directing. Tickets are available at Cleveland Public Theatre's website.

April 2-5 is The Grand Celebration of the Celestial Mystery — { a Marble Cities Prelude }
Directed & Devised by Jeremy Paul
You are invited to join an elite cabal of mad revelers and decadent cultists in an immersive theatrical party unlike any other. Every year, the members of a secret society gather to feast, sing, dance, tell stories and perform ancient rituals. None of them believe in the magic of these ceremonies. They are about to find out how wrong they are. This Prelude is a further exploration of the connection between imagination and power from 2012’s Marble Cities.

And my next project, which I'll begin researching and co-writing after TingleTangle is:
The Turing Machine — { a Code Prelude }
Written by Ray Caspio and Jeremy Paul. Directed and Devised by Jeremy Paul 
May 2015
The Turing Machine is an original, metaphysical take on the many lives and deaths of Alan Turing. The ghost of Turing has been reincarnated as a computer program, forced to endlessly relive the complexcontradictions of this singular genius. Starring Ray Caspio in his ‘transcendent’, ‘riveting’ one-man performance, this Prelude is an evolution of work first begun in 2014’s Code:Preludes.