PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A DUMB BLONDE
This one act musical comedy premiered at Manhattan Theatre Source, August of 2007.
CAST: Pete Aguero, Sharon Fogarty*, Hope Garland, Bonnie Lee*, Rachel McPhee, Denise DeMirjian*, Matthew Porter*, Thomas Rainey* and Debra Wassum*. (*Members Actors Equity Association).
PADB features Nora, a theatre artist who attempts to bleach out her talents and pursue a corporate career. Her failed marriage with Prince Charming, however, forces her back into her dark artistic roots.
NY TIMES DEPRESSED CRITIC, CLAUDIA LA ROCCO writes... "After Prince Charming, a Blonde Tries to Recover. It is a relief to open the press kit for “Portrait of the Artist as a Dumb Blonde” and see pictures of its playwright and star, Sharon Fogarty, with her natural brunet hair. The one-act musical “comedy,” at Manhattan Theater Source, is a despairing portrait indeed."
MAC ROGERS, playwright extraordinaire writes: "I saw the legendary Sharon Fogarty's PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A DUMB BLONDE. A new Sharon Fogarty musical is always a treat, to be in the hands of a truly idiosyncratic artist of genuine feeling who speaks a thoroughly personal language of music and stage physicality. The key to understanding Sharon's work is to recognize that she's unashamed of revealing her influences, and sometimes quotes them directly, but always rearranges them through her sensibility. ... a gripping portrait of a woman learning to channel the forces of grief and self-pity into useful tools she can use to pull herself back into life."
DREW BELLWARE, Cinematographer writes: "Portrait of the Artist as a Dumb Blonde" playing now at Theatresource not only has the best title of any show I've ever seen, it's also beautiful and transcendent. I'm a little embarrassed that she would write and perform a show about all the secret things that I, and only I, have ever felt and never told anyone about. Or wait, no, the entire audience feels she's made a play just for them. Individually. I love Sharon. It's OK. I admit it. I want to have her baby."
BRUCE AGTE, Poet writes: "Never have I been more impressed by a person's courage than I was last night by Fogarty's. She have been pushing my awe button for a very long time now, but this new show was a little beyond that. I kept thinking of the American Transcendentalists; Thoreau, Emerson. Whitman. She is the American Transcendentalist that I have had the unbelievable pleasure to know. In her shows, she turns turpentine into wine. She is the ultimate generous soul. I know of no-one on Earth who can express more faith through a deliberate creative process which synthesizes an antedote to heartache."
