Blooming in burlesque and drag: TWEED’s ‘Garden Variety’ returns to the East Village with a wink

Kevin Malony and his TWEED Theaterworks production company are giving the East Village — and anyone else who wants to venture down to the 6&B Garden — a gift in the form of a series of free shows called “Garden Variety.”

The series, which runs nights that run the gamut from drag to burlesque to serious music making, is in its fifth year and has already started off with a bang. On Tuesday evening, Wigstock veteran Linda Simpson headlined a show with what she called “a bunch of kooks and nut jobs.”

Malony, who came to NYC in the fall of 1978 to follow his dream of becoming an actor, quickly discovered that his true talent lay in producing and directing his own shows.

“The Pyramid was pivotal for me,” he recalls, referring to the legendary East Village club on Avenue A. “I met all these extraordinary people who are still in my life.”

What is TWEED?

His first production under the TWEED moniker was two one-act plays, by Eugène Ionesco and Sam Shepherd, and the production company’s name had an origin that both of those writers would probably find amusing.

“We were drunk,” Malony begins. “And we needed a name because we were going to the lawyer’s office. It came out of the word weave, as we wanted to present a fabric of every kind of live performance. Nobody ever got it, which is fine. Over the years, I tried to say it was an anagram, like ‘Theater Works Ever Experimental Directions’ or ‘The Wildest Entertainments Ever Devised.'”

Kevin Malony, TWEED Theaterworks founderPhoto by Bob Krasner

Elspeth Walker setting up the signage pre-showPhoto by Bob Krasner

(Anything but) Garden Variety performers: Bottom, L-R- Hanukah Lewinsky, Linda Simpson, Nora Burns, Barbara Patterson Lloyd. Top – Gigi Bonbon, Voxigma Lo, Bertha, Anton AndrieievPhoto by Bob Krasner

Adam Pivirotto introduces the eveningPhoto by Bob Krasner

Hostess Linda Simpson letting us know how she really feelsPhoto by Bob Krasner

Some of those entertainments were the “Fractured Classicks” shows, a take on classic American plays and movies — using the actual text—that starred the likes of Charles Busch, Amy Sedaris, Justin Vivian Bond, Joey Arias, and Varla Jean Merman. The only issue was that they didn’t bother getting permission, resulting in cease-and-desist orders that sometimes showed up “before the curtain came down.”

A presentation of “CAGED” at Town Hall starring Lily Tomlin, Isabella Rossellini, Joan Rivers, Jackie Hoffman, Lypsinka, Lorna Luft, John Kelly, Wallace Shawn and others was a benefit for God’s Love We Deliver.

“I did AIDS benefits for years,” Malony says. “Very soon after TWEED started, the AIDS plague just decimated the community. I’ve always had a philanthropic nature when it comes to producing and giving stuff away. I feel like it belongs to the community as much as it belongs to me.”

Malony has found two like-minded companions to help the shows keep going: Elspeth Walker and Adam Pivirotto, both of whom started off as interns.

Walker notes that “it’s so rewarding to see how many neighborhood people come by, and it feels good to be providing free and accessible entertainment to people who live nearby. It’s also great to see the diversity of the audience that comes to the show, young, old, straight and queer.”

Pivirotto’s favorite aspect of the shows is “the variety — it’s very exciting.” He also appreciates the symbiotic relationship between them and the garden.

“They’ve been wonderful,” he says of 6&B. Although the first year of “Garden Variety” utilized a number of different gardens, they’ve since settled in here, and it’s working out beautifully. “The sound man, Peter (Loureiro, a garden volunteer for 16 years), lives in the same building as Kevin, and it just worked out. It’s a magical happenstance.”

Voxigma Lo returned from a jaunt through the audience a few bucks richerPhoto by Bob Krasner

Barron Trump (Anton Andrieiev) fawned over by his mom Melania Trump (Nora Burns)Photo by Bob Krasner

Gigi Bonbon, who was deflowered in her first act, went on to pay tribute to a leafy vegetable, as one does in a gardenPhoto by Bob Krasner

Barbara Patterson Lloyd waiting for the joke to landPhoto by Bob Krasner

And the award for best name of the evening goes to ……..Hanukah Lewinsky !Photo by Bob Krasner

Linda Simpson wondering if Bertha will catch the baton this time. Hope springs eternalPhoto by Bob Krasner

Malony, who has made a living in catering, started out as a waiter and worked his way up to executive chef. But it’s his theatre life that keeps him going. He produces shows at Pangea and looks forward to a number of things that he just won’t discuss.

When it comes to talking about potential projects, he says, “My new motto is—just shut up.”

The opening show, Simpson’s “A Midsummer Night’s Zany Variety Show,” played to a full garden. Featuring baton twirling by Bertha, top-flight burlesque with Gigi Bonbon, Voxigma Lo’s drag act, comedy (well, we groaned a lot) by Barbara Patterson Lloyd and skits that featured Nora Burns, Anton Andrieiev and Hanukah Lewinsky (oy, that name!).

Simpson kept the show moving along, bringing the laughs with her own standup act (literally — she brought her own laugh track!) and a moving detour into serious territory that involved a letter that she received from her father years ago. Upcoming shows will feature the likes of Sir Richard Castle’s Burlesque, Moe & Co., Sylver Wallace, Funk This, Rimbaud Hattie and Stephanie M. Hall.

Malony has one main hope for the shows: That “everyone leaves as dry as they came … I only worry about the rain.” And, he adds, “I want them to have fun. And enjoy the show. If I have anything serious to say, it will be buried in humor.”

Show info and more are available at tweedtheater.org and on Instagram @tweedtheaterworks.

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