Master storyteller Dennis McSorley is creating a new stage genre in resurrecting his younger days as The Kid from Queens.
It’s not standup, and it’s not merely a monologue. It’s not scripted since it includes improvisation and freeform narrative. No show is ever exactly the same in McSorley’s dynamic process. But rest assured that he provides a wealth of information vital to the post-Boomer generations who will never otherwise experience the world as it was before everyone became wired. Once upon a time and not that long ago, people thought radio was the gateway to information, and TV was a stunning new invention.
Let Dennis take you back to a lost era as The Kid from Queens, playing August 9 and 10 at the Off Center for the Dramatic Arts, 1127 North Ave Ste 27, Burlington at 7:30 PM.
On June 21, 2024, I sat in the audience on opening might as Dennis McSorley presented an original, one-man show to a handful of people in an empty theater.
It was a true test of self-propulsion, scant fuel coming from the audience, and yet the engine was in tune. Two weeks later, at the 4th and final show of a two-weekend engagement, McSorley captivated the audience as The Kid from Queens wrapped up its debut at the Off Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington. It was a polished story, one that had evolved over four performances. In that fourth staging, there were more than 30 people seated in the tiny theater.
Dennis began by referencing an ancient quote from Pliny the Elder who once said, “In these matters, the only certainty is that nothing is certain.” McSorley was describing Myrtle Avenue, the neighborhood where he grew up in Brooklyn, the one that Henry Miller wrote about in Tropic of Capricorn:
But I saw a street called Myrtle Avenue, which runs from Borough
Hall to Fresh Pond Road, and down this street no saint ever walked
(else it would have crumbled), down this street no miracle ever
passed, nor any poet, nor any species of human genius, nor did any
flower ever grow there, nor did the sun strike it squarely, nor did the
rain ever wash it.
As a young Catholic boy, he was regularly tortured by a sadistic nun who would grab and shake him by the tiny hairs that grow on the temples only to watch until the tears broke from his eyes before releasing him. But it was Bunky who became his best friend plucked from the group of kids who walked to school each day in a silent procession.
In 5th grade, he fantasized over the beautiful Sister Marie, imagining them both running away to spend the rest of their lives together. He had to study Latin and endure the priest’s test to become an altar boy, only to fail, upon which his mother marched him back to interrupt the priest’s dinner to demand a correction.
Bouncing a red rubber ball, McSorley leads the audience through many stories like when they lowered the skinniest kid down into the sewer when that ball got lost. We learn about the lure of adult magazines and kissing games in 8th grade and how a radical English teacher introduced students to Catcher in the Rye, a book banned by the Catholic Church.
When Vietnam split the country apart and some of the neighborhood kids came home in body bags, McSorley struggled to achieve conscientious objector status only to be abandoned by the Catholic priests who refused to testify on his behalf.
Then we meet Kathy, his first love… and learn how an old aunt used a wedding ring as a pendulum, swung on a string to determine the gender of their baby.
There are many more stories included in McSorley’s performance. They come and go as the telling on stage is never quite the same. But each show is a gift from the past to the here and now. Don’t miss a chance to step gracefully into days from long ago but not forgotten.