THEATER
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY, JULY 10 & 11, 2019
7:30 PM

Carmines / Fornés: Promenade
Encores! Off Center
City Center
131 West 55th Street, Midtown, Manhattan

$25-$125
https://www.nycitycenter.org/pdps/2018-2019/promenade/

Al Carmines and Maria Irene Fornés: those were names to conjure with on the'60s Off-Off-Broadway scene. Their work wasn't abstruse -- if anything, it might have seemed a little simple (or at least naive). But it was affecting, it was absurd -- it took you someplace, and that someplace was interesting. Carmines's music was catchy; Fornés's plays were whatever the verbal equivalent of "catchy" is (while maintaining full avant credentials). Their only collaboration was a major Off-Off hit, opening at the Judson (where Carmines was a minister) and then moving (far) uptown to the Promenade for a nice commercial run that featured, at the outset, the sublime Madeline Kahn (who soon left to get famous). Maybe this will be great, maybe it'll be embarrassing. Only one way to find out.

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Nobody ever says so, but Benoit really is one of New York's best bistros.