[title]
Yes, awards shows are about honoring excellence and saluting the achievements of top artists in their fields and all the rest of that nice-sounding stuff. But for many fans of the genre, the most memorable award-show moments come when the stars step up to accept their accolades—especially when they veer from the usual dull decorum. The series You Like Me: An Evening of Classic Acceptance Speeches spins these memories into comic gold by inviting some of the city's funniest downtown performers to re-create them live onstage. The show will return to Joe's Pub at the Public Theater this month for one night only, and Time Out has exclusively learned who will be on the lineup for this sometimes savage, always hilarious send-up of Tinseltown glitter.
You Like Me is the bratty brainchild of entertainment journalist and Meryl Streep biographer Michael Schulman (The New Yorker) and Smash blogger turned Hollywood show-runner Rachel Shukert (The Baby-Sitters Club). The February 21 performance—the series's first in several years—celebrates the publication of Schulman's latest book: the dishy backstage chronicle Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears.
Among the highlights: alt-comedian and Los Espookys co-creator Julio Torres will take on Angelina Jolie's 2000 Oscar speech for Girl, Interrupted, in which the gothed-out star seemed discomfitingly intimate with her brother; Pulitzer Prize winner Michael R. Jackson (A Strange Loop) will bite into Fiona Apple's badass "This world is bullshit" declaration at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards; and teenage blogger turned actor Tavi Gevinson will tackle the 2013 oration in which Jodie Foster obliquely came out of the closet while accepting a Golden Globe for lifetime achievement. Co-creator Shukert will step into the shiny shoes of classic Oscar host Billy Crystal.
The rest of the roster is equally promising: Broadway treasures Ann Harada and Jackie Hoffman, gossip doyen Michael Musto, Somebody Somewhere costars Jeff Hiller and Murray Hill, Ain't No Mo' writer-star Jordan E. Cooper, Dead Darlings creator Amanda Duarte, Who? Weekly podcasters Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber, comedian Josh Gondelman, video artist Myles Kane and the brilliantly intense Erin Markey (Assassins). Peter James Cook directs this merry gang.
Which speeches will make the cut in this edition? Roberto Benigni's crowd-climbing 1999 Oscar shenanigans? Susan Lucci's long-delayed 1999 Daytime Emmy Award? Mariah Carey's tipsy turn at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival? Show up and find out. Tickets to the show cost $24 and can be purchased on the Public Theater's website.
