travsd

Requiem for a Strong Man

Several people alerted me to this gentleman’s passing this week. I didn’t know him but am glad to have heard about him and sorry not to have met him. Coney Island strong man Joe Rollino was felled this week at the age of 104, and apparently nothing short of an errant automobile could fell him. It’s not to late to acquant yourself with this interesting character. The Coney Island Oral History Project was fortunate in capturing him in conversation. And there are excellent obituaries at the NYTimes and NYPost. The lesson of this story is EAT YOUR WHEATIES!

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Published by travsd

Writer and performer Trav S.D. (www.travsd.com) has written for the NY Times, the Village Voice, American Theatre, Time Out NY, Reason, the Villager and numerous other publications. He has been in the vanguard of New York’s vaudeville and burlesque scenes since 1995 when he launched his company Mountebanks, which has presented hundreds of top variety acts ranging from Todd Robbins to Dirty Martini to Lady Rizo to the Flying Karamazov Brothers. He has directed his own plays, revues and solo pieces in NYC since 1989 at such venues as Joe’s Pub, La Mama, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, the Ohio Theatre and the Brick. In 2014 he produced and directed the smash-hit I’ll Say She Is, the first ever revival of the Marx Brothers hit 1924 Broadway show in the NY International Fringe Festival. He is perhaps best known for his 2005 book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, recently cited by Bette Midler in People magazine as one of her favorite book. More about All Things Trav S.D. are at: http://travsd.com/

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