In 2018 Lady Gaga (right) and her entourage walked from her apartment on Stanton Street to Welcome to the Johnsons bar on Rivington.
Ron Lasko’s new immersive theater experience, A Gaga Guide to the Lower East Side, takes audiences on a walking tour of the Lower East Side to visit locations and venues that were frequented by pop star Lady Gaga during the start of her singing career.
The tour begins at 1 Extra Place. Phill, the dedicated tour guide for the day, excitedly calls out to a group of nine that the show is about to start. Before it does, however, he provides the tour members a link to a site that shows more pictures of the stops during the walk; the photos include interiors of the destinations.
Taylor Hilliard plays Phill in the partly scripted immersive experience. Photograph by Max Ruby.
As the group heads down the legendary alley at 1 Extra Place, Phill says that we are at the back exit of the renowned club CBGB, where, he says, Lady Gaga performed and rocked the house. Further along in the tour, we saw the home of George and Ira Gershwin. We also learned about other local artists who worked and lived on the Lower East Side. One of those artists might be a member of the Village People, but Phill is not at liberty to disclose his name.
At one point Phill suddenly pauses the tour and says, “I see you whispering and smirking in that knowing way. I’m not blind, you know. … I know you know who I am.” At first the group had no idea who he was or why he was asking these questions. Then Phill confesses to being a disgraced celebrity:
Sammy Shade from Let’s MakeUp. But please, call me by my name—my government name, which is Phill. I’m not trying to hide anything. … I just want all of this to be totally aboveboard so that any, um, awkwardness, is totally out of the way.
Lady Gaga’s costar in A Star Is Born, Bradley Cooper (center), at the FringeNYC opening-night party in 1998.
Initially a listener may be thrown off by his confession, but it soon becomes apparent that “Phill” is a scripted character created by Lasko (and played by Taylor Hilliard in my session; he alternates with Lynwood McLeod and Adam Lawrence). Phill interjects a few more of these passages throughout the tour, each one providing more details about his fall—including a recent social media feud with Perez Hilton: “Yes, I spilled a drink on him at Pop Rocks!, but who didn’t?” He is distraught and frazzled by Internet attacks and death threats, and he really wants his listeners to know that he is a good person.
Phill’s journey plays out periodically with frustration and anger that evolve to relief and contentment toward the end, when he learns that “the social media battle” has resulted in a positive outcome for him. Hilliard (under the direction of Zack Carey) does a spectacular job playing the role.
Hilliard also proves to be an excellent tour guide: he is energetic and charismatic as he leads the group through the streets of New York, providing specific and interesting facts about the Lower East Side.
For Lady Gaga enthusiasts, the tour provides a glimpse into the makings of a star. Audiences visit some venues she performed at the start of her career, like The Slipper Room, Mercury Lounge and Sin-e. One of the highlights was seeing the building she lived in on the Lower East Side. Phill shares some anecdotes about the place. One of the most amusing stories was when Lady Gaga wanted to visit her old apartment in 2011 for an interview with Anderson Cooper for 60 Minutes and the tenants denied her access.
A poster advertises an appearance by Lady Gaga at the Slipper Room, a stop on the walking tour.
Phill also informed the group about the Lowline Project. He says it would be “America’s first underground park. Just below us there is a one-acre area that was formerly the Williamsburg Bridge Trolley Terminal. It opened in 1908 and closed in 1948. And has been vacant ever since. The plan is to use these cool solar-collection dishes to reflect and redistribute the sunlight underground so that there can be plants and greenery all year. Very futuristic and eco-friendly. It was supposed to open in 2025, but it got put on hold, and I suspect COVID has delayed the project for a couple years, if not killing it entirely.”
Gaga Guide to the Lower East Side is immersive, informational and engaging. The tour is filled with historical facts about the Lower East Side and early-career tidbits about Lady Gaga, along with a dramatic “reality star” who gets a second chance.
A Gaga Guide to the Lower East Side plays through June 25. Performances are Saturdays and Sundays at 3 and 5 p.m. (5:30 p.m. beginning May 27). The audience meet-up point is 1 Extra Place (between the Bowery and Second Avenue). The tour covers approximately 14 blocks. The running time is 95 minutes. For tickets and more information, visit http://spincyclenyc.com/index.php/theater/673-gaga-guide.
