The Just Desserts CD Release Party: Love or Die!

Last month, far from the maddening SXSW crowd holding court downtown, an ensemble of six actors and two musicians presented a three-performance-only show at a house tucked away in a quiet neighborhood off of Cameron Road. The house could only hold an audience of about twenty (and that was very tight). Which means that roughly sixty people got the intense joy of witnessing Big Head House: Breathe in the dreams of The Amphibious Gods. And then it went away.

The musicians in the show—Lisa Shawley and Michael Shay—make up the band The Just Desserts. Shawley plays accordion and flute and sings, and Shay plays cello and tenor banjo and sings. As a testament to their talent, understand that Big Head, written by Michener Fellow Frances Ya-chu Cowhig—who just won the massively impressive honor that is the 2009 Yale Drama Series Award for her Guantamo-themed Lidless—has no dialogue. None. Not only that, but each character is restricted to essentially one emotion per person, as the massive masks they wear are smooth, white, larval visages, frozen in one expression or another. And while the incredible physicality of the actors involved certainly conveyed much of the story, it was the dramatic work of The Just Desserts that gelled the piece.

So why tell you about a show you can no longer see? Well, because dear readers, there is some Very Good News. As it happens, The Just Desserts have a CD release party this Friday at the Cactus Café as they unleash Love or Die! on the world. And to help them celebrate, those larval heads from the show will be joining them onstage. Mark Rubin and Lauren Checchio will also be on hand to help celebrate and add to the beautiful noise. And John Huntsberger will bring out his marionettes.

Love or Die! is a trip around the globe musically, with tunes rooted in tango, Balkan, early American pop, Arabic, Latin, Klezmer, Jazz, Indian classical, western classical, swing, reggae, eastern /western European, African, and more. So bring your big head out and enjoy.