Living It Up at The Living Room
Maximalist Ben & the Hang Out Mores Invite You Inside
Every Thursday, a set of artists perform on a tiny stage at the front of a room that’s set to what a 1970’s living room (much like that 70’s show) would look like. It’s an intimate space filled with shaggy couches, coffee tables, living room desks and a variety of chairs. The room is set upstairs of the currently closed Nonic on Broadway, but the bar is open every Thursday for the Living Room from 6 p.m.- 9 p.m.
An hour before his Living Room is set to open, Ben Redding is busy but cheerful, keenly focused yet gracious, as he beelines about both floors in the OG Nonic building on Broadway, taking care of all the last-minute details before showtime.
The sun has started to set as bubbly bohemians stroll in for this March 6 installment of the weekly live-performance buffet of all-you-can-eat breezy brilliance cooked up by Redding, a beloved local luminary, art-scene provocateur and creator/curator of the Living Room.
Frank Schley IV shows up with his father and explains that his friendship with Redding dates back years, to when Schley worked on the Springer’s fly crew and helped the young actor soar high for his role in The Little Mermaid. “I love everything he’s done, starting back with r+j theory,” says Schley, referring to Redding’s mesmerizing, genre and gender-bending take on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
A local luthier and founder of Sylvan Guitars, Schley came to the Living Room to dish 500 words on ‘What Goes On Inside Your Guitar?’ He says the Living Room spot makes him “cooler by association.”
The Room itself is upstairs.
“I like it,” artist Ralph Frank says of the space as he sets up his canvas, easel and paints beside the stage while the Shelby Brothers soundcheck for their set later.
You enter a room around the wood-farm wall Redding built by hand, past a vintage Knight Rider metal lunchbox and a freaky-fresh lamp made of glass bottles and wire. The Living Room has chairs and couches, a stage and soundboard, and is filled with all kinds of kitsch that collectively exudes a vibe of breezy brilliance that is a hallmark of Redding’s oeuvre, which is rooted in theater but pushing the envelope in many mediums.
What makes the assembled scattershot of decor special is its personal connection to the people who love Redding and will do whatever it takes to help his projects succeed: the lunchbox came from LocaL Publisher Monica Jones; folk artist Jarrod Turner created the lamp; and the vibrant textile work hanging was lent by social-justice scholar/empowerment entrepreneur Demetri Lopez, who like Redding is an avowed Maximalist when it comes to style.
“The Living Room has become a thing,” Charlotte Gallagher, there with her husband and some friends, explains. “It’s something you can count on Thursdays to offer something different and exciting. You never know what you’re going to get but you know it will not disappoint.”
Gallagher, a yoga and stand-up paddleboard instructor, spoke at the Living Room last November about her cross-country bicycle journey.
“Ben is very open to what you want to present,” Gallagher says. “I like the randomness of the programs he puts together here. Music, poetry, whatever it is, I always leave feeling like I learned something.”
Redding kicks off this night in his Living Room as host of trivia. The first round is RomComs. The crowd giggles from memories of Freddie Prince, Jr. and Rachel Lee Clark. Redding tells them, “If you don’t know and you fill in your answer with something funny, you might win anyway.”
“We have so much talent here,” Redding says by phone the following Monday afternoon.
He answers that he did in fact build the wall at the Living Room entrance. And built pretty much everything else, from the stage to the fireplace mantle, too. He added set design to his skill set during COVID, when artist Mike Howard and his wife Mary offered Redding work doing odd jobs such as building a doggy-door at their home. This relationship grew into Mary, one of the premier, and pioneering, fashion set photographers in New York City, offering him a job. “Mike and Mary are both incredible people,” Ben says. “Being able to work with her really got my wheels spinning.”
The Living Room’s sustainability and success “depends on how much people are willing to come out and support it on a regular basis,” Redding says. He loves having his brainchild be a regular thing now, though the constant pivoting and improvising leave the self-admitted perfectionist “never before filled with this much imperfection, day in and day out.”
“One thing I wish people would understand is there’s something powerful to gain by moving slowly,” Redding says of his concept’s evolution. “I mean, I want all the toys. I want all the things. The gadgets. But there is a mission behind the Living Room and that is to support artists. It’s all build and grow, it becomes a chess game. Making sure something lasts a long time is more than just throwing money at it. So I hope folks will stick with me through some nitty gritty to make sure, long term, this is something really beautiful and meaningful, something that is a community-maker. That’s not something built overnight.”
To earn your entrance to The Living Room and keep up with weekly sets, visit @thelivingroom_onbroadway on Insta and join the group page ‘Living Roomers’ on Facebook. To secure your seat and save yourself ‘day of’ pricing, get your tickets in advance at getlocaltix.com.
By Frank Etheridge