Trance-formations, the new show featuring Roderick Russell and Steve Taubman, opens Thursday, October 30th at the Flynn Theatre in Burlington, VT.

Featuring demonstrations of mind, body and character reading, hypnosis and a wide palette of unusual physical and mental stunts, Trance-formations is a highly interactive two-hour evening program that will leave you agape with wonder and filled with laughter. Perfect Halloween entertainment!

Purchase tickets online through the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts Box Office (tickets go on sale six weeks prior to show date)

Toni-Lee Sangastiano recently made available a small sampling of slides of four of her oil paintings of myself. I have taken the liberty, with her permission of course, to scan them and upload them to the photographs section of the website.
All are currently untitled, but you will find the following images there:

Sword Swallowing - Oil on Wood. 36″ x 48″
An early realism painting of Roderick swallowing a sword while in street clothes. The casual nature of the clothing combined with the intensity of the pose create a curious juxtaposition.

Straightjacket - Oil on Canvas. 24″ x 18″
Exhibiting her wet-on-wet oil skills in a rapidly executed study, Toni-Lee here captures the image of Roderick Russell in the blissful moment before escape.

Straighjacket Tall - Oil on Wood. 60″ x 24″
Exploring the dark side of restraint, the artist here journies into the calm intensity of a performing artist’s mind during that moment of timeless consideration.

Okay, okay, not entirely. But I did participate in a rather humorous project that left me, shall we say, suggestively bare.

Consider it my fairwell gift to Plymouth, my former community. The story goes like this:

I received a call from the Main Street Plymouth organization, for whom I had performed in the past. They informed me that they had “something to give me” and would like me to attend their committee meeting later that week. Unfortunately, I was in NJ caring for my injured girlfriend and could not make it. Instead, we arranged to meet in one of the members offices privately the following week.

I was greeted by Susan Messinger, a member of the Main Street Plymouth committee, who ushered me into a chair in her office. Her words to me were as follows: