"Out Cold" continues to garner great reviews and is now showing up on some best of the year lists!

The New York Times's Vivien Schweitzer named Out Cold one of six "performances that have stuck with me through the year" :

"...the vocalist Theo Bleckmann offered a vivid portrayal of the lovelorn protagonist of “Out Cold,” Phil Kline’s alluring new monodrama, which received its premiere there in October with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble. Mr. Bleckmann proved equally arresting in an arrangement of Mr. Kline’s “Zippo Songs.” FULL ARTICLE

Out Cold was also one of the top five best of 2012 in WQXR's year-end round up:

"In the BAM world premiere of Kline’s Schubert-meets-Sinatra song cycle, Bleckmann conjured Buster Keaton’s melancholy and Fred Astaire’s grace, transforming a black-box theater with a few café tables into a world as vast as a lover’s hopes and as stifling as regret. Directed by Emma Griffin and backed by the splendid American Contemporary Music Ensemble, he sang with sweetness, clarity, and self-lacerating woe. His performance of Kline’s Zippo Songs, a post-modern classic, was no less shattering. DVD, please, and soon." FULL ARTICLE

And the Brooklyn Rail weighed in by choosing us as one of the best in this year's BAM NextWave Festival:

"...a wonderful evening of music from Phil Kline with singer Theo Bleckmann, Kline’s great “Three Rumsfeld Songs” and “Zippo Songs” and a new set, “Out Cold,” all either written or orchestrated for ACME, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble. From the moment Bleckmann, in a suit, stood on top of a television and sang, “As we know, there are known knowns,” the whole performance, with smart staging from Emma Griffin, was as gripping and entertaining as a thriller. Kline’s music and original lyrics for “Out Cold” combine the aesthetic profundity of the art song with the succinct clarity of pop music, and the social and political message is more powerful for his light touch." FULL ARTICLE

We hope you consider this your success as well, since it was your dedication to this show, and new music in general, that made it possible.

Most of you should have received your donation rewards by now and if you haven't, keep checking your mailbox because they should be arriving any day. For those of you who are to receive a shot glass as part of your reward package, they are arriving here this week and will be back in the mail to you asap.

Have a great holiday and if you do find yourself Out Cold this month, we hope it is on a comfy family couch from drinking too much egg nog.

Best,

AOP