Metropolitan Playhouse presents

The Virtual Playhouse Double Feature Screened Readings of

THE DOWNFALL OF JUSTICE AND THE FARMER JUST RETURN’D FROM MEETING ON THANKSGIVING DAY

Author UNKNOWN

Directed by ALEX ROE

Featuring KEN FERRIGNI, REGINA GIBSON, SJ HANNAH, MELISSA HURST, JON LONOFF, RON MORENO, & ERIN LEIGH SCHMOYER

Discussion follows with TIMOTHY H. BREEN, historian at the University of Vermont

AUNT BETSY’S THANKSGIVING

Written by KATHERINE DAVIS CHAPMAN TILLMAN

Directed by LINDA KURILOFF

Featuring MARIE LOUISE GUINIER, SJ HANNAH, MICHAEL HARDART, LAUREN MARISSA SMITH, & LILY SANTIAGO

Discussion follows with MICHAEL DINWIDDIE, Playwright and Associate Professor at NYU

November 28, 2020 8 p.m.

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

Yet another surprise discovery from Metropolitan Playhouse. THE DOWNFALL OF JUSTICE was written in 1777, during the Revolutionary War. It was issued as a sort of printed pamphlet, rich with woodcut illustrations. It may have been meant as a political comment piece, more to be read than performed. It highlights the stark class divisions at that time, which was an era of double-digit inflation. A rich New England farmer and his family sit down to Thanksgiving dinner after saying grace and praying for the poor. Then they spend the whole meal gloating over their bounty and laughing about the poorer people who will come begging at their door the next day. Native Americans used to come begging, too, but they’re gone now. The farmer is hoarding food in hopes that the prices will go even higher. Their black slave, Jack, has a few words to say about all this. He’s told to remember his “place”, his message ignored. HIS message is THE message of the piece.

AUNT BETSY’S THANKSGIVING was written in 1914 and reflects the emergence of black universities and the expansion of black education at that time. Aunt Betsy, a former slave, is to be evicted from her humble cottage. She leaves it in God’s hands, unhappy to be headed for the poorhouse. Will Heaven intervene on this Thanksgiving Day? The commentaries were excellent. Full of yummy facts that one never learns in history class. Truly enlightening and enjoyable.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
presents
The Virtual Playhouse

A Screened Reading
of

THE RECTOR

Written by RACHEL CROTHERS
Directed by ALEX ROE
Backgrounds by MEDUSA STUDIO

Featuring
CYNTHIA HEWETT, HELEN HIGHFIELD, MICHELLE GEISLER, SHEILA JOON, FLORENCE MARCISAK, ALICE ROTHMAN-HICKS, & MICHAEL TURNER

Discussion follows with ANNA ANDES, PhD, Associate Professor of Theater & Women's Studies Coordinator, Susquehanna University

November 14, 2020 8 p.m.

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

Another goodie from RACHEL CROTHERS, whose female-centric writings went against the trends of her day and this day. THE RECTOR, written in 1902, pitches the eager women of the congregation against the very eligible Rector. The push is to get him married, and each lady has her own ideas about who the bride should be. One by one, they reveal their strategies as they arrive at a meeting of the Carpet Committee.

The elderly matron backs the flighty, ditzy girl. The middle-aged woman is suggesting herself. The sensible Margaret steers a neutral course and keeps the chattering group in order, subtly bringing them all to a decision. On the choice of carpet, at least.

Great work by the actors on these eccentric characters. Quite entertaining and a rollicking good story, to boot. A shout-out to director ALEX ROE as well.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Hudson Guild Theatre Company
presents
A FIVE MILE RADIUS
Written by Tasha Partee
Directed by Jim Furlong and Devin Klos

Hudson Guild Theatre Company’s YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0BZGvI9nx3OJWyYTDodAFA
Streaming through November 1, 2020 at 5 PM

Assistant Director -Michele Tokarczyk
Publicity -Scotti Rhodes
CAST
Edie - Stacey Wright
Caitlin - Michele Quintero
Lucy - Danielle Patsakos
Dustin - Anthony Roberts II
Patrick - Alex Lugo
Roberta - Tasha Partee
Jerry - Manuel Estevez
Yvonne - Kim Gardner
Marla - Ashley Woolcock
Witness in Bar - Michele Tokarczyk
EMT - Devin Klos
Pop - Jim Furlong

Hudson Guild Theatre Company's world premiere of Tasha Partee's A FIVE MILE RADIUS is a dramatic work set in 2018 with flashbacks to the 1980’s, 1990’s and 2004. A virtual performance streaming on the company’s official YouTube channel, the performance technique features the actors in split-screen to give the impression of characters being in the room together, or speaking via phone and texting.

The story is set in Staten Island and opens on July 4, 2018, as food critic Edie has her night upended by tragic events involving a neighbor’s child. As someone with a social media presence, Edie has a plea for prayers posted online by her assistant, Caitlin, along with a photograph of the child that Caitlin warns will cause division amongst the followers. Due to a particular hat the child is wearing in the photo, clashes do ensue, and this terrible event calls the motivations, beliefs and associations of characters into question.

In the course of this 90-minute production, A FIVE MILE RADIUS takes the audience into Edie’s past to reveal events that shaped her as well as a very personal tragedy. Particularly toward the end, in interactions with her father, we see the devastating impact to her self-esteem and understand better her earlier passion and involvement with the neighbor’s heartbreak. Through the characters, many of whom are peripheral and participating via twitter, the play presents a microcosm of more current events and divisiveness currently present in the United States.

- Kessa De Santis -

Metropolitan Playhouse
presents
The Virtual Playhouse

A Screened Reading
of

VOTE THE NEW MOON

Written by ALFRED KREYMBORG

Directed by ALEX ROE

Backgrounds by MEDUSA STUDIO

Featuring
LISA BARNES, MATT DANIELS, IVANNA CULLINAN, CHRIS HARCUM,
MARK HOFMAIER, & MARTY McDONOUGH

October 24, 2020 8 p.m.

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

Ah, an anarchist play! How timely. It was written 100 years ago, but could have been written yesterday. KREYMBORG is an odd figure even in the odd world of writing. He was a poet, wrote plays for puppets, and was a master chess player.

VOTE THE NEW MOON is a lot like a Punch-and-Judy show. The citizens of a tiny town must vote every time there is a new moon. The vote is always the same: a tie between red and blue. The Town Crier shouts for them all to vote. All four of them. Get out your hammers (yes, ball peen hammers) and vote. Another tie, it seems. They argue and shout to no avail. The candidates speak. They say essentially the same thing…nothing. The voters switch sides, so it’s still a tie. The ending is hilariously expressionistic. All hail the new moon! And the talking giant catfish.

Thanks to METROPOLITAN PLAYHOUSE for digging up this treasure. It is so apt for the current situation. Great acting, as always. Especially the catfish. Perfect “casting”.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Shakespeare@
Jersey City’s Premier Classical Theater Company
presents
The All-Free Radio Play
In Four Parts

THE TEMPEST
By William Shakespeare

Episode Four
October 22, 2020 7 p.m.

www.shakespeare-at.org

Adapted & Directed by Artistic Director SEAN HAGERTY
Original Music: JOAN MELTON
Sound Design: DAN GERHARD & ELLEN FITTON

Featuring
DAVID HARGREAVES, MARIA-CHRISTINA OLIVERAS, JONATHAN FORBES,
JAMIE BALLARD, THOMAS ALDRIDGE, DEREK WILSON, ARIA SHAGHASEMI,
ANDREW SELLON, & KEITH HAMILTON COBB

And so we reach the end of our voyage. Revenge and murder, pending. Love and marriage, pending. Return of the throne to its rightful owner, pending.

Prospero reveals to Ferdinand that all his harsh tasks were a test, to make sure that he was worthy of Miranda. Prospero summons Ariel to round up the rebellious rabble and bring them to him. Prospero is about to sort everything out, once and for all. The magic drops away to reveal reality and justice as declared by Prospero.

This last episode brings together all Shakespeare’s themes: justice versus injustice, freedom versus captivity, betrayal, forgiveness, and, finally, peace.

Standing ovation for Shakespeare@ and its talented cast.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
presents
The Virtual Playhouse

A Screened Reading
of

REPRESENTING T. A. BUCK

Written by EDNA FERBER

Read by MICHELE LaRUE

Talkback following with JULIE GILBERT, Pulitzer Prize nominee & great-niece of Edna Ferber

October 17, 2020 8 p.m.

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

Meet Emma McChesney, the brilliant creation of a brilliant author. It’s 1913, and Emma is a woman in a man’s world. She’s a traveling salesperson. And she is good. Very good. Her annual income in today’s dollars would be $84,000. She’s been on the road for nine years. Train after train, hotel after hotel. Yet in her moments alone, she visualizes a homey kitchen where she bakes cookies. Why these feelings? She could buy a little house and make her domestic dreams come true. But she doesn’t.

Wandering downstairs to have dinner, she passes armchairs filled with businessmen, the air filled with cigar smoke. She hears the hint of a piano being played. Beautifully played classical music. Emma finds the salon, sees the lone pianist. She sits quietly in a corner, immersed in the magic. Their eyes meet. Edna Ferber will tell you the rest.

METROPOLITAN PLAYHOUSE has stepped outside the box with this production. It is simply MICHELE LaRUE reading the story aloud. But there’s nothing simple about it. It is a deluxe performance that captures every nuance of Ferber’s tale. Yummy, thought-provoking, entertaining to the max. A real treat.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Shakespeare@
Jersey City’s Premier Classical Theater Company
presents
The All-Free Radio Play
In Four Parts

THE TEMPEST
By William Shakespeare

Episode Three
October 15, 2020 7 p.m.

www.shakespeare-at.org

Adapted & Directed by Artistic Director SEAN HAGERTY
Original Music: JOAN MELTON
Sound Design: DAN GERHARD & ELLEN FITTON

Featuring
DAVID HARGREAVES, MARIA-CHRISTINA OLIVERAS, JONATHAN FORBES,
JAMIE BALLARD, THOMAS ALDRIDGE, DEREK WILSON, ARIA SHAGHASEMI,
ANDREW SELLON, & KEITH HAMILTON COBB

Love is in the stormy air! Just as Prospero planned. Ferdinand has adored Miranda from the first moment he saw her. She is kind and beautiful. He is handsome and noble. He thinks her a “precious creature”. She agrees to be his wife! It’s not official, though. Her father isn’t there to give his consent. They reluctantly part.

Elsewhere on the island, the three drunks are back to their whining and moaning. Insulting Caliban, as usual. They hatch yet another brilliant plan. They will commit murder so that Stephano can marry Miranda and be king. The spirit Ariel spooks them with mysterious music, then goes to Prospero to report the latest. Spirits make excellent spies.

The Shakespeare@ company creates such an amazing three-dimensional production using “only” their voices. The scenes unfold in the mind of the listener, magical and soothing. A pleasant break from reality.

Part Four will air on October 22.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

the cell
present

TOLERANCE PARTY #2: ROLE CALL

October 13, 2020 8 p.m.

www.thecelltheatre.org

Written & Directed by JOSEPH HENDEL

Featuring
COREY ALLEN, BOB JAFFE, HEATHER Mo’WITZ, RICHARD URQUIZA, INDIA MENETE,
& BRIAN REAGER

Production Design: DimlyWit PRODUCTIONS
Original Music: RICARDO ROMANEIRO

The second installment of TOLERANCE PARTY has the recruits putting on a play to catch the conscience of…they don’t know what. That’s a challenge.

Each character received a different goal. Each has a script attached. One duty is “to bring it back to life”. No one knows what “it” is or how it died. Their varying opinions lead them to argue. && calls --- a “whiner”. Ouch. Then we have a spirit inside an oracle…or something. We be trippin’.

the cell does rerun the previous episode at 7:30 p.m., before the new episode airs.

Each episode is more confusing? intriguing? challenging? than the previous one. If you want to put on your thinking cap, I suggest it be made of aluminum foil. Just as a precaution.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

the cell

present

TOLERANCE PARTY #1: ICE-BREAKERS

September 1, 2020   8 p.m.

www.thecelltheatre.org

Written & Directed by JOSEPH HENDEL

Featuring

COREY ALLEN, BOB JAFFE, HEATHER Mo’WITZ, RICHARD URQUIZA, INDIA MENETE,

 & BRIAN REAGER

Production Design: DimlyWit PRODUCTIONS

Original Music: RICARDO ROMANEIRO

Six strangers are invited to a video chat by someone unknown to them. They are given symbols instead of names, and discuss among themselves what this all means? Who invited them? Why?

Lots of babbled speech and video disruption. They have all been instructed to bring supplies so that they can draw themselves that shows how they express themselves in the world. They have also received various documents.

Characterized as a dark comedy, this series encourages audience participation. A chat function will allow the viewers to help determine the fate of the characters in future episodes.

Another innovative production by the cell. A serialized plunge into the xenosphere. Expect the unexpected.

$, (/], !, &&, and the others will be happy to meet you!

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Presents
The Virtual Playhouse

A Screened Reading
of

XINGU

Written by EDITH WHARTON
Adapted by KIMBERLY WADSWORTH
Directed by SUZANNE TOREN

Featuring
RACHEL BOTCHAN, KDERSTI BRYAN, ALLYSON JOHNSON, EMILY JON MITCHELL, CARLA MONDO, ROMY NORDINGER, GRETA QUISPE, & GABRA ZACKMAN

October 10, 2020 8 p.m.

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

Ah, the Ladies Who Lunch, 1911-style. Frivolous women posing as ponderous intellectuals. The author, EDITH WHARTON, was born and raised in “society” and had a keen eye for satire. This play, adapted from her short story, focuses on a clique of such self-important women. They have invited the famous author Osric Dane to attend their luncheon and talk about her latest book, “Wings of Death.” Which none of them has read. They simply wish to show off their brilliance in front of her and each other.

The chemistry changes as each guest arrives. One cannot be catty about someone who is in the room, can one? Before the author arrives, the others discuss “Xingu”. None are quite sure what it is, but it’s the latest thing. It may be a philosophy or a religion or a type of meditation, or even a language. When Osric Dane arrives, all attention turns to her. They are aghast that she sees right through them.

Great acting by a great troupe. And they get to wear fancy hats!

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Shakespeare@
Jersey City’s Premier Classical Theater Company
presents
The All-Free Radio Play
In Four Parts

THE TEMPEST
By William Shakespeare

Episode Two
October 8, 2020 7 p.m.

www.shakespeare-at.org

Adapted & Directed by Artistic Director SEAN HAGERTY
Original Music: JOAN MELTON
Sound Design: DAN GERHARD & ELLEN FITTON

Featuring
DAVID HARGREAVES, MARIA-CHRISTINA OLIVERAS, JONATHAN FORBES,
JAMIE BALLARD, THOMAS ALDRIDGE, DEREK WILSON, ARIA SHAGHASEMI,
ANDREW SELLON, & KEITH HAMILTON COBB

Shakespeare@ drags us deeper into the ebbs and flows of the island’s plotters. Antonio and Sebastian discuss the merits of killing their sleeping companions. Antonio pushes hard for the goal line. With the others dead, he argues, Sebastian will become ruler of Naples. Wizardry disrupts their planning session. They will have to resume discussions later.

While this episode does push the story forward, the standout portion is the insane drunken party. Shakespeare’s version of The Three Stooges if they were blotto. Audiences then and now love a wild whacky scene of “drunk and stupid”. The man/monster, Caliban, is hauling wood when he sees Trinculo. He quickly hides under his cloak. Trinculo, the court jester, toddles in. It’s going to rain, so Trinculo crawls under the cloak, too, despite Caliban’s hideous appearance and nasty smell. The third arrival is Stephano, King Alonso’s butler, drunk (as usual) and singing. He takes a seat besides his new pals and offers them a drink.

Oh, the insults, stupidity, and rowdyism increase exponentially as the wine is passed around. Now these three Einsteins hatch a plot to make Stephano king of the island. What could go wrong?

JONATHAN FORBES (Caliban), THOMAS ALDRIDGE (Trinculo), and JAMIE BALLARD (Stephano) rock this episode. They are “ridiculously” good.

Part Three will air on October 15.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Working Theater

in partnership with
Round House Theatre, Salt Lake Acting Company, Marin Theatre Company, HartBeat Ensemble, The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, and University of Connecticut’s Thomas J. Dodd Center
Co-commissioned by ASU Gammage and Texas Performing Arts with support from the JKW Foundation

presents

The Live-streamed Interactive Virtual Production

AMERICAN DREAMS

By LEILA BUCK
Directed by TAMILLA WOODARD

Created and developed by Leila Buck and Tamilla Woodard
Original Stage Version created in collaboration with Jens Rasmussen

October 5 through November 15, 2020 7 p.m.

http://www.theworkingtheater.org/

“AMERICAN DREAMS” is an exciting game show run by the government. It is the only way to gain U.S. citizenship. (Did you already have suspicions of this?) Each night the Zoom audience chooses the winner. Download Zoom, put on your best frock, and get ready to decide someone’s fate. Caution: No late-comers.

The cheery co-hosts challenge three eager contestants from foreign countries. Adil Mansour is a Palestinian Christian. Alejandro Rodriguez is a Mexican Christian. Usman Butt is a Pakistani Muslim. First a Citizenship Quiz, then a round about U.S. opinions. Next, time to test talents/skills. Cook, write a poem, paint a picture. In some rounds, the decision is based on the loudness of audience participation, so you might want to warn your neighbors.

Some audience members are pre-chosen as on-camera delegates. They are called on to pose questions or ask for information from the three. Lots of back-and-forth, cheerleading, audience “applause” signs, and endearing pleas from the endearing contestants. But only one can win.

This super-entertaining immersive production keeps the action going, is great fun, but also thought-provoking. (Don’t flinch. It’s very painless.) Remember the concept of “checks and balances”? “All men are created equal”? These things and several more can’t help but wiggle your brain cells in light of current events. The play changes according to audience participation results and input throughout the 90 minutes. It will never be the same twice.

WORKING THEATER and its partners have done an awesome job of combining improv, script, and the unknown and unpredictable audience responses to draw the viewer into this virtual experience emotionally and physically. Innovative and flawlessly produced. Kudos!

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Presents
The Virtual Playhouse

A Screened Reading
of

THE CLOD

Written by LEWIS BEACH
Directed by ALEX ROE

Featuring
BRAD FRAIZER, DAVID LOGAN RANKIN, SUZANNE SAVOY, JOSHUA DAVID SCARLETT,
& THOMAS VORSTEG

Special Talkback Guest ERIN STONEKING, Assistant Professor of Gender & Race Studies, University of Alabama

October 3, 2020 8 p.m.

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

Who is “The Clod”? Why, it’s you and me, brother. All the average folk just minding their own business, trying to get by in life. Never heard of the “big picture”, son. Now move along.

Old Thaddeus sits in his chair, smoking his pipe. It’s a September night in 1863. Wife Mary comes in with a pail of water and a candle. The two live alone in their little house near the border between The North & The South. Mary’s fed up with all the soldiers that pass by. North or South, she doesn’t give a hoot. All she knows is that they steal her potatoes and annoy the heck out of her.

Thaddeus takes a more casual view, which can best be described as “Oh, well”. He’s got his loaded shotgun by his side. Not for fighting, but for shooting birds, should any fly by. But that would be during daytime. It’s night now, time to go upstairs to bed.

Soon their unlocked front door opens silently. It’s an injured Union soldier looking for food, water, and a safe place to rest. The Confederates are right behind him. He quickly finds a place to hide before loud knocking fills the room. It’s a Confederate soldier and his pal, Dick. They aren’t taking no for an answer.

The flustered old couple come downstairs to face with these two. The soldier is belligerent, rude, and threatening. “Where’s he hiding?” he demands. The couple have no idea what he’s talking about. Mary is subject to endless verbal abuse. Stupid woman, hag, and worse. She repeats and repeats that all she wants is to get some sleep!

During a safe moment, the Union soldier reveals himself, saying that she must help him. He carries a message that will save thousands of lives. Her annoyed response is that he’s keeping her awake and just go away! He dives back into hiding as the two Confederates barge in, demanding that she cook them up a meal. Everyone has a breaking point. Even little old farm ladies. I say no more.

The play’s author was born long after the Civil War, and his parents took no part in it. He wrote this play in 1913, the fiftieth anniversary of the Civil War’s end. It was a time for parades, statues, and celebrations of the fact that the U.S. was united in peace. That whole freeing-the-slaves thing had magically faded away. African-Americans were being Jim-Crowed and share-cropped. It was all about white people and the fact that the north and the south were embracing each other again. The ultimate irony of this play is that the author and his bourgeoise friends were clods, too. A unique historical viewpoint from the Metropolitan Playhouse, doing what it’s famous for once again.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Shakespeare@
Jersey City’s Premier Classical Theater Company
presents
The All-Free Radio Play
In Four Parts

THE TEMPEST
By William Shakespeare

Episode One
October 1, 2020 7 p.m.

www.shakespeare-at.org

Adapted & Directed by Artistic Director SEAN HAGERTY
Original Music: JOAN MELTON
Sound Design: DAN GERHARD & ELLEN FITTON

Featuring
DAVID HARGREAVES, MARIA-CHRISTINA OLIVERAS, JONATHAN FORBES,
JAMIE BALLARD, THOMAS ALDRIDGE, DEREK WILSON, ARIA SHAGHASEMI,
ANDREW SELLON, & KEITH HAMILTON COBB

Simply listening to SHAKESPEARE@ is an amazing experience. No distractions, just the beauty of the language to savor. The “visual” scenes are limited only by the listener’s imagination. No jostling, no candy wrappers being opened, no overpowering perfume. Just the listener and the velvet voices caressing each bit of dialogue. We don’t know what the actors look like, but their voices are totally delicious.

For those not familiar with this play, THE TEMPEST has it all. A terrifying shipwreck, father and young daughter washed up on an isle, mortal enemies, monsters, wizardry, spells, love, betrayal, revenge, redemption, and more. First performed in 1611, it is believed to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. He died in 1616.

Part One begins with the roaring tempest, tossing the ship like a child’s toy from wave to wave. The passengers and crew shout with fear. Then, silence. Prospero and Amanda stand on the island, looking out to sea. Prospero takes this opportunity to tell Miranda the story of his past. He was a duke, until his brother stole his title. The tempest, he tells her, will send his enemies to find him. He will have his revenge at last!

Prospero conjures to call forth his Familiar, the spirit Ariel, and gives instructions. The resentful servant Caliban is sent for firewood. Shakespeare slowly drops new ingredients into this stew of villainy and family strife. A plan is afoot. And it’s a humdinger.

SHAKESPEARE@ will air Part Two on October 8. Not to be missed.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Presents
The Virtual Playhouse Fall Season

A Screened Reading
of
A WOMAN’S HONOR

Written by SUSAN GLASPELL
Directed by RACHAEL LANGTON

Featuring
VIENA AIELLO, KATHY CHRISTAL, CHRISTINA ESKRIDGE, MAGGIE ANNE GILLETTE, ZARRA KAAHN, JACOB SHIPLEY, REBECCA SIMPSON-WALLACK, DANIELLE STANEK, & LAWRENCE WINSLOW.

Virtual Settings: RIFKA MILDER

Talkback Guest: J. ELLEN GAINOR, CORNELL UNIVERSITY

September 26, 2020 8 p.m.

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

Author SUSAN GLASPELL hits the social absurdity nail on the head once again with this comedy. It’s 1917 and The Prisoner has been sentenced to death…unless he can produce an alibi. He refuses. He was with a lady and his ethics prohibit him from disclosing her identity. It would ruin her honor! Unthinkable, even with his life on the line.

While he waits in the jailhouse conference room, his lawyer makes a confession. He placed an ad in the paper telling the sad tale of the doomed young man and pleaded for the woman in question to step forward and save his life. The Prisoner is shocked, but what’s done is done. A door creaks open and The Shielded One enters. She is willing to testify for him. The Prisoner refuses her.

Another creak, another woman. Motherly, knitting, she admits she is the one. What is “honor” to her at her age? Creak. The Scornful One enters and takes the blame. Then The Silly One. The Prisoner reacts with amazement and disbelief at each new woman. And there are six more in the lobby! The Prisoner looks like he wishes he had never been born. He orders them to go away, but oh hell no. They squabble loudly among themselves. The Lawyer orders them to pick one of themselves. A judge will never believe this whole gang spent the night with The Prisoner.

The Scornful One sums it up. A woman’s honor is about one thing, while a man’s honor is about everything but that one thing. Women are smothered under their “honor”.

At this point, The Prisoner looks like he would welcome death.

The talkback puts things in perspective. When this play was written in 1917, women could not vote, could not serve on juries, and had no access to birth control. All they had was their “honor”. A convention invented and enforced by men. And it did not apply to men! Sound familiar?

Another excellent production by METROPOLITAN PLAYHOUSE.


-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Presents
The Virtual Playhouse Fall Season
Opening Production

A Screened Reading
of

COCAINE

Written by PENDLETON KING
Directed by MICHAEL HARDART

Featuring
ERIN BEIRNARD & JAMES ROSS

Background Paintings by VINCENT GUNN

Special Talkback Guest JEFFERY KENNEDY

September 12, 2020 8 p.m.

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

Metropolitan Playhouse had a hard time getting this one past the Internet Censors. That title was enough to bring their plans to a screeching halt. They were able to sort it out, obviously. COCAINE, the 1916 one-act drama, successfully opened the theater’s fall season.

Nora, feeling very old at 30, returns to the attic room she shares with fellow-addict Joe. Bad news. She hasn’t been able to score any dope. No money, either. That blistering cold sore on her face turns-off potential clients. Joe’s desperate for a fix. A washed-up fighter, 24, he’s broke, too. They are two weeks behind in their rent. A nasty dead-end life near The Bowery. Hopeless but in love, they feel safe only when they are together.

Joe finally shares that the landlady has offered him a way out about the rent thing. He’s young and handsome. Or he could hit the streets, too. It is all overwhelming. Nora suggests another solution. Are they brave enough?

Metropolitan Playhouse is an absolute gem. Their plays are from 100 years ago, but always so modern in their content and emotion. The talkbacks afterwards are delightful. Life then was different, yet the same. Talented performances, skillful video, background paintings that add the perfect touch. A walk through their looking-glass is not to be missed.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

American Indian Artists, Inc. (AMERINDA)

The Radio Play Double-Feature

FILES OF THE INDIN POLICE
and
IT CAME FROM ACROSS THE BIG POND

Featuring
NIC BILLEY, DYLAN CARUSONA, DONNA COUTEAU, MATTHEW CROSS, MATT ANGER, INA McNEIL, & TAYLOR RED FOX

Written by WILLIAM S YELLOW ROBE, JR.
Directed by JOHN SCOTT-RICHARDSON
Produced by DIANE FRAHER
Dialogue Recorder: JACQUELINE JACKSON
Sound Design: BOB SCHOTT, SR.

Now livestreaming at
www.amerinda.org

FILES OF THE INDIN POLICE

Rachel Many Fortune Rainbow Eagles hosts her YouTube Tribe from a small apartment in a big city. She has built a yoga routine around tips learned from an elder at a casino. Relax, stretch your legs, and listen to her latest composition, “Music for Sacred Squirrels”. A knock at the door interrupts the tranquility. “Fry Bread Gram.”

Her suspicions are aroused, but she answers just in case. It’s not a “Fry Bread Gram”. It’s men in black, demanding her “Real Indian Name Certificate.” They are not tribal police. They are Indin Police, routing out “Pretendins”. She is busted, even though she insists that her DNA is at least 0.325 per cent possibly Indian. Charged with “cultural appropriation”, she is sentenced to life…on an Indian Reservation.

This clever radio play sums up so many clichés about Native Americans, making its point with humor while definitely getting the message across. Highly entertaining.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

IT CAME FROM ACROSS THE BIG POND

Everything is weird. Indians are changing. Men in black suits are prowling around. Mormon missionaries? Jehovah’s Witnesses? The neighbors are burning their camping equipment and cutting off their braids. They are driving Toyotas. Where are all the big Ford trucks?

The strangers knock. Tempting. Maybe there’s going to be a “49”. Can’t resist that. The refugees open the door. Oh no! It’s the guys from “Social Gentrification and Assimilation”, who turn them white. Because it’s easier to be white. Just accept that and move on.

This tongue-in-cheek production adroitly characterizes the struggle to maintain cultural identity while somehow surviving and succeeding in an ocean of people-not-like-you. Don’t answer that door…

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Opera Saratoga
presents
The Interactive Virtual Gala

THE PIRATES’ PAJAMA PARTY & TREASURE HUNT

www.operasaratoga.org/2020-virtual-gala

August 13, 2020 7:30

More fun than a barrel of Pagliacci! OPERA SARATOGA has created the most inventive online gala imaginable. Attendees are gifted with a bag of booty (swag), a treasure map, “jewels”, an eye patch, and other pirate paraphenalia. Pajamas are optional, clothing is not! Aaargh.

Mystery mixes with entertainment, featuring highlights from “The Pirates of Penzance”, “Pirate Jenny” from “The Threepenny Opera”, and other pirate-themed selections. Viewers won prizes for best eyepatch and other creative touches. Now and then a clue was revealed to trace on the map. In-between, charming suggestions that one contribute generously to Opera Saratoga. The online auction continues via the link above.

All entertainment organizations are struggling due to COVID. Events such as these help keep the venue in the public eye while aiding them financially. OPERA SARATOGA has set the bar for others. A truly delightful event.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
A Screened Reading
of
The Alphabet City Monologue

BOUNCING BACK
The Story of Richie’s Guitar Shop

Starring
CATE WEINBERG

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

Richie’s Guitar Shop, like Richie Baxt himself, has nine lives and counting. Tucked into a tiny apartment near Eleventh and Avenue A, he tinkers all day long. From tiny fixes to building entire guitars from scrap parts, he is never still.

In this interview monologue from 2012, CATE WEINBERG talks like Richie while fussing with a repair and answering the phone. Yes, the neighborhood has changed. Kids used to come in for lessons. Now their parents send them to fancy schools. Richie loves repairing the guitars, so that’s all he does now, always working from his lap instead of a worktable.

He had a long career as a probation officer, which offered him personal interaction with people he could try to instruct and advise. He walked away from that in 1995. Despite his Master’s Degree and the promise of a cozy retirement check, he decided to do what he enjoyed most off all. Touching guitars. Caressing them, actually.

He is considered very Zen. He charges low, not inflated, fees. Long ago he decided that “New York is the world”. He found his little niche of heaven just before the real estate market went insane. His place wasn’t cheap, but he owns it free and clear. He smiles.

Richie’s business card says “Psychotherapy Extra”. This monologue shows that just talking to him is psychotherapy, if you listen closely. Good vibes.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
A Screened Reading
of
The Alphabet City Monologue

POOR MAN’S BUTCHER

Starring
JARED HOUSEMAN

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

Essex Street Market butcher Jeffrey Ruhalter is last in a long family line of butchers, starting in Germany and arriving at Ellis Island in 1899. They were “poor man’s butchers”. Pig ears, pigs’ feet, chicken backs, jowls, tails, spines, neck bones. Sold from a pushcart by his father and grandfather. When New York made pushcarts illegal in 1939, they found a small shop and continued their business.

His dad picked the meat up in an Econoline van. No refrigeration. Interesting factoid: Blood eats through metal. He and his dad would butcher all night, then open at 8 a.m. A gradual change began. There were Italians asking for veal cutlets. Blacks buying pigs’ heads. Then came the Latinos. Jeffrey learned Spanish so he could hit on the women. Soon came orders for filet mignon. Whoa. That signaled his golden days, finally making lots of money. The Good Life had arrived.

So did Whole Foods. Five blocks away.

One of a series of monologues, POOR MAN’S BUTCHER uses the actual words of interviewees in “Alphabet City” (Avenues A through D). Starting in 2004, actors interviewed neighborhood residents, then turned the interviews into solo performances. These snapshots of “everyday” people record the morphing of one precious area in the melting pot of New York City. A remarkable and very personal look at change and its effects.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
A Screened Reading
of

IN THE SEASON
Written by LANGDON MITCHELL

Directed by ALEX ROE
Background Paintings by PAMELA LAWTON

Featuring
TESS FRAZER, TIMOTHY GOODWIN, & BENJAMIN RUSSELL

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

August 1, 2020, 8 p.m.

“The Season” refers to the 1892 London social season. The Season is filled with dances and social get-togethers of all kinds. Honestly, it’s all about finding a husband. See and be seen, flirt, smile, charm. The men are looking too, of course. And so it goes.

The season is ending, and Sybil is leaving without a fiancé. Sir Harry has proposed, but she demurred. For she loves another. He is Edward, and he loves her. But they are both so naïve, young, proud, and stubborn that they refuse to admit these emotions to each other. It’s a recipe for heartbreak. Perhaps the kindly Sir Harry can use his wisdom to fix this mess.

This was the twentieth production by the Virtual Playhouse, invented to provide entertainment during the COVID restrictions. Metropolitan Playhouse has done an excellent job in rising to the challenge. The actors have adapted to remote rehearsals and performing independently from their own homes via little Zoom boxes. Every production is a treat. This was no exception.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Jessica Sherr
presents

BETTE DAVIS AIN’T FOR SISSIES

Livestreaming
July 15 through September 24, 2020

Written & Performed by JESSICA SHERR
Directed by KAREN CARPENTER

https://m.onthestage.com

No bumpy flight here. JESSICA SHERR slips into Bette Davis like an evening glove and dazzles like candlelight on a knife blade. Glamor, attitude, talent, claws, Bette is there in front of us like a pet tiger. We love her, but we know what she is capable of. Our admiration is tempered with a little fear of what she’s going to do next.

It’s 1940. Bette is 31, and she’s lived a lot in that time. Marriage, divorce, abortion, a stage career in the east followed by a film career in Hollywood. Doted on by her mother, ignored by her father, she is a steam locomotive. Unstoppable.

Except for tonight, Oscar night. The L.A. Times leaks the results early. Bette learns that she has lost Best Actress to Vivien Leigh. I’ll let JESSICA/Bette take it from there. Pour yourself a drink and smoke ’em if you got ’em.

SHERR premiered her Bette show at the 2008 Fringe Festival and has been performing it ever since. She has lengthened it and remolded over the years, performing to rave reviews. She is not a caricature, not an impersonation, not the drag-queen version. She becomes Davis. Period. With stunning result.

Like a prism, SHERR lets Davis’s light shine through her to create a rainbow of enjoyment.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Andrew Revkin & The Columbia Earth Institute
present
A Sunday Brunch Reading of
Theatre Three Collaborative’s

OTHER THAN WE
Written & Directed by KAREN MALPEDE
Music & Narration by ARTHUR ROSEN

Featuring
GEORGE BARTENIEFF, EMILY FURY DALY, BETH MALONE, & TOMMIE J. MOORE

http://j.mp/sustainwhatlive

July 26, 2020 10:30 a.m.

This eco-feminist futuristic dystopian cli-fi fable is harrowing, largely because it is insane yet believable in light of today’s world.

After the Deluge, the privileged and their essential works live in a domed community, isolated from the outside world’s toxicity and ruin. Their water table is running out, as is the food supply. Hate crimes and violence are rising. Big Brother is always listening and watching.

Women’s eggs are harvested, joined with sperm in petri dishes, then multiples are implanted in suitable wombs. Once females are “used up”, they disappear. Two women, an obstetrician and her lover, a neuroscientist, are plotting something as they watch the dome world deteriorate. Joining forces with a refugee janitor from “somewhere else”, they evolve a plan to create a new species. A species beyond Homo sapiens. The elderly scholar Opa is enlisted to provide education for the new creatures, whatever they may be.

This 90-minute production is gripping, drawing the viewer into the dilemma of motherhood in an inhuman world. Inhuman because people have lost their humanity. Empathy and love have been subsumed by hate and rage. Is a future even possible? And if it is possible, is it desirable? What is out there in the dark? They must embrace the idea that hope still exists as they step into the unknown.

Wonderful, solid, believable performances by the cast make this more than memorable.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
A Screened Reading
of

THE SMOKING CAR
Written by WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

Directed by JOHN LONG
Music by MICHAEL KOSCH
Background Paintings by MARTHA O’CONNELL

Talkback with ANDREW BALL, President of the William Dean Howells Society

Featuring
HOWARD PINHASIK, MARLAINA POWELL, JEN REDDISH, HANNAH SHARAFIAN, & BLAINE SMITH

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

July 25, 2020, 8 p.m.

This 1898 farce is about the perils of helping others, it seems. The scholarly Mr. Roberts is the sole occupant of the train’s smoking car. Calmly reading and enjoying the solitude, he is suddenly confronted with by a young woman holding a baby. She is perky, chatty, scattered cerebrally, and possibly on some 1898 version of speed, judging by her behavior. Roberts looks slightly alarmed as she rattles on about meeting her husband and fetching her luggage and what time is it, and what time does the train leave, and where does this train stop, and can I leave my darling baby on this empty seat beside you while I deal with a few things?

In a flash she is gone, while baby sleeps sweetly next to the very uneasy Mr. Roberts. Oh dear. Enter Willis Campbell, Mr. Roberts’ brother-in-law, a jovial, loquacious younger man. Off he goes on a verbal journey of imagination. What were you thinking? What if the woman has run off? What are you going to do with the baby? Check her at the baggage window? I can’t believe you did this! Poor Roberts sinks lower into his seat.

The gentlemen’s wives arrive to sit with them and instantly flip out. They don’t believe the story, don’t buy the scenario. You must find the mother! Roberts carries the baby out on the search. No luck. Willis goes out with the baby to try his luck. All are discussing possible scenarios, mysterious secret agendas, possible criminal intentions. They are bouncing off the walls with confusion and anxiety. So much overthinking and second-guessing.

Well, let’s adopt the baby! She’s very sweet and quiet. Then, just before the train departs, our bustled Chatty Cathy returns to retrieve her darling infant.

This comedy of manners is part of Howells train series. THE SMOKING CAR reveals the lies people tell in order to appear “good” and “caring”, while being the exact opposite. The two couples breathe a massive sigh of relief when the baby is gone. Whew. Close one. They are clear of all obligation, while having kept up their societal façade in front of each other.

Howells was actually satirizing his own social set, which included Mark Twain and Henry James. Astute and pithy, this sepia snapshot hasn’t faded with time.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

The Sheen Center & The National Review Center
present
The Streamed Event

CONVICTED BY MERCY
The Story of FRANK SIMMONDS

An Interview with his widow RITA SIMMONDS
Hosted by KATHRYN LOPEZ

https://www.sheencenter.org

July 22, 2020 3 p.m.

A true tale that overpowers any novel, the life of Frank Simmonds is a powerful amazement and inspiration. Having sunk into the gutter, addicted to crack, he experienced what most would call a miracle. A real miracle. Told from his own lips. No exaggeration, embellishment, self-pity, finger-pointing, no blaming. The naked truth in all its ugliness and glory.

Born on Long Island in 1955 to parents from the Virgin Islands, Frank was the youngest of five children in a loving, happy home. Above all he adored his mother. When she was diagnosed with cancer, Frank, strong in the Catholic Faith he was raised in, prayed endlessly for God to save her. When she died, a bitter Frank turned his back on God. Age 17, he lost all belief and started his downhill slide.

One night on a dark street, he decided to rob the next person who walked past. A pedestrian came into view. But wait. The man was dressed all in black, with a white sort of collar. A priest! Frank debated with himself. Had he really sunk so low that he would jump a priest? He decided against it. The priest passed, then turned. He told Frank that God would not crawl down in that gutter with him, but if Frank asked, God would lift him up.

Frank’s not buying it. He decides to kill himself. Walking toward the train tracks, Frank defies God to stop him. And God does! Suddenly Frank is filled with a feeling of hope. He dials a help-line number and goes into drug treatment. The rest of his life was one of giving, sharing, and helping. His story is kept alive in the book CONVICTED BY MERCY, written by his widow, Rita. A life-long poet, her latest work is “He Called: Selected Poems”.

Perhaps the most powerful part of this livestream is the video clip of Frank telling his own story. Sadly, he has left this world, but his power remains with us.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
A Live Stream Zoom Video
of

THE PEOPLE
Written by SUSAN GLASPELL

Directed by ALEX ROE
Music by MICHAEL KOSCH
Background Paintings by DANNY LICUL

Talkback with CHERYL BLACK, Professor of Theatre History, Dramaturgy, & Acting, University of Missouri

Featuring
CRAIG ANTHONY BANNISTER, ADAM BRADLEY, QUINLAN CORBETT, ERINN HOLMES, TERESA KELSEY, JON LONOFF, TOD MASON, BEETHOVAN ODEN, MADELYNN POULSON, JACK SOCHET, DIANE TYLER, & TERRELL WHEELER

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

July 18, 2020, 8 p.m.

Metropolitan Playhouse has upped its online game with this production. Twelve actors, almost as many painted backgrounds, and seamless interaction. The usual great acting and script selection, of course. It continues to amaze that one-act plays from 1917 can be so timely in 2020.

“The People” is a small radical journal that is slowly going out of business. Ed, the owner, is out of town trying to secure funding. Oscar, the young, full-of-himself, writer/poet/associate editor, waxes philosophical about it all. Enter the Woman from Idaho. She has come all this way to see the office because she is so enamored of the publication.

A parade of characters voice their opinions while awaiting Ed’s return. Tom the printer, simply worried about loss of income. Sara, the earnest optimist writer. The Artist, who insists that the problem is too many words, not enough pictures. And so it goes, with characters named The Earnest Approach, The Light Touch, The Firebrand, and The Philosopher. Still the Woman from Idaho waits. She is joined by The Boy from Georgia and The Man from the Cape. They express opinions that slice every facet of the publication until its gem-like value is obvious. Ed makes his decision.

Here in 2020, printed publications are losing business every day. In 1917 we were facing World War I and the Spanish Flu pandemic. Sound familiar? A world full of stress and contention and violently opposing arguments pro and con. THE PRESS has a message: Listen to each other, think, then decide. The world of 2020 needs to try that.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

WNYC
in collaboration with
The Public Theater
presents

Free Shakespeare on the Radio
RICHARD II

Conceived for Radio & Directed by SAHEEM ALI
Music by WILLIAM THURBER

In Four Parts, July 13-16, 2020 8 p.m.

WNYC.org

Featuring
BARZIN AKHAVAN , SEAN CARVAJAL, MICHAEL BRADLEY COHEN, SANJIT DE SILVA, BIKO EISEN-MARTIN, MICHAEL GASTON, STEPHEN MCKINLEY HENDERSON, ANDRÉ HOLLAND, MIRIAM A. HYMAN, MERRITT JANSON, ELIJAH JONES, DAKIN MATTHEWS, JACOB MING-TRENT, MARIA MUKUKA, OKWUI OKPOKWASILI ESTELLE PARSONS, TOM PECINKA, PHYLICIA RASHAD, REZA SALAZAR, THOM SESMA, SATHYA SRIDHARAN, JOHN DOUGLAS THOMPSON, CLAIRE VAN DER BOOM, NATALIE WOOLAMS-TORRES, & JA’SIAH YOUNG


Welcome to “Shakespeare in the Park”, 2020 style. No park, except in your imagination. No crowd noise, the temperature is perfect, the seating is comfortable. The stars twinkle above. Close your eyes and listen to these amazing actors take you through the reign of England’s King Richard II. In this production, only the voices matter. Only the words. No costumes, props, staging. Just listen to the language, savor it, understand it, feel it.

King Richard II is not only history, it is a murder mystery. The lust for power, the desire for the golden crown, cousin against cousin. You thought your family was bad. The Duke of Gloucester has been murdered, but by whom? The royal family trade threats and insults. Richard banishes those who oppose him. He, and only he, is king. Anointed by God, empowered by God. The play recounts how that worked out for him.

The cast is multiracial. King Richard is African-American. Bolingbroke is not only African-American, but female. No British accents used. All American. It breaks the artificial boundaries to grand effect. The production is dedicated to Black Lives Matter.

For Richard, loss of power means loss of self. Can there be a worse fate? As usual, Shakespeare’s observations and insights never age. Today we see the fights for power, the posturing and posing and “spin” driven by that lust for control, for glory…but today, alas, not in glorious speeches. ’Tis a pity.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

The Public Theater
Presents
The Digital Premiere of

THE LINE

Written by JESSICA BLANK & ERIK JENSEN
Directed by JESSICA BLANK
Original Music Composed by AIMEE MANN

Featuring
SANTINO FONTANA, ARJUN GUPTA, JOHN ORTIZ, ALISON PILL,
NICHOLAS PINNOCK, JAMEY SHERIDAN, & LORRAINE TOUSSAINT

Production Stage Manager: JANELLE CASO
Stage Manager: LUISA SANCHEZ COLON
Technical Director: IDO LEVRAN

The Public Theater YouTube Channel or Website

July 8, 2020

Attention all ye who mock the COVID virus: watch THE LINE and snap out of it. This masterful production cuts to the bone with its superlative script and its flawless actors, who speak with the voices of actual COVID first-responders.

This “documentary play” is crafted from interviews with New York City doctors, nurses, and EMTs who formed the first line of protection and care when COVID hit. The characters are not composites. Each represents an actual first-responder. Like all of us, they didn’t see this coming. They heard vague news items about some virus somewhere. Then ambulance calls increased by a hundred a night, then more, then even more. They ran out of masks, oxygen, hospital beds, intubators. Young people died in their arms. They themselves caught the virus and were hospitalized. They worked 16-hour days, seven days a week.

One EMT who served in Viet Nam likened it to medical care in battle. Triage. Save the “most-saveable”. Don’t do CPR for 45 minutes, but only 20 minutes. Dermatologists were called into service in the ICU. One-third of the doctors were out sick. No deathbed visitors allowed. No visitors at all allowed.

These first-responders don’t like the word “hero”. They did their jobs. They want acknowledgement for all the other workers on the front lines…housekeeping, cooks, those supplying linens. Without them, the entire system would have crashed and burned.

And when things finally calmed down, the bureaucratic lies began. Talking about the city’s “quick efficient response”, blah blah. Offering “grief counseling”, but weeks or months after the losses. It would have been laughable, if it weren’t so pathetic.

The glorious icing on this rich narrative is the original music by Aimee Mann, featuring her song “Batten Down”. Priceless.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
Evening Two of East Side Stories: Evolution

A Screened Reading
of

EAST VILLAGE TRADER JOE’S
Written by JESSICA MOSS

Directed by RACHAEL LANGTON

Backgrounds by RANDY WONG-WESTBROOKE

Featuring
OLLIE CORCHADO, LIANNE KRESSIN, JAMMIE PATTON,
SUSHMA SAHA, & PERRI YANIV

June 27, 2020 8 p.m.

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

This clever play takes us to a meeting of the East Village Community Coalition, the fierce tiger that fights the encroachment of (gulp) “boutique chain” stores. They have been successful at times, defeating even Starbucks. Tonight they plan their strategy to combat Trader Joe’s.

You know the one. The one on East 14th. Well, now there are two of them on East 14th. But I digress.

First, Judy admits that she loves Trader Joe’s. They are open longer hours and have so much variety! But it will drive up rents. They sell this awesome salsa! But it will drive out some of the small businesses. But it’s so big! And full of light! They sell plants! Writhing in guilt, every member of the board ultimately admits…they love Trader Joe’s. Earthly Paradise has arrived!

In this contest of history versus delicious, delicious wins. Smart dialogue and lovable cast interaction make this play a keeper. Heritage-lovers clutch Trader Joe’s edibles to their chests in adoration. Bring a snack.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
Evening Two of East Side Stories: Evolution

A Screened Reading
of

GRASSROOTS
Written by ROBIN ROTHSTEIN

Directed by JOHN LONG

Backgrounds by DANNY LICUL

Featuring
MAXWELL BARTEL, ALIA SHAKIRA, & KIM YANCEY-MOORE

June 27, 2020 8 p.m.

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

Like it or not, gentrification cometh to the East Village. Many have fought the change, but found it a losing battle. Money talks. Loudly enough to drown out the longtime residents, and the feel and touch of the thick tapestry of the place, a bit worn, perhaps, but still lovely.

On New Year’s Eve, two beat cops notice a lady tossing back a few at the local pub. Problem? It’s 5 a.m., well past closing time, she’s alone, and she doesn’t own the place. Patricia has lived in the neighborhood for thirty years and is enjoying her last night in a bar she loves, her second home. It’s not just closed. It’s closed forever. Soon it will morph into a poshed-up fern bar with tripled prices and a clientele of clueless yuppies.

The rookie officer wants her out, now. The more experienced officer smoothly talks him down. Cool it. Let’s hear her out. Patricia tells them she’s a retired 60-something with nowhere to go. Tonight is the end of life as she knows it. Happy New Year…for those who still believe in such things.

GRASSROOTS is based on the closing of the Grassroots Tavern on St. Mark’s Place. After 42 years in business, it shut down on New Year’s Eve, 2017, a victim of rising rents and associated costs brought on by gentrification. The building is now a high-end five-unit co-op.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
Evening One of East Side Stories: Arrivals

A Screened Reading
of

FULLTIME ACTIVE
Written by BILL RUSSELL
Based on Four Oral Histories Compiled by ARTHUR TOBIER

Directed by MARK HARBOTH

Featuring
AKO, MICHAEL BASILE, RANDY CORDERO, & SUZANNE TOREN

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

June 26, 2020, 8 p.m.

In its annual celebration of Lower East Side history, Metropolitan Playhouse hits the target dead-center with these memoirs of longtime residents.
Four viewpoints: The elderly Russian refugee, the 1930’s fight promoter, the 1940’s Japanese-American, and the 1960’s Puerto Rican immigrant. America was the gold standard. Prosperity, excitement, a sense of personal freedom that they had only dreamed of awaited them here.

Sarah Plotkin, a child when she came from Russia, worked from the day she arrived. Gifted with a sly wit and a strong mind, she first demanded from her mother a pair of shoes! She had no shoes. Oh, she loved those shoes. As the years went on, she joined the Union Movement and was beaten and insulted for her activism, but she was an unstoppable force for workers’ rights. The older she got, the stronger and more determined she became.

Cus D’Amato, born in New York, took up the task of taming and training street-fighters, molding them into boxers. Remove few death-blows, show them a little strategy, and they could have some success in the ring. His big message: Being afraid is natural.

Yuri, daughter of Japanese immigrants, loves her life. Everyone gets along, Caucasian or Asian. Until December 7, 1941. Pearl Harbor changes everything. Her father was taken away by the FBI that very day. Soon all the Japanese were rounded-up and relocated. After the war they returned to their previous lives, finding that everything they had worked for had been stolen and looted.

Carlos, the youngest of the group, immigrated with his family from Puerto Rico in the 1960s. Instead of a land full of toys and candy and rainbows, he found out he couldn’t even cross the street. He lived on the Puerto Rican side. African-Americans lived on the other side. High school was similarly divided by invisible walls. Race stayed with race. U.S.-born Puerto Ricans mocked him because he didn’t speak English well. His dreams fell into dirt. But he vowed to be strong and find his way.

The “arrival” here, the dream, the voyage, are only starting points for actually achieving that new, better, life.

Fine acting and enlightening insights for us all.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
Evening One of East Side Stories: Arrivals

A Screened Reading
of

COLA’O
Written by PALOMA SIERRA

Directed by GLORIA ZELAYA

Featuring
JORGE LUIS BERRIOS & YAZMIN MORALES VICENTE

Music by PEDRO EMANUEL FRANCO FRATICELLI

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

June 26, 2020, 8 p.m.


A kitchen in the lower East Side. Alex makes coffee for herself and Rene’. For her, a lovely café con leche with three sugars. Rene` shudders and demands “No milk for me! No sugar! Act like a true Latina!” Alex barely blinks. What does coffee have to do with race? He insists that she is watering-down her heritage by not drinking strong, black coffee, Puerto Rican coffee. Not some diluted mess.

She calmly points to the fact that they are already blended. Blended historically with white Spanish and Africans and island natives. Now America blends into our lives. Rene` calls a truce. What is coffee compared to his obvious, blended love of sweet Alex.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
A Screened Reading
of

WHERE THE CROSS IS MADE
Written by EUGENE O’NEILL

Directed by FRANK KUHN

Featuring
JOE CANDELORA, MICHAEL HARDART, JOHN INGLE,
DENA MILLER, & JULIE PHAM

Narrated by DINA MILLER
Additional Character Renderings Painted by PAMELA LAWTON
Background: DANNY LICUL

Guest Scholar Talkback with ALEXANDER PETTIT, Ph.D., Editor of the Eugene O’Neill Review

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

June 20, 2020, 8 p.m.

Wow, this was a yummy one. A ghost story written by O’Neill in his formative years, filling our heads with visions created by word craft rather than physical props. Melodramatic and eerie, it was the perfect production for Solstice Night. Blow out the candle and watch it by moonlight.

Atop his old house by the sea, Captain Bartlett is obsessed with his dream. Years ago he was shipwrecked on a remote island with three crew members. Delirium, hunger, thirst, isolation. Only the captain was found alive when rescuers arrived. Since then he has patrolled his rooftop, waiting for his lost ship to reappear. Under this “deck’, he inhabits the top story room of the house, now outfitted to look like a sea captain’s quarters. He never leaves his perfect dream habitat. His fixation, his obsession, is on his dream...his ship will return, laden with trunks full of treasure, guided by his island crew members.
s daughter, Sue, brings his meals to him. His son, Nat, has had enough. His dad forced him to leave school and go to sea, where he lost his arm. Nat considers himself a cripple. Bitter and fed up with his father’s delusions, he plans to have the old man institutionalized. Their house is in foreclosure, the neighbors are freaked-out by the crazy coot, and Nat wants to pursue his life as a writer.

Nat has made arrangements with the bank and the doctor. Tonight dad will be gently taken away. Matt will stay on as property manager. Sue is engaged, so will be married and well taken care of. A neat little package. But what is drama without conflict? Sue flips out. She doesn’t want her father sent away. Nat stands firm. He declares that for him, it is too late for dreams. He has no more time to wait and hope. To show his commitment to the future, he burns the treasure map his father gave him. The one with the “cross” marking the site of the trove. The imaginary trove at an imaginary place in the mind of a madman.

Footsteps thump down from the roof. It’s dad, cursing his son, acting quite mad, actually. Wild-eyed, he shouts that the ship has arrived! Just look out the window! There she is! His crew is carrying the treasure chests into the house! Invisible men? Ghouls resurrected from seaweed? Mirages, delusions, reality, or simply nothing at all? Who is sane and who is insane?

This play was written in 1918, a year of intense anxiety due to the influenza epidemic and World War I. It was meant to frighten the audience, to disturb them, and to draw them into the feeling of insanity. It certainly succeeds.

Great work by the actors and a big thank you to Metropolitan Virtual Playhouse for these weekly live virtual productions. If you are going insane from all this self-quarantine, you might as well do so in the company of Eugene O’Neill.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
A Screened Reading
of

COMPROMISE
Written by WILLIS RICHARDSON

Featuring
ANTHONY T. GOSS, LINDA KURILOFF, LILY SANTIAGO,
AL-NISA PETTY, & GEORGE SHEFFEY

Directed by TIMOTHY JOHNSON

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

June 13, 2020, 8 p.m.

Jane has compromised so many times with her white neighbor, Ben. She is the strength and soul of her family. Her husband is dead, her oldest son is dead, but she has swallowed her resentment in order to keep her children safe and provide a future for them. A future that will include an education and a better life.

Ben drops by for coffee every day, rubbing those old wounds just by his presence. Her remaining son, Alec, carries his anger openly. He has no use for Ben and can’t understand his mother’s ability to forgive. As the story unfolds its petals, we see the complicated interweaving of these two families, as Ben once again wants a compromise. He goes one step too far, even for Jane. And it may be the last step he ever takes. Jane’s days of compromise have ended.

Written in 1925 and set in the Maryland countryside, the play echoes the origins of playwright WILLIS RICHARDSON, the first African American to have a drama produced on Broadway. Encouraged by W.E.B. DuBois and the power of the Harlem Renaissance, he wrote prolifically and received a multitude of awards. Yet today his name is forgotten by most. COMPROMISE could have been written yesterday. Some things haven’t changed.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Equality Florida
Presents
The Full-Length Film
of Their New Stage Play

FROM HERE
A Musical Centered on the Pulse Nightclub Shootings

Book, Music, & Lyrics by DONALD RUPE
Directed by DONALD RUPE

Arrangements & Orchestrations by Musical Director JASON M. BAILEY
Video Editor: JAKE TEIXEIRA
Sound Production: MATT CRAIG

Featuring
BLAKE ABURN, SARAH-LEE DOBBS, PETER HEID, & ERICK PERAFAN

https://eqfl.org/fromhere

June 12 through June 28, 2020

This knock-out production was created to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the tragic Pulse Nightclub murders in Orlando, Florida. It was to be performed live in both New York City and Orlando, but those dates have been postponed due to COVID.

In his prelude to the video, playwright DONALD RUPE explains that he was not at Pulse that deadly night, but he and his friends frequented the club for its fun, excitement, and good vibes. The play is based on his inner struggles as a gay man, his inner growth, his fractured relationship with his mother, and ultimately with his shock at the senseless shootings.

Daniel is in a long-term relationship and hoping for marriage. His live-in lover is not on the same page. Heartbreak time. On the surface, Daniel accepts the break-up with wit, charm, and sarcasm. (Actor BLAKE ABURN is hilarious and totally endearing.) It doesn’t take long for us to realize his inner melancholy. He wears the mask of happiness very convincingly, but his close friends have x-ray vision. He loves this “family” he has created, and they love him.

Daniel’s love life takes an upturn, thanks to one friend and her bit of trickery. Mom remains to be dealt with. That’s some deep doo-doo. With help from his besties and a lot of sharing, he realizes that he is holding back his emotions and must learn to love totally and deeply.

FROM HERE is touching and silly and sentimental and beyond entertaining. The cast is outstanding in every way. The music is the best. The lesson is a lasting one…we are all “from here”.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
A Screened Reading
of

EVER YOUNG
Written by ALICE GERSTENBERG

Featuring
SIDNEY FORTNER, WENDY MERRITT, ROSINA  FERNHOFF, & KIM YANCEY-MOORE

Directed by ALEX ROE

Backgrounds by PAMELA LAWTON

Talkback with the Cast

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

June 6, 2020, 8 p.m.

Author Alice Gerstenberg once again slashes the party balloons of those who believe that age matters. Four ladies of social status share a conversation at the Royal Poinciana Hotel, the place to be during The Season in 1921 Palm Beach, Florida. Soft, sophisticated conversation, to be sure, delivered with smiles and politesse. Their opinions differ, but their society-deb upbringing allows them to cover the barbs with spun-sugar.

First, Mrs. Dorchester and Mrs. Payne-Dexter. The latter is a bit older. Both wealthy widows, New York society, miss their husbands. Mrs. Payne-Dexter is very rigid in her beliefs and does not care for these young debs. She terrorizes them with her status. Mrs. Dorchester is a bit more understanding. “Let them have their day.” Mrs. Payne-Dexter’s reply: “My hair may be white but my blood is still red.”

Enter Mrs. Blanchard, an old friend but, at 71, younger than the other two. She uses an elegant cane, but announces that she is throwing it away! She is tired of being “helped”. Ugh! Just “think youth”, she says, and you will be young. She is celebrating her divorce after forty years of misery! Freedom! She has taken up roulette. Oh my! She doesn’t miss her husband, but drifts back in time to the one man she did truly love. He was lost in the Boer War. She has never forgotten him.

Spying an elegant woman nearby, they are dying to ask her to join them, but they do not know her. Mrs. Payne-Dexter kicks into gear, waving to her. “It’s so nice to see again, my dear.” What can Mrs. Courtney-Page do? “Hello! It’s been too long.” It turns out that she was an ultra-famous San Francisco deb. She displays her strings of pearls, each from a different lover, fiancé, or husband. She is younger by a generation. Joyful and optimistic, she looks forward to finding her next husband.

On some things they agree: Mental lethargy is the worst enemy and to stay young, one must love.

The actresses were awesome. The story becomes more complicated in the end, but cannot be revealed here. Let’s just say that women, young or old, have that legendary “women’s’ intuition”. They can read a situation and react to it without batting an eyelash. Age does not diminish our magical power of sisterhood.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
A Screened Reading
of

CONSTANCY
Written by Neith Boyce

Featuring
ELISABETH AHRENS & PAUL BOMBA

Directed by LAURA LIVINGSTON

Talkback with ELLEN GAINOR, Professor of Performing Arts, Cornell University

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

May 30, 2020, 8 p.m.

This one-act drama takes us back to 1915, which is not so different from today. Rex is a lothario (“playah”). Moira was his lover for one long emotionally painful year. Then Rex ran off with another woman. While he was away, he wrote oh so many letters to Moira, telling her of his love for his new partner, that he now knows what real love is. But that is the past. For tonight Moira hears a familiar voice call her name from outside the moonlit window. Rex has returned!

She invites him in and welcomes him back with a smile. Rex (the weasel) thinks he has returned triumphant into her loving arms. Moira, bless her little heart, has other ideas. No chance, Romeo. We are just friends. Bwahaha. Rex goes through every man-ploy ever invented. Angst, anger, reprimands, charm, pleading for forgiveness. “You must be in love with someone else!” Nope. “You never loved me!” Nope. The only thing missing is “You must be a Lesbian!” I guess men didn’t try that one back then. Or at least not in stage plays.

This self-absorbed idiot just can’t get it through his head. She just doesn’t love him anymore. He explains that he can’t be tied down, that’s not part of his nature. He can be in love without being faithful. She informs him of her policy: No second chances. No love without constancy. He calls her a “spoiled child”. He says that women have no souls. Back at ya, Pretty Boy. Curtain.

What a savory treat this reading was. Yum. Moira never raises her voice, never stops smiling. She can’t be baited. This is very much in keeping with the feminist movement of the era and the feelings of author Neith Boyce. In all she wrote four plays, each focused on women’s sexuality and personal relationships. CONSTANCY is based on the true story of her summer neighbors, Mabel Dodge and John Reed, both famous in their own right. They all lived among the Bohemian crowd of Greenwich Village, where free-love, psychiatry, and social experimentation were the rage. They were determined to help free women from the chains of the Victorian Era. We should be pleased that they succeeded.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
A Screened Reading
of

THE POTBOILER
Written by Alice Gerstenberg

Featuring
MIKE DURKIN, SJ HANNAH, DAVID MURRAY JAFFE,
OLIVIA KILLINGSWORTH, JEN REDDISH,
JAY ROMERO, & TOM STAGGS

Special Guest: DOROTHY CHANSKY, Professor of Theater History,
Theory, & Criticism, Texas Tech University

Directed by ALEX ROE

Scenic Design: VINCENT GUNN

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

May 23, 2020 at 8 p.m.

Ah, “the theatah”. Such a rarified, scripted world, full of snippy attitude by playwrights and actors, even those of questionable talent. Thus we witness Mr. Sud, pretentious hack, oversee a rehearsal of his latest masterwork. His young sidekick is there to study the genius as he molds yet another hit.

Like actors since the dawn of time, the cast is not enchanted by a rehearsal where the writer is in charge. They give it their best, or try to, while Sud constantly interrupts with script changes and orders on how to read their lines. Stronger! Eat the scenery! Make them applaud! Beyond histrionics to another dimension as yet unnamed. The Villain! The Heroine! Then…the guns!

This one-act satire was written in 1923, but its point is sharp and cleanly skewers the theatrical world even today. Some things never change. Well-acted and lots of fun. A perfect fit for Zoom/YouTube.

The current Metropolitan Playhouse series revives plays from the early 20th century (“new old plays”). They remain amazingly relevant, especially with the interactive “talkbacks” at the end. For this production, Professor Dorothy Chansky provided a tantalizing biography of author Alice Gerstenberg and insight into the times in which she lived. Gerstenberg was famous in her day for her feminist stance and prolific writing. Although she has faded from view, her work still hits the target directly in its pretentious face.

A lovely evening indeed.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
A Screened Reading
of

SUPPRESSED DESIRES
Written by Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook

Featuring
LIAN-MARIE HOLMES, SARAH HANKINS, & JOHN LONG

Directed by MICHAEL HARDART

Scenic Design: VINCENT GUNN

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

May 16, 2020 at 8 p.m.

This totally enjoyable and relatable light comedy takes us back to 1915 Greenwich Village, full of Bohemians and free-thinkers delighted to be breaking the chains of Victorianism. Henrietta has gone over-the-top for the psychoanalysis craze. She reads all the books, goes to an analyst, and never stops talking about it. Never. Her husband, Stephen, reluctantly, and a bit condescendingly, is forced to listen. Her sister, Mabel, naively tries to keep up, but doesn’t have a clue.

Mabel unwisely blurts out that she had a dream about being a chicken. Henrietta swoops in to analyze it for her “naïve, bourgeoise” sister. She finds meaning in everything! The look on Mabel’s face, the fact that she accidentally knocks a plate off the table, it’s all very deep and revealing! In fact, Henrietta informs Mabel (at great verbal length) that she has “issues” and repressed desires galore. She orders poor Mabel to see the analyst immediately or risk the dangerous effects of holding in her hidden urges.

Henrietta doesn’t miss a beat. Her laser eyes shift to husband Stephen. Stop mocking me! Do you have dreams, she asks him. Uh-oh. It’s his turn to be grilled on his deeply hidden probably scandalous inner needs. She demands that he, too, visit the analyst.

Both unfortunate souls follow her advice. They come home amazed and confused. Can what the analyst said be true? When Henrietta hears their revelations, the appalled Freudian snaps back into reality very quickly. Lesson learned.

This was a most excellent production. Perfectly cast and directed, it was as amusing now as it would have been 100 years ago. Kudos to all!

-Karen D’Onofrio-

BLEEDING LOVE: A Twisted Musical with a Good Pure Heart

Book by Jason Schafer, Music by Arthur Lafrentz Bacon, Lyrics by Harris Doran
Based on a story by Jason Schafer, suggested by Oscar Wilde’s fairytale “The Nightingale and the Rose”

Starring Annie Golden (Madame Floy), Rebecca Naomi Jones (Lolli), Marc Kudisch (The Super), Sarah Stiles (Bronwyn), Taylor Trensch (Sweet William), Tony Vincent (Puppy)

Directed and Edited by Harris Doran

Audio Drama produced by Dori Berinstein and Alan Seales, in association with Kent Nicholson, Katie Rosin, Steve Saporito

Orchestrated by Bruce Coughlin
Additional production and orchestration by Arthur Lafrentz Bacon
Re-Recording Mixing by Ric Schnupp
Sound Editing José Villaman
Sound Engineer Alan Seales
Song recordings produced by Tim Andreasen with Søren Møller, Creative Producer, of the Fredericia Teater
Martin Konge, musical director and keyboards
Steffen Schackinger on guitar
Florian Navarro on reeds
Jakob Rosendahl Povisen on violin
Tobias Lautrup on cello
Allan Nagel on bass
Lars Mollenberg on drums
Additional vocals on "Prologue" by Aaron Ramey and Lucia Spina
Song recordings Engineered by Brian Montgomery
Vocals recorded at Avatar Studios, NYC, and the actors’ apartments during self isolation

In a world full of outlaws, hooligans, and wild drug fiends who will take your shoes, Bronwyn (Sarah Stiles) has been inside Auntie Floy’s apartment for 12 years. With a division between the dangerous outside and the inner sanctum of safety, there is still love all around. Sweet William, the super’s son, pines for the affections of Bronwyn, while his gun-obsessed father mourns the wife he accidentally shot. Madam Floy has her fantasy lovers enhanced by pills and shots. And outside the apartment booze-hound Puppy has an anguished longing for hard-hearted LollI. Bronwyn has always been scared so she never dared but can the lure of love get her out of the apartment and into the waiting arms of a world of wonder and wildness?

I am not a podcast kind of person but after experiencing BLEEDING LOVE: The Complete Musical Podcast, I may have changed my mind. This musical is full of clever songs of every genre and witty dialogue, while being narrated by a deep resonating voice that would give James Earl Jones a run for his money. And most impressively this pandemic production was recorded with flawless interfacing from the actor’s apartments during self-isolation. Obviously, creativity and talent cannot be held down. This is the silver lining of a difficult confusing time. Check it out: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bleeding-love-the-complete-musical-podcast/id1504801723?i=1000474558851.

- Laurie Lawson -

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
A Screened Reading
of

THE PARLOR CAR
Written by William Dean Howells

Featuring
MELODY BATES, JED PETERSON, & STU RICHEL

Directed by ALEX ROE

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

May 9, 2020 at 8 p.m.

This one-act farce was first printed as a magazine story in 1876. A man and a woman find themselves alone in a train car going to Schenectady, NY. The young lady tries to open the window beside her, but it slams shut unexpectedly, trapping her skirt. Unable to move or open the window to free herself, she calls out for help to the gentleman passenger. He is fast asleep, his hat covering his face.

Startled awake, he comes to her aid. Oh no! He is her ex-fiance! What a dreadful coincidence. She accepts his help, but he is unable to free her. She orders him back to his seat. She is vexed with him. Very vexed. Being a male, he has no idea why. “What did I do?” he asks. “You know what you did!” Yes, one of those situations. The dialog continues thusly, frequently interrupted by bursts of ladylike sobbing, childish pouting, and fluttering eyelashes.

He continues to beg her for a reason. She refuses to answer. Finally the gloves come off and he calls her a “humbug”! Take that, missy. Now she is a shocked, pouty, vexed, weeping maiden in distress.

Their railway car comes to a stop. Being the rearmost, it has come uncoupled from the rest of the train. Will their train return for them? Will they be annihilated by a random oncoming train? Fear unites them. Back together at last, they await their fate.

This was gripping state-of-the-art stuff back in 1876. The author, William Dean Howells, was extremely famous in his day. Best known for his “campaign biography” of Abraham Lincoln, he went on to be an author of immense scope, writing plays, articles, and books. After his death in 1920, his name gradually faded from mass popularity, but he remains revered and studied even today by literary scholars.

This production was a perfect fit for virtual presentation on Zoom. A little technical magic even allowed the lovers to kiss, though the actors were all performing from their homes.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

New Circle Theatre Company

In Conjunction With
Ensemble Theatre of Chattanooga, Silverthorne Theater Company in Massachusetts,
Endangered Species Theatre Project in Maryland, and
Little Fish Theatre in San Pedro, CA

Presents

DAYS OF POSSIBILITIES

Written by RICH ORLOFF

Directed by DAVID KRONICK

https://www.facebook.com/daysofpossibilitiesnycplay
May 4, 2020 7 p.m. EDT

This documentary-style event, performed on the 50th anniversary of the Kent State shootings, recounts the memories of contemporary university students to the gradual realization that the seeds of revolution were being sown. They were students at Ohio’s Oberlin College, writer Rich Orloff’s alma mater, not at Kent State, but the thread of war protest and the cries for an end to an unjust war rang through U.S. universities in parallel patterns. First, a slow realization that the Vietnam War existed. Then awareness that the war was growing but accomplishing nothing, only death and destruction. Awareness led to anger, which led to student activism.

Based on letters and interviews with more than 100 Oberlin alumni, the production follows the path from small early protests to bigger marches, physical confrontations with police, and massive demonstrations in Washington, D.C. Through the personal testimonies of these students, portrayed by more than twenty actors, we feel the reality. We are at the protests, in the marches, bullied by police, and find out that we have our names on FBI files. The remembrances cover the political spectrum: the radicals, the cautious, the conservative, and the clueless.

In 1964, neither college students nor the American public saw the “big picture”. By 1970, on a beautiful spring day, the war brought its killings to Ohio. That’s the day that things “got real”.

Orloff has done a spectacular job of bringing history to life. It is intense for those who lived through the era, a reality-check for those who are too young to remember. This is not a “history book” overview, but a deep insight into a unique era. It has a heartbeat. It has blood throbbing through its veins. It forces us to realize that “We Shall Overcome” is not just a song, but a possibility.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
A Screened Reading
of
Two One-Act Plays

FOURTEEN
Written by ALICE GERSTENBERG

Featuring
BRENDA CRAWLEY, BECCA BALLENGER, & ANDREW FIRDA
Directed by LAURA LIVINGSTON
Virtual Backgrounds & Props: VINCENT GUNN

CRISS CROSS
Written by RACHEL CROTHERS

Featuring
ERICA KNIGHT, ERIN LEIGH SCHMOYER, & TREVOR ST. JOHN GILBERT
Director & Virtual Backgrounds: ALEX ROE

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

May 2, 2020 at 8 p.m.


The comedy of manners FOURTEEN takes us back to the 1920s, when people of status had to follow the proper rules of etiquette. No exceptions. Grande Dame Mrs. Pringle is hosting a dinner party for 14 guests. At least that was the plan, until the phone calls started. One guest canceled due to “a sick friend.” That makes it a party of 13! Totally unacceptable. Shocking, actually! So starts the chaotic series of phone calls to invite more people, her daughter’s reluctance to attend at all, and a blizzard that makes things worse. The understated butler carries on stoically as he is ordered to remove place-settings, then add place-settings, then remove place-settings, ad nauseum.

The master plan is to get the daughter married off to a prosperous gentleman who is attending. Or not. Perhaps Mrs. Pringle will succeed in the end. If she doesn’t collapse from an attack of The Vapors first.

CRISS CROSS, from 1904, also features a woman facing the social challenge of guiding a loved one into a “sensible” marriage (if there exists such thing). The pretty Cecil worries that she is losing the interest of her beau, Jack. Enter Cousin Ann, older, perhaps wiser, and obviously more coolly practical. The stronger of the two females, Ann says that Jack is playing a 1900’s version of head games with Cecil. In a private conversation, Ann asks Jack to make Cecil happy. Jack is surprised that Ann has this soft side, as everyone is just a little afraid of her. Ann resumes her usual demeanor and leaves the lovers to find their way.

These plays were performed using ZOOM and YouTube. They have the common thread of women’s roles in society. Each actor performed in a separate video frame, from their homes. None of them had ever met in person. They did not see their background sets until the day of performance. This made for a very interesting and entertaining evening. Kudos to all involved. Well done and totally enjoyable.

--Karen D’Onofrio--

YYSA Yaya Kids Theater and Ting Wong
Present

THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL
Book by OXYGEN MEDIA
Lyrics & Additional Book by JEFF EDMOND
Music by ALASTAIR WILLIAM KING

Featuring
MADI BEUMEE, DAYNA GRAYBER, AISLING FIONA FAGAN, ELIZABETH FLANAGAN, ANGELINE GUI
MAX P. FOWLER, YANNI METAXAS, TONY MONWATT, and CHRISTOPHER SWAN

Directed by GREG GANAKAS
Music Direction by ALASTAIR WILLIAM KING
Associate Director: KELLI BARCLAY
Orchestrations by ALEXANDER TOM
Scenic Design: JOSHUA WARNER
Costume Design: GAIL BALDONI
Lighting & Video Design: ZACH LOBEL
Sound Consultant: SASHA FALSBERG
Casting: ALSION FRANCH CASTING
Press & Marketing: KAMPFIRE PR, KATIE ROSIN
Production Management: EVAN BERNARDIN PRODUCTIONS
General Management: SHARON FALLON PRODUCTIONS

St. Luke’s Theater
308 West 46th Street (between Eighth and Ninth Avenues)
www.telecharge.com or 212-279-6200
February 13-23, 2020; Opening Night 2/15/20

“Life is the greatest fairy tale of all.” This production of THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL sets out to prove that. With tap dancing geese, magic matches, a lovely portrayal of heaven, along with some very creative songs that move the plot along (lyrics by Jeff Edmond and music by Alastair William King), on-stage violin playing, innovative choreography, portable settings that transform villages to fancy restaurants (Joshua Warner), and costumes to die for (Gail Baldoni), a pretty good case is made. Audience members, old and young alike, are mesmerized, and THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL is a delightful way to enjoy the theatre.

- Laurie Lawson -

CHASING THE RIVER
Written by JEAN DOBIE GIEBEL

Starring

CHRISTINA ELISE PERRY, DAVID REY, DAVID WENZEL, SARA THIGPEN
ROBYNE PARRISH and CAROLINE ORLANDO

Directed by ELLA JANE NEW
Set Design: RAYE LEVINE SPIELBERG
Artistic Director: KIRK GOSTKOWSKI
Technical Directors: KARIM AMED and DIONISIO CORTES
Stage Manager: ERJCKA LEE CONKLIN
Managing Director: RICK HAMILTON
Lighting Design: MICHAEL ABRAMS
Production Assistants: MO BONE, BLAIRE O’LEARY and ANDREW DOBBIE
Graphic Design: ADRIENNE LOWETTE
Executive Producers: RAY and LORI PALOMAA

Chain Theatre
312 West 36th Street, 4th Floor
www.chaintheatre.org
February 7th – February 29; Opening Night – 2/10/20

Thomas Wolfe is known for his book “You Can’t Go Home Again,” a wise observation that all too often proves to be true. What he failed to reveal is that no matter where you go, home will follow you. Jean Dobie Giebel’s CHASING THE RIVER deals with this subject honestly and eloquently. Kat (Christina Elise Perry) has returned to her childhood home after being released from prison and immediately is assaulted by haunting memories of her turbulent upbringing. As the past seeps into the present, Kat clings to the guidance of Aunt Adelaide (Sara Thigpen), the one person who was her constant champion.

This poignant play, beautifully executed by a talented cast, is a story of the resiliency of the human spirit. Just like Aunt Adelaide, CHASING THE RIVER is a champion of learning to trust, believing in second chances, and redefining oneself.

- Laurie Lawson -

BORDER PEOPLE

Written & Performed by DAN HOYLE

Off-Broadway Premiere directed by NICOLE A. WATSON
Scenic Design: FRANK OLIVA
Lighting Design: JIMMY LAWLOR
Sound Design: JORGE OLIVO
Video Design: YANA BIRYKOVA
Production Stage Manager: KARA KAUFMAN
Press Representation: MENDIOLA ARTS MANAGEMENT
Graphic Design: the watsons
Originally developed with and directed by CHARLIE YARON

Gural Theatre at the A.R.T./New York Theatres
502 West 53rd Street (off Tenth Avenue)
www.theworkingtheater.org
January 25 – February 22, 2020

NYC Borough Tour
March 3 -14, 2020

The only regret you will have after seeing BORDER PEOPLE is that there is only one Dan Hoyle. You will want to bottle him and his work up and distribute it throughout the United States and beyond.

Hoyle takes on several personas – Mexican, Muslim, Black, gay, street folks, ex-cons, females, anyone who has been marginalized – complete with accents and inflections. As he bounces around from the South Bronx and Arizona to Canada and Mexico, he tells the poignant stories of those seeking what we Americans so often take for granted – security, opportunity, safety, and life itself. He has interviewed people living in border towns and south of the border, solar-sourced farms, deported immigrant shelters, housing projects, police departments, and everywhere in between; and in each case Hoyle forcefully and respectfully tells their stories, sometimes in Spanish with subtitles.

BORDER PEOPLE reminds us of the universality of the human spirit, tugs at your heart strings, and hopefully forever changes how you view “the immigration problem.” Brilliant journalistic theatre perfectly timed.

- Laurie Lawson -

GOOD MORNING NEW YORK
A New Musical

Book & Lyrics by JACKLYN THRAPP
Arranged by JACKSON BELL
Original Music Composed by JACKLYN THRAPP, JACKSON BELL, DYLAND ADLER

With

ZACH HOLDEN, CHRISTAE EVANSON, MAROGAN DETOGNE, BOBBY ALLAN, LEXI ROSENBLUM
ANDREW CUCCARO and JACQUELINE KEELEY

Directed by BRIDGET GREANEY
Choreographed by DANIEL GOLD
Costume Design: AMANDA ENRIQUEZ
Lighting Design: OLIVIA LOVERDE
Stage Manager: FELISHA HENG
Scenic Design: DENISE PFAU DEMBY & NICOLE GEX
Music Director: JACKSON BELL
Musicians
JACKSON BELL, MAX AZARMEHR, CLINTON GREENLEE, DIANE WONG
Assistant Producer: CHRISTIN MALDONADO
Vocal Director: REISE HOOPER
Casting: MARGO CRUZ

Players Theatre Mainstage
115 Macdougal Street
www.GoodMorningNewYorkMusical.com

Opening Night: January 11, 2020

Ever wonder what happens behind the scenes at a morning television show? Well, Emmy Award Winner Jacklyn Thrapp, previous news reporter and producer, has the answers, and she had set them to music in GOOD MORNING NEW YORK. Jam packed with aspiring television celebrities, a cast of eccentric, yet familiar, characters are in New York City to claim the fame they are sure is awaiting them at a local network show. And they have brought with them their dreams, their insecurities, their imperfections, and their hopes. As promotions, career moves, power plays, and love are interwoven, some very clever songs move the storyline along.

There are some hits and misses in GOOD MORNING NEW YORK. Hilarious concepts like a slow-motion version of a mugging, a disastrous Christmas Eve date, and a tap dancing sequence outweigh the fact that sometimes the lyrics are difficult to hear over the music. And although the second act is full of predictable endings, everybody has a great time getting there, especially the audience.

- Laurie Lawson -

Theater for the New City, Crystal Field, Director, Presents

ALESSANDRA BELLONI & I GIULLARI DI PIAZZA
“GOD IS A WOMAN AND SHE IS BLACK” – Healing Journeys with the Black Madonna

Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue
(212) 254-1109
www.theaterforthenewcity.net
12/28 @ 8 PM and 12/29 @ 3 PM

Musicians
ALESSANDRA BELLONI - Artistic Director (lead vocal, mezzo-soprano, southern Italian percussion)
WILSON MONTUORI (classical and acoustic guitar)
JOE DENINZON (violin, mandolin, vocals)
KEVIN NATHANIEL (vocals, mbira checkere)

Dancers
FRANCESCA SILVANO, PETER De GERONIMO, and GRETA CAMPO SILENIA LUCIUS
Public Relations: AUDREY ROSS
Lights: IVAN THOMAS
Sound: GREG – RAWLIVE SOUND
Program Design: MARK MINDEK

Alessandra Belloni & I Giullari Di Piazza offer a unique experience that combines music, rituals, trance dancing, and chanting from Southern Italy, France, Spain and Brazil in GOD IS A WOMAN AND SHE IS BLACK. Belloni shares her journey as she explores the Seven Black Madonnas she first saw in Southern Italy. That’s a journey that includes healing rituals, eroticism, worship, miracles, and transformation. The result is mesmerizing, as the audience becomes one with the rhythms of traditional instruments like the violin and the guitar, as well as unfamiliar instruments like the mbira, handheld percussion, and the tambourine. It’s a performance where anything is possible and that perhaps is the message. The conveyance of message is pure joy and celebration. Fascinating experience.

- Laurie Lawson -

Knife Edge Productions Presents

IN A DARK DARK HOUSE
By NEIL LaBUTE

Featuring

NEIL HOLLAND, DAVID BECK, and KRYSTAL TAVAREZ

Directed by SAM HELFRICH

Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at the A.R.T./New York Theatres
502 West 53rd Street (off Tenth Avenue)
www.knifeedgeproductions.com
December 6 – 21, 2019

Neil LaBute’s IN A DARK DARK HOUSE creates tension from the first line uttered and doesn’t let up until the final word has been pronounced. This is a story of secrets kept within families and the resultant consequences. Younger brother Drew (David Beck) finds himself in a psychiatric hospital and has called upon his older brother Terry (Neil Holland) for some assistance in getting out. Communication of any meaningful measure is not their forte. As the truth is cajoled, threatened, physically beaten, and guiltily coerced, it is clear that childhood memories have had a huge (and often disastrous) effect on both men.

IN A DARK DARK HOUSE is not only a powerful portrayal of the lasting consequences of abuse, it is also a fascinating study in sibling rivalry, revenge, stunted growth, survival, and the need for security. Excellent performances by Beck and Holland capture the complexity of their characters; Krystal Tavarez rounds out the cast as yet another offshoot of questionable behavior. While the dialogue serves and succeeds to create tension, it could be tightened up. It is clear within the first few minutes that there is something wrong and that these brothers have trouble interacting with each other; the repetitive back and forth is a bit tedious but nonetheless doesn’t dilute the ultimate message.

- Laurie Lawson -

 A Cocktail Party Social Experiment:
Phones off. Conversation on.

Conceived, developed, and hosted by: Wil Petre
Assisted by: Lane Halperin and Emily Palmquist
Publicity: Kamila Skawinski


On a cold, rainy night in late November, who would expect a huge turnout for something that we didn’t even know we need? I guess people who know about the Cocktail Party Social Experiment. Wil Petre creates an atmosphere and structure for volunteers to pick cards that are interpreted in his cocktail conversation book and turned into profound and amazing conversation starters. “How would you like to be remembered?” elicited a very thoughtful, spontaneous answer that was touching and heartfelt. There is soft jazz music playing in the background and you sense, just like going to The Moth, the hunger that people have to be listened to and accepted. You could hear a pin drop in the audience, as each person ordered a drink and then went on to answer questions, from the other participants and Wil, like, “What is the tool in your tool kit you value the most, and why?” What the world desperately needs are fewer political discussions and more discussions that tap into our universal values and deep human connection.

Chelsea Music Hall
407 W15th St, New York, NY 10011

Sun, Nov 24th - Doors 5:00pm | Show: 6:00pm
Mon, Dec 16th, 2019 – Doors 6:00pm | Show: 7:00pm
More dates TBA in 2020

~Ronni Burns

United Solo Presents

STEP MAMA DRAMA!
A One Voice Production

Written and Performed by: ALLISON HETZEL
Music and Lyrics by: RAPHAEL CRYSTAL
Technical and spousal support: DAVID DURHAM
Press Representative: ANDREA ALTON

The audience for this show is increasingly wide with divorce and remarriage being so prevalent.

Step-parents can easily relate to the humorous, mis-guided things well intentioned friends and relatives say when they find out you are marrying a man with children. Ms. Hetzel does justice to her own experience and the perspectives of others in blended families. Music helped accompany the ups and downs, pleasure and pain in the role of the step-mother, from interacting with the “birth mom” and occasional joy and appreciation from the kids. There were many crisp lines delivered well and throughout and this play (45 minutes) could be condensed as an article in a women’s magazine. The song at the end, beautifully written and sung, summed up this slice of life nicely for all to appreciate.

THEATRE ROW
410 West 42nd Street
New York, NY
November 3, 2019

-Ronni Burns

United Solo Theatre Festival Presents

WASBIAN

Written and Performed by SUSAN WARD
Directed by AUSTIN PENDELTON
Lighting/Sound and Video Design: DUANE RUTTER
Press Representative: ANDREA ALTON

Theatre row Studio Theatre
410 West 42nd Street (between Ninth and Tenth Avenues)

She loves her. She loves her not. She loves him. She loves him not. Will she wind up happily ever after? Will it be with Peter Pan or Wendy? Susan Ward courageously and shamelessly takes us on a fabulous journey as she uncovers the layers of her sexual identity. With fantastic analogies, crisp delivery, wit, humor, and just the right amount of details, she mesmerizes the audience with the humorous and heartfelt details and intensity of her numerous relationships. She is such a vulnerable and loveable storyteller that all the while we are rooting for her to find love and happiness. All ages could benefit from the understanding her search for self-acceptance and see that heart has no gender.

- Ronni Burns -

Strange Bird Productions
Presents

2020: A FANTASY
By Raven Petretti-Stamper

October 16 - 20, 2019

Theatre 54 inside Shetler Studios
244 West 54th Street, 12th Floor between Broadway and 8th Avenue, NYC
Tickets: www.StrangeBirdProductions.com

Directed by KEN WOLF
Stage Manager DANIELLE WESSLER
Press Representative SCOTTI RHODES

Cast
Gabrielle Wagner – Timothy Babcock

Raven Petretti-Stamper’s 2020: A FANTASY is a dark satire that looks at the 2020 U.S. presidential election through the lens of one couple who consider themselves a modern Carville and Matalin for being together in spite of differing political views. Set in a universe in which Trump is no longer president, opposing parties are literally at war, and the couple initially appear to be role-playing to distract from the chaos around them, fantasy is the key word in the title of this play.

The entirety of the action of 2020: A FANTASY takes place in a bomb shelter between the couple, Rebecca (Gabrielle Wagner) and Greg (Timothy Babcock). At first it seems like they are engaging in spirited sparring, almost like courting, as the bombs go off around them. That soon takes a more sinister twist.

Rebecca has the highest of political ambitions, to be president, and Greg has a rule-book for how she should behave as a woman. In between fighting over their respective democratic and republican beliefs, there is much taunting (including with a can of Spam), and debate about acceptable roles. It is revealed through the course of 75 or so minutes that they have been married for five years. Their seeming disdain for one another makes them appear more like one of those couples that has secretly hated one another for 20 years or more, as she ends up locked in a cell, and he refuses to let her out for the majority of the performance.

At the end of 2020: A FANTASY, the odd evolution that the electoral process has undergone is revealed. While not the conclusion one might expect from the events leading up to that point, this is ultimately satire, and as the title implies, fantasy.

- Kessa De Santis -

JOHN FREEDSON, HARRIET YELLIN, PETER BRASH
DAVID ZIPPEL and GERARD ALESSANDRINI
In association with TZILI CHARNEY
presents

FORBIDDEN BROADWAY
The Next Generation

Starring
CHRIS COLLINS-PISANO      IMMANEUL HOUSTON
ALINE MAYAGOITIA      KATHERYNE PENNY
JENNY LEE STERN       JOSHUA TURCHIN
At the piano
FRED BARTON

Choreography Costume Design
GERRY McINTYRE DUSTIN CROSS
Musical Direction Production Stage Manager
FRED BARTON YAMAN PALAK
General Management Wig Design Set and Poster Design
BRIERPATCH PRODUCTIONS CONNOR DONNELLY GLENN BASSETT
Press Representative Casting Sound Design
GLENNA FREEDMAN MICHAEL CASSARA, CSA SOUND ASSOCIATES
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Production Supervisor
GLENN BASSETT
Created, Written and Directed by
GERARD ALESSANDRINI
Produced in association with GERRY McINTYRE

TRIAD THEATRE - 158 West 72nd Street (off Amsterdam)
October 16 through November 30
-
Tickets are $65, with premium seating $90. There is a two-drink minimum.
For a schedule of performances and to purchase tickets,
visit www.forbiddenbroadway.com or call (212) 279-4200.

80 minutes - no intermission
===================================

FORBIDDEN BROADWAY: THE NEXT GENERATION is everything you could hope for -- and more! Although Forbidden Broadway in various forms and at various times has been around off-Broadway since 1982, it never gets old because its creator, Gerard Alessandrini, writes a new show for each version which satirizes recent Broadway productions. The various editions have won numerous awards and have been produced all over the world.

In this 2019 spoof of everything Broadway, the fresh, young energetic cast takes you inside the underside of Broadway via the Hadestown subway train escorted by Andre de Shields aka Hermes. You will laugh so hard you cry at major stops along the way at Frozen, Moulin Rouge, Tootsie, and "Woke-lahoma" along with The Prom, Harry Potter, The Ferryman and Yiddish Fiddler on the Roof.

Broadway legends portrayed in movies and on TV are not spared either. Judy Garland sings a scathing review of Renee Zellweger's performance in the new Garland biopic, and Gwen Verdon and Bob Fosse get in a few songs and steps of their own. The sharp lyrics and zingers just do not stop. While you may bemoan the end of one number (because it's just so much fun), you can rejoice in the beginning of the next.
It's a shame this show is only running for 10 weeks, so go now. Have fun! Enjoy!
===
Faye Argentine

 United Solo Theatre Festival Presents:

‘AT WIT’S END: A HOME FOR RETIRED COMICS’
WRITTEN and PERFORMED by: NANCY REDMAN

DIRECTOR: BILL COSGRIFF
PRESS AGENT: AUDREY ROSS

It’s always difficult to write a review as the “odd person”, as many fans of Nancy’s were in the audience and seemed to laugh at all the right places. I’ve seen Nancy Redman before and she truly is a fine comedienne. In fact, she’s famous, having appeared on many TV shows and won numerous awards. The premise of this show taking place in a comedian’s retirement home was clever and her delivery was crisp, but it fell a bit flat for me. The audience for this should be at least in their 70’s and many were. Yes, there were puns and jokes and a clever routine about punchline jeopardy. The hour and a half felt very long and it was hard to hear some of the old and familiar jokes, even though that was the point. The last routine that deconstructed what a joke is, explaining that person in a joke who makes a mistake is always right was interesting but became tedious. I would go to see a Nancy Redman show again, and perhaps it was me not her on this one.


THEATRE ROW
410 West 42nd Street
www.telecharge.com

October 19, 2019

-Ronni Burns

 United Solo Theatre Festival Presents:

DIGGING IN THEIR HEELS
By: SALLY J. PERKINS
www.sallyperkins.net

Starring: SALLY J. PERKINS
Press Representative: Andrea Alton

Sally Perkins is the consummate performer and teacher. Her passion for women’s rights makes you wish you had her in history class so you would actually remember what you were learning and go on to make a difference. She is inspirational and clever and knows how to engage the audience from start to finish. Her sense of humor and timing are second to none and she brilliantly blends history with contemporary references and analogies that are hilarious and right on target. You leave grateful for a performance that reminds you of women who fought endlessly, compelled to continue the momentum through action or at the very least, conversation.

The Studio Theatre at Theatre Row
410 W. 42nd St, New York, NY
October 17, 2019

-Ronni Burns

 APPLE, TABLE, PENNY

By: PETER LEVINE

Director: JENNIFER TUTTLE

Starring: PETER LEVINE, ABRAHAM McNEIL ADAMS, JERRY FERRIS, LESLIE LYNN MEKER, VIVIAN MEISNER, LAURA SAMETZ and PAULA SHTEIN

Lighting Design: BRIAN ALDOUS
Costume Design: JOEY KOVACH
Stage Manager: EMILY STINE
Press Representative: ANDREA ALTON

This gem of a play had me mesmerized from the opening to the very last moment. Kudos to playwright and actor Peter Levine for bringing his central character Max vividly to life in ways that are deeply relatable. The supporting cast, the set and the music were all perfectly aligned to keep the audience in laughter and tears. This man’s ‘decline’ and the way his wife, adult children and granddaughter dealt with it could be happening in anyone’ s family. A beautiful and moving experience that completely rings true.


TADA THEATRE
15 W 28th Street (between Broadway & 5th Ave.), 2nd Floor, New York
October 3 - October 13


-Ronni Burns

BAD PENNY

The Flea
20 Thomas Street
New York, NY 10007
August 24 – October 7, 2019
www.theflea.org

Written by MAC WELLMAN
Directed by KRISTAN SEEMEL
Stage Manager: OLIVIA MANCINI
Scenic Design: JIAN JUNG
Costume Design: EMILY WHITE
Lighting Design: DAISY LONG
Sound Design: KEENAN HURLEY

Featuring

CAROLINE BANKS, BAILIE de LACY, JOSEPH HUFFMAN, ALEX J. MORENO, EMMA ORME, DANA PLACENTRA, KATELYN SABET, RYAN WESLEY STINNETT, & LAMBERT TAMIN

Welcome to the park. Take a seat and relax. Watch the people having fun. Watch the girl who finds a penny. She’s sitting near the guy holding the white-wall tire. They’re not a couple. They’ve never met. Until now.
Writer MAC WELLMAN likes his characters to question things. Penny Girl is a mass of questions. What are the stars, do stars even exist, why do they exist, do we need them to exist, what if they don’t exist? Tire Guy finally tells her to shut up. Others at the playground sound-off with their opinions, challenging each other loudly, crossly, judgmentally. Or just mentally. Lots of conflict here. Anger issues galore. Not even trying to play nice. Why all this uproar?

Eureka! The found penny did it! It’s a BAD PENNY, full of evil. Gotta shake that negative mojo, and fast. A sacrificial victim is needed. Don’t let your guard down.
BAD PENNY is performed outdoors, rain or shine. They provide towels to dry off the chairs and offer free rain ponchos. For real. Be prepared. Kudos to the very wet actors who made the show go on the night I attended.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

SINCERITY FOREVER

The Flea
20 Thomas Street
New York, NY 10007
August 24 – October 7, 2019
www.theflea.org

Written by MAC WELLMAN
Directed by DINA VOVSI
Stage Manager: EMMA SONRICKER
Scenic Design: FRANK J. OLIVA
Costume Design: BARBARA ERIN DELO
Lighting Design: BECKY HEISLER McCARTHY
Sound Design: EMMA WILK

Featuring

CHARLY DANNIS, NATE DeCOOK, ALEX HAZEN FLOYD, AMBER JAUNAI, PETER McNALLY, NEYSA LOZANO, MALENA PENNYCOOK, ZAC PORTER, JONATHON RYAN, VINCE RYNE, VANNESSA GUADIANA, & TASHA MILKMAN

Ah, classic small town America, in this instance a place called Hillsbottom. Two girlfriends discuss the nature of the universe, question the existence of existence, and let their minds wander into the depths of philosophy. Cut to…two guy friends exploring the existential reality of all things, the validity of truth versus imagination, and whatever else wanders through their brains. All four agree on only one thing: sincerity is the most important part, always. And they all fear furballs.
The theater repeatedly goes black, then shocks with glaring light to surprise us with a new configuration of characters. Boy with girl, other boy with other girl, boy with boy, sometimes joined by mysterious disruptive creatures from what appears to be a Walmart parking lot. Questions are many, answers are few. Well, actually, answers are none.

Shock! A very literal Deus ex Machina brings it all together. Looking for Hell, down-home crackers? You got it.
This Obie Award winning play from 1990 packs a wallop. The use of lighting is brilliant and the costumes are perfect. SINCERITY FOREVER offers a vibrant combo of visual and verbal laughs to keep the absurdity rolling. The actors sparkle with energy, in full control of the manic dialogue.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

DINING WITH PLOETZ
Three Dark Comedic One-Act Plays

Theater for the New City
155 1st Avenue
New York, NY 10003
September 6-September 22, 2019

www.theaterforthenewcity.net
Facebook: theaterforthenewcity
Instagram: Theaterforthenewcity
Twitter: @TNCinNYC

GOLDFISH
Written & Directed by RICHARD PLOETZ
Featuring CLAUDIA FABELLA, CHRISTOPHER BORG, ELIZABETH A. BELL,
WYNNE ANDERS, STEVEN HAUCK, JAMIE HEINLEIN, & RYAN HILLIARD

MEMORY LIKE A PALE GREEN CLOCK
Written by RICHARD PLOETZ
Directed by STEVEN HAUCK
Featuring JAMIE HEINLEIN, CHRISTOPHER BORG,
RYAN HILLIARD, & ELIZABETH A. BELL

BONE APPETITE
Written & Directed by RICHARD PLOETZ
Featuring CHRISTOPHER BORG & STEVEN HAUCK


Pity the tiny goldfish forced to co-exist with this questionable crowd in their shabby Rug District loft. The feral child doesn’t seem to care, but the three adults rant on about her birthday party and its lack of attendance, blaming each other for the fiasco. When a posh couple suddenly arrive with a whacko street poet in tow, white wine and dry birthday cake may or may not save the evening.

The second play of the trilogy focuses on a ritzy dinner with an upscale couple happily celebrating their years of marriage. Or not. The mysterious lone diner seated near them provokes accusations, denials, and generous dollops of TMI. Yum!

The third play is the darkest and therefore, of course, the funniest. A hefty has-been rocker insists on reinventing himself. Can he morph into Meatloaf? He runs an ad and gets an enthusiastic response from a tasteful artiste. When they meet, they bond instantly and feed on each other’s fantastic ambitions. Vegetarians may wish to adjourn to the lobby.

Great work by the ensemble. Clever wordplay with bright splashes of literary and culinary references spice up the dark unknowns of the characters’ musings. Food for thought indeed.

-Karen D’Onofrio-

A WHITE MAN’S GUIDE TO RIKER’S ISLAND
www.awhitemansguidetorikersisland.com
Facebook: @whitemansguidetorikersisland
Instagram: @whitemansguidetorikers

Written by RICHARD L. ROY and ERIC C. WEBB

Starring RICHARD L. ROY and CONNOR CHASE STEWART
Directed by THOMAS G. WAITES
Stage Manager: JULIE SPINA

The Producers Club
358 West 44th Street (between Eighth & Ninth Avenues)
July 18 – August 31, 2019

A WHITE MAN’S GUIDE TO RIKER’S ISLAND begins with the declaration “I killed a man tonight.” This is the true story of Richard L. Roy, who found himself in the unlikely position of serving time in one of the nation’s largest prisons. Unlikely because he was born into a white middle class family, and by the tender age of 19, had already conquered the boxing arena and was becoming well known in the acting world. Instead his road to success took a major detour, and his “roomies” became a Puerto Rican drug dealer and a transgender junkie. Amidst a population that is 95% Black or Latino, this is Roy’s survival manual.

Co-written by Eric C. Webb, this is a raw and gritty account of a penal system that is broken. Wisely the writers have sprinkled the powerful message with enough humor to make it palatable. They have included a history lesson of Riker’s Island, as well as a white man’s glossary of prison terminology – da dun da duns and flavors and fish, oh my! Roy introduces and closes out the play himself, but the heavy lifting is done by Connor Chase Stewart who brings Roy’s/Webb’s words to life. Directed by Thomas G. Waites, the message of A WHITE MAN’S GUIDE TO RIKER’S ISLAND confirms what we already know – justice isn’t blind, white privilege does exist, and awareness is the first step to healing.

- Laurie Lawson -

 NOT EVEN THE GOOD THINGS
by JOSEPH SCOTT FORD
noteventhegoodthings.com

Director: KELSEY CLAIRE

Starring: COLLETTE ASTLE, VICTORIA JANICKI, SEA McHALE, SERENA PARRISH, STEPHON PETTWAY, MICKEY ROBERTS and ALLIE TRIMM

Producer: TAMRA PASELK
Costume Design: OSCAR NOEL FITZPATRICK
Lighting Design: ALEXANDER Le VALLIANT FREER
Stage Manager: HAYLEY ISAACSON
Press Representative: GLENNA FREEDMAN

What’s a play these days that doesn’t cast millennials as kids who drink too much, love sex, and want to party, party, party with friends? If you want to see great actors interact with each other to show confusing relationships, a weird young girl as a ghost, and lots of confusing attempts at sex and discussion, you’ve come to the right show. The cabin in the woods stage set was interesting, the dialogue was crisp but the point of the show, the message, the meat was either so deep it was buried, or so light it vanished into the air.



Theatre Row
140 West 42nd (Between Ninth and Tenth Avenues)
www.telecharge.com or 212 270 6200
Opened July 16. Run: July 17-20, 23-27th

~Ronni Burns

New York Musical Festival and Ladyship Limited Liability Company
In association with Visceral Entertainment Present

LADYSHIP The Musical
https://ladyship.twigs.com
@LadyshipMusical

Book, Music & Lyrics by LAURA GOOD & LINDA GOOD

Starring

MADDIE SHEA BALDWIN, JENNIFER BLOOD, JORDON BOLDEN, CAITLIN COHN, NOELLE HOGAN,
JUSTIN R.G. HOLCOMB, LISA KARLIN, BRANDI KNOW, QUENTIN OLIVER LEE, TREVOR ST. JOHN-GILBERT

Direction: SAMANTHA SALTZMAN
Music Director: SIMONE ALLEN
Choreography: SARA BRIANS

The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd Street (between Ninth & Tenth Avenues)
7/10 @ 8pm, 7/12 @ 5pm, 7/13 @ 1pm, 7/14 @ 5pm, 7/14 @ 9pm
www.nymf.org

Unfortunately I was unable to see the full-fledged performance of Laura and Linda Good’s LADYSHIP The Musical. The leading lady of the show, Maddie Shea Baldwin, suddenly became ill, and a last-minute emergency decision resulted in the production being performed as a chorus. But I was able to see were the several positive aspects of this musical.

In celebration of survival from a female perspective and based on true events, the plot centers around women convicted of petty crimes and held captive on a ship traveling from London to Australia in 1789. The Good sisters, aka the acclaimed rock duo The Twigs, created songs with a contemporary alternative pop score that deal with the age-old problems of social class, poverty, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination. If only we could say that these topics are irrelevant today, but alas we can’t. As the US Soccer Team chants “Equal Pay,” the Me Too Movement grows every day, the poor get poorer, and we house people looking for a better life in cages, LADYSHIP could easily become a tribute to hope, resiliency, survival, and the power of female determination.

- Laurie Lawson -

T-LAB SHARES HOSTS

TECHNODRAMATISTS PERFORMANCE LABORATORY

Artistic Director: LORNE SVARE
Supervising Producer: BRIAN RARDIN
Lighting/Projections/Set designed by KRIS STONE
Stage Manager: ANGELLE WHAVERS

Being Performed June 6 -22 at

Theaterlab
357 West 36th Street (between Eighth & Ninth Avenues)
www.technodramatists.com or 866-811-4111

Expect the unexpected when you visit TECHNODRAMATISTS PERFORMANCE LABORATORY. Utilizing 21st Century technology, here are just a few things you will experience:

Tormented Reality where the perspectives are varied
Wink Wink – a puzzle game you can play with your face
Musical Experiments where dance is performed to a plethora of sounds that come from a technologically synced-up saxophone
Stage Experiments where Claire Tyers plays every character in selected scenes from Error: A Comedy Of with the assistance of technology
Reese Thompson’s (Not A) Kids Play where animated avatars take you back to your teenage years
Autokorrect – Face Sync Improv where spontaneous scenarios are enhanced by technological skills and mishaps

And if you are waiting for me to tell you how it’s all done, I can’t. But that’s okay because TECHNODRAMSTISTS PERFORMANCE LABORATORY is an experiential adventure. Go and marvel at the possibilities of technology and art. It’s great fun.

- Laurie Lawson -

TBTB Theater Breaking Through Barriers Presents

PUBLIC SERVANT
By BEKAH BRUNSTETTER

Starring
CHRISTINE BRUNO, CHRIS HENRY COFFEY and ANNA LENTZ

Directed by GEORDIE BROADWATER
Scenic Design: EDWARD T. MORRIS
Costume Design: COURTNEY E. BUTT
Lighting Design: ALEJANDRO FAJARDO
Sound Design: SAM CRAWFORD
Props Design: RONI SIPP
Production Stage Manager: MICHAL V. MENDELSOHN
Assistant Stage Manager: EMILY PAIGE BALLOU
Production Manager: JEREMY PING
General Manager: STEVE ASHER
Casting: TBD CASTING/STEPHANIE YANKWITT, CSA/MARGARET DUNN
Advertising/Marketing: HYSELL MARKETING
Press Representative: SPIN CYCLE/RON LASKO

Theatre Five @ Theatre Row
410 West 42nd Street (between Ninth & Tenth Avenues)
www.telecharge.com or 212-270-6200
May 25 – June 29; Opening Night – 06/06/19

THEATER BREAKING THROUGH BARRIERS is the only Off-Broadway theatre company – and one of a few theatres in the country – dedicated to advancing the work of writers, director, performers, designers, technicians and administrators with disabilities. They kicked off their 40th season with Bekah Brunstetter’s (NBC‘s Emmy-winning drama This Is Us and the upcoming Oklahoma TV series) PUBLIC SERVANT.

Ed Sink (Chris Henry Coffey) has recently been elected as County Commissioner in a small North Carolina town. As he bobs and weaves in the political morass, answering and avoiding demanding phone calls, he is visited by Miriam (Christine Bruno) who needs his civic assistance in selling her late mother’s home. To add to the chaos, daughter Hannah (Anna Lentz) pays him a surprise visit carrying a secret that Ed is too busy to hear.

A timely message in today’s political atmosphere answers the question “How much can one man/woman do?” Start with one person at a time; do what you can. Brunstetter’s complex characters remind us that decisions are never singular events; they ripple out and alter the lives of many in ways that can’t be imagined. Stellar performances by all amidst impressive picket-fence scenic designs by Edward T. Morris add to the authentic community/family ambiance. You may never visit that small North Carolina town or find a compassionate county official, so do the next best thing and go see PUBLIC SERVANT.

- Laurie Lawson -

CWS Productions
Producers Club
presents

PIZZA MAN
by DARLENE CRAVIOTTO

May 30 – June 2nd

Producers Club Sonnet Theater
358 W. 44th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues
Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pizza-man-tickets-60728896765?aff=eivtefrndutm_source=eb_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=evitefrnd&utm_term=eventimage

Directed, Choreographed and Sound by DANIEL COHEN
Scenic and Lighting Design DIANA DAVILA
Costume Design SARAH BECK
Press Representative SCOTTI RHODES

Cast
Julie – Shira Hadad
Eddie – Lucas Niedzialkowski
Alice – Raquel Gomez

Written in 1982, PIZZA MAN is a dark yet sometimes funny play about two women who, frustrated with life, decide to take revenge on a random man to make up for the misogynistic behavior, sexism and disappointment they have experienced. When flipping through one’s little black book does not yield results, they target the man delivering them a pizza.

The play begins slowly with a solo Julie, newly unemployed after refusing sexual advances at work, binge drinking and smoking alone in the apartment she shares with Alice. Alice arrives in tears, lamenting that her married boyfriend has returned to his wife. As the roommates talk, and argue, the conversation devolves in the revenge plot, and things take a darker and violent tone.

Unsuspecting Eddie arrives with a pizza, and this is when PIZZA MAN has some of its better moments. What could have been painful and disturbing to watch is lightened up a lot by Darlene Craviotto’s dialogue, with some of the best lines and humor coming from Alice and Eddie. The Julie character is almost universally dark for the entire play, but the pacing picks up well after her first solo moments, and the production as a whole benefits from the rapport between the three actors.

- Kessa De Santis -

TO SHE WHO WAITS

Presented by: AMERICAN RENAISSANCE THEATRE COMPANY (ARTC)

Theater 54 at Shetler Studios
244 West 54th Street (between Broadway & 8th Ave), 12th Floor
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4227704.
May 23-June 8, 2019

Written by: BOB CLYMAN
Directed by: MARIA ALADREN
Scenic and Costume Design: JOANNA CONTE
Sound Design: ABIGAIL NELWIN
Stage Manager: MACKENZIE McGUIRE
Assistant Production Manager: ALEXIS WILNER

Featuring: LEE EDEN, BRIAL HOMER, CAROL TODD, and KATHLEEN SWAN

Press Agent: ANDREA ALTON

The tagline for TO SHE WHO WAITS says, “God’s Plan v. A Mother’s Love: Winner takes all.” The true winner is the audience who gets to experience four superb actors, exacting dialogue, and a topic that is tackled with insight, compassion and humanity. Sure, couples grow apart and children wind up in the middle, forced to chose loyalties, beliefs and homestead…but what if your love adversary is God? Will the courts feel a mother’s love through some tough choices in her quest to rescue, repair and retain her daughter? Will her daughter allow herself to feel the bonds they share? This is a must see and you will delight in the struggle so excellently portrayed in this slice of life that will stay with you long after you leave the theater.

- Ronni Burns -

 THE PINK UNICORN

Presented by: OUT OF THE BOX THEATRICS

Episcopal Actors Guild
1 East 29th Street (Between Madison and 5thAvenue)
May 9-25, 2019

Written by: ELISE FORIER EDIE
Directed by: AMY E. JONES
Producing Artistic Director: ELIZABETH FLEMMING
Associate Artistic Director: ETHAN PAULINI
Technical Design: FRANK HARTLEY
Dialect Coach: RENA COOK
Costume Design: HUNTER DOWELL
Wardrobe Supervisor: CARRIE GREENBERG
Graphic Design: GARBRIELLA GARCIA

Featuring: ALICE RIPLEY

Press Agent: RON LASKO

There aren’t enough superlatives to describe this theatre experience. Let me start with this. It’s a MUST SEE for everyone. Alice Ripley will have you going from laughter to crying with her descriptions of the people around her that she portrays and the angst she feels in coming to grips with her daughter, who doesn’t see gender conventionally, and emerges as gender queer.

There is a profoundness in delving into what it means to accept others as they are. Does that include taking an activist role at the risk of being ostracized by your church, school and family? We are asked to come to terms with how even the well-meaning and open-hearted have shunned others who were not like them. The writing is some of the best ever, combining Texas twang and bigotry and east coast wit and sarcasm. The suggestions that what we believe in the bible depends on what passage you read is brilliant, and a reminder that we pick and choose at will. (“So, men kissing men is as much sin as eating shrimp at Red Lobster?”)

THE PINK UNICORN is raw, heartfelt and thought-provoking both for Ms. Ripley as well as her audience. You leave wanting even more, yet knowing full well she has wrung herself out to dry during this extraordinary performance. This play will stay with you for a very long time.

~Ronni Burns~

 MARY, MARY
A Revival of the 1960’s Rom-Com

Presented by: RETRO PRODUCTIONS

Gene Frankel Theatre
24 Bond Street (Between Lafayette & Bowery)
May 3-18, 2019

Written by: JEAN KERR
Directed by: SHAY GINES
Artistic Director: HEATHER E. CUNNINGHAM
Costume Design: BEN PHILIPP
Scenic Design: JACK and REBECCA CUNNINGHAM
Lighting Design: ASA LIPTON
Sound Design: TREVOR WILLIAMS
Properties Design: SARA SLAGLE
Associate Producer, SARA SLAGLE

Featuring: HEATHER E. CUNNINGHAM, DESMOND DUTCHER, CHRIS HARCUM, MEGHAN E. JONES and ROBERT FRANKLIN NEILL

Press Agent: ANDREA ALTON

Run to see this play if you are in need of a reminder of kinder, gentler times where there is romance, wit, charm, civility, and cigarettes. It feels like you are in the 50’s, listening to a conversation of your wittiest friends describing their love interests, and you want to hear every word. “You two are like 2 IBM typewriters clicking away together” is one of many pithy ways of describing two of the personalities in love.

Do we make the same mistake over and over in relationships or learn from our past? There are many clues to life’s little puzzles delivered by 5 superb actors on a set that beautifully puts you in the mood to just stay and listen in to how this will end. “It’s hard to communicate with you…the line is so busy with you talking to yourself” or “I hate intellectuals, they are all so dumb” are memorably written lines by Jean Kerr, one of the most prolific women playwrights of the 20th century.  MARY MARY shines as a work that stands the test of time.

The actors, dialogue, set, and costumes, all come together to deliver a wonderful theater experience without politics, political correctness or posturing.

- Ronni Burns -

 THE RARE BIOSPHERE

Presented by: Sea Dog Theatre
www.seadogtheater.org.

Calvary St. George's Theatre
61 Gramercy Park North
April 25-May 19, 2019

Written by: CHRIS CRAGIN-DAY
Directed by: CHRISTOPHER J DOMIG
Scenic and Lighting Design: GUY de LANCEY
Costume Design: EMILY WHITE
Movement: LEA FULTON
Sound Designer: TYE HUNT FITZGERALD
Stage Manager: HARRISON CORTHELL
Assistant Stage Manager: JACK MERIWETHER
Assistant Stage Manager Intern: ANNA HOPSON
Front of House Manager: WHITNEY BAHR

Featuring: NATALIA PLAZA and ZAC OWENS

PRESS AGENT: KATIE ROSIN/KAMPFIRE PR


THE RARE BIOSPHERE is a raw depiction of one immigrant family’s values shattered by laws that may make sense on a legislative level but make no sense on an individual level. The two actors realistically and passionately take us to the depths of what it feels like to have your path altered abruptly, and everything that once was, is no longer. In an instant, dreams vanish, fear languishes and uncertainty must be mastered. We feel their teenage angst and suffer along with them as they try to make things normal and familiar.
In the background is the allegory of the science behind the rare biosphere, which is an attempt to understand an ancient universe by questioning the meaning of life. It is seen as an inexplicable and fascinating depiction of community and diversity with a live and let live philosophy, versus our survival of the fittest mentality.

In 95 minutes, you will deeply feel what you only see on TV and be captivated by these talented young performers, with crisp dialogue, a realistic set, clever lighting and a clever staging.

- Ronni Burns -

 DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE

Presented by SOHO PLAYHOUSE Inc. Blanketfort Production
www.sohoplayhouse.com
15 Van Dam Street
April 28- May 6, 2019 9

Written and Performed by: BURT GRINSTEAD and ANNA STROMBERG

Directed by: ANNA STROMBERG
Lighting Design: CARTER FORD
Sound Design: BURT GRINSTEAD
Stage Manager: CARTER FORD
Press Agent: JOE TRENTACOSTA

DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE left me speechless. Not a “Who done it” but rather a “How did they do it?” With non-stop energy, wit, charm, countless costume changes and accents, you will be mesmerized by the acting, dialog, continuous set design changes, perfect music and admiration for the two actor’s ability to give it all they’ve got. What? BURT GRINSTEAD AND ANNA STROMBERG also wrote this version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” too? Not fair. Way too much beauty and talent given to two people, who modestly didn’t come back for a second curtain call to rousing applause as they probably needed a drink and sleep.

If you want to witness how one person can take on two distinct roles to explore, experience and experiment with good and evil, you’ve come to the right show. If you want to see the numerous characters he encounters in perfect detail, you’ve come to the right place. If you’ve ever wondered if good and evil resides in each of us…well you know what to do.

-Ronni Burns-

Parity Productions Presents
www.parityproductions.org

CHARLIE’S WAITING
A New Dark Comedy by MELISA ANNIS

Starring

XANTHE ELBRICK, STEPHANIE HEITMAN, AND AMY SCANTO  N

Directed by LUDOVICA VILLAR-HAUSER
Production Design: MEGANNE GEORGE
Lighting Design: CALVIN ANDERSON
Sound Design: CAROLINE KITTREDGE FAUSTINE
Assistant Director: JUDITH BINUS
Dramaturg: JENNIFER KRANZ
Stage Manager: JENNA NG LOWRY
Assistant Stage Manager: GEORGE WEINHOUSE, M.D.
General Manager: ISABELLA JANE SCHILLER
Casting: JAMIBETH MARGOLIS, C.S.A.

Theaterlab
357 West 36th Street (between Eighth & Ninth Avenues)
Tickets: http://bit.ly/2RXpMUq
March 28 – April 20

A proposal that took place at a funeral, an upcoming wedding, and three goats hardly need any more surprises but that’s what happens in Melisa Annis’ CHARLIE’S WAITING. Louise (Tony Award nominee Xanthe Elbrick) is pregnant and planning her exquisitely-detailed wedding with Kelly (Stephanie Heitman). The unexpected entrance of a visitor (Amy Scanlon) suddenly takes precedence over the decorating of paper lanterns and construction of centerpieces.
 
CHARLIE’S WAITING asks just how blind love can be. It may be able to overlook class differences and unshared secrets but what about trust that is destroyed? Superb acting, fast-paced dialogue, and tight direction (Ludovica Villar-Hauser) will keep you riveted to discover how it all will end.

- Laurie Lawson -

Ego Actus
www.egoactus.com
Presents

THE WAY WE GET BY
By NEIL LABUTE

March 31 – April 14, 2019

Urban Stages
259 W. 30th Street (between 7th & 8th Aves.) NYC
Tickets: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4109159

Directed by KIM T. SHARP
Scenic Design by DUANE PAGANO
Lighting and Sound Design by JOHN SALUTZ
Stage Manager JOHANNA GRIESÉ
Press Representative SCOTTI RHODES

Cast
Francesca Ravera – André Vauthey

Neil Labute’s THE WAY WE GET BY is essentially an extended conversation between two singles after what at first appears to be an intoxicated one-night stand. Over the course of 80 minutes, more about the characters and their motivations are revealed, perhaps elevating the surface situation to something more life changing.

The play opens with Doug (André Vauthey) getting up in the middle of the night and inadvertently waking Beth (Francesca Ravera). While she clearly wants him to return to her bedroom, he is obviously resistant for reasons that take a while to become clear. This leads to the balance of the action, which is the two engaged in an ongoing back and forth about what happened earlier and what it means.

While THE WAY WE GET BY features only the couple onstage, Beth’s unseen roommate, Kim, American Apparel, Star Wars and eventually the couple’s parents all become touchpoints in the telling of their story. Their intimacy is based on a shared history going back to childhood, but the cultural references to things like how the pre-rebranding American Apparel company was operated and trips to Comic Con serve as roadblocks to having a conversation of any depth.

Only in the last 15-20 minutes of THE WAY WE GET BY does the audience begin to understand these characters for more than superficial complaints about uptight roommates and concerns over vintage, autographed t-shirts. It is at this point that one might feel they have a stake in the outcome of Doug and Beth’s union. As written, directed and acted, the production moves along steadily enough to keep the audience engaged. This is not deep, soul-searching material, but it has enough to it to be entertaining.

- Kessa De Santis -

 IDENTITY

Presented by IDENTITY THEATER COMPANY
El Barrio’s Artspace 215 E 99th St, New York
March 8t - March 24th, 2019

Written by: NICHOLAS LINNEHAN
Directed by: CHRISTOPHER SCOTT
Assistant Director: REUVEN GLEZER

Featuring: BEN DWORKEN, TIMOTHY CONNELL, NICHOLAS LINNEHAN, AMY LIZKA and MATTHEW TYLER

Costume design: RENEE SALMIERI
Graphic design by TOM FREDA
Stage Manager: JESSE ENGLANDER
Press agent: ANTONIO MINIÑO

https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4052890

It’s several hours since I saw Identity and my jaw is still on the ground. It was touching, moving, occasionally confusing, always intriguing and often amazing. With passion, pathos, and wit, Linnehan dexterously moved us in and out of the fourth wall. We were transported with him on his personal journey to answer the question, “Am I happy?” We travel through time and space relieved when he discovers that although he is a bunch of contradictions (a brilliantly/disabled, gay, ardent Catholic) he no longer has to apologize to anyone. And yes, he is happy with his complicated but delightful identity. The actors playing the father, mother and doctor added richness to the complexity of the story with their fabulous acting, complimenting the author’s fast-paced and poignant dialogue. Prepare to be impressed. Different is delicious and delightful entertainment.

-Ronni Burns-

 ACTUALLY, WE’RE F**KED

Cherry Lane Theatre World Premiere
38 Commerce Street
www.CherryLaneTheatre.org

Written by MATT WILLIAMS
Directed by JOHN PASQUIN

Featuring:   MAIRIN LEE, KEREN LUGO, BEN RAPPAPORT, GABRIEL SLOYER

Set Design: ROBIN VEST
Lighting Design: PAUL MILLER
Costume Design: THERESA SQUIRE
Sound Design: M.L. DOGG
Projection Design: BRAD PETERSON
Casting: STEPHANIE KLAPPER
Production Stage Manager: CHRISTINE CATTI
General Manager/Producer: JULIE CROSBY
Press Agent: Sam Rudy Media Relations/Joe Trentacosta

Runs March 7th- April 7, 2019

As you are sitting in the theatre waiting for the play to begin, you start to notice the amazing set design. The four actors appear and the crisp, witty, dialog begins. The scenes change with amazing graphics, titles and music. The characters and plot develop, moving from a typical millennial conversation which is cliched, passionate and filled with humorous truths (look it up, each time there is an argument of who is right) to serious problems requiring serious introspection. With a backdrop of liberalism, we are taken through nuanced intricacies of relationships, values, and life-changing decisions. ACTUALLY, WE’RE F**KED helps us realize the limits of ideology and idealism once it is put to the test of reality. It is contemporary and yet universal in the way the actors parse love, life and how to live one’s life authentically. You may even want to see it again, once you get past the plot twist, just to hear the fabulous lines that are delivered so wonderfully.

- Ronni Burns -

Urban Stages presents the World Premiere of

DEATH OF A DRIVER
By WILL SNIDER

Starring SARAH BASKIN & PATRICK J. SSENJOVU

Directed by KIM T. SHARP
Assistant Director: VINCENT SCOTT
Scenic Design: FRANK J. OLIVA
Costume Design: GAILL COOPER-HECHT
Lighting Design: JOHN SALUTZ
Sound Design: IAN WEHRLE
Production Stage Manager: MIRIAM HYFLER
Assistant Stage Manager: LINDSAY KIPNIS
Original Music: ABOU LION DIARRA
Press Representative: JOE TRENTACOSTA, JT PUBLIC RELATIONS

Urban Stages
259 West 30th Street (off Eighth Avenue)
www.urbanstages.org or by phone at 1.866.811.4111
Opening Night: March 4th, 2019

To see some of the most superb acting around today you should head on over to Urban Stages. Sarah (Sarah Baskin) and Kennedy (Patrick J. Ssenjovu) have formed a friendship and a unique bond in Will Snider’s DEATH OF A DRIVER, and a couple more perfectly paired would be difficult to find. On a practically bare stage, these two keep you mesmerized in a story of political activism tinged by culture, race, gender, trust, and betrayal. As the two create a partnership to improve the roads in Kenya, the benefits of a white American woman who brings the proposal and the money working with a black African man who lives within the conditions they are trying to change clash with the detriments of opposing perspectives. It’s a battle between thinking outside the box and surviving within the box. Both need each other but are the differences too large to overcome? DEATH OF A DRIVER is so beautifully presented that it is difficult to choose a side.

- Laurie Lawson -

Magic Window Productions Present

RANDOM ACTS

Written & Performed by RENATA HINRICHS
Directed by JESSI D. HILL
Scenic Design: CHIKA SHIMIZU
Lighting Design: DAISY LONG
Sound Design: MATT OTTO
Costume Design: DESHON ELEM DELTA
Production Manager: SEAN McGRATH
Associate Producer: CHRISTINE CIRKER
Production Stage Manager: SAMANTHA MEYERS

TBG Mainstage Theatre
312 West 36th Street (between Eighth & Ninth Avenues)
https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/995070
February 14 – March 2, 2019

I had never heard of Renata Hinrichs before I saw RANDOM ACTS, and now that I have seen RANDOM ACTS, I don’t understand why everyone isn’t aware of this amazingly talented actress/writer. Her autobiographical play is exquisite in its heart-wrenching, thought-provoking interminable topic. Growing up as a white girl on the south side of Chicago during the Civil Rights movement, the potential for trauma was around every corner. But the memory that stays with her and becomes the inspiration of this play is a random act of kindness.

Hindrichs portrays all characters in the retelling of her story – her Lutheran preacher father, her domesticated mother, teachers, kindergarten buddies, and her prom date. And she assures that you react to the essence of each one. A truly impressive accomplishment enhanced by dramatic lighting (Daisy Long) and music of the times (Matt Otto), RANDOM ACTS should not be missed. Seeing this performance could be a random act that alters your thinking for the rest of your life.

- Laurie Lawson -

BETWEEN THE THREADS

C0-CREATOR and PERFORMER: ZOE AQUA
ADDITIONAL CAST: HANNAH GOLDMAN, LEA KALISCH, LUISA MUHR, DANIELLA SEIDL, LAURA LASSY

DIRECTOR: CORAL COHEN
ORIGINAL MUSIC by Violinist ZOE AQUA
DRAMATURG and SCRIPT SUPERVISOR: TATIANA BACCARI
ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS: KIMBERLY DILLON and LUCY POWIS
PRESS AGENT: ANDREA ALTON

Between the Threads runs from January 18th to February 10th
HERE Theatre
145 6th Avenue (Between Dominick & Spring Street)
www.here.org

BETWEEN THE THREADS captures the Jewish female experience from the perspective of five talented actors who dance and sing beautifully, bridging ancient Judaism with modern dance, ancient customs and very traditional life dilemmas. The trials and tribulations of women as second-class citizens, explore traditional customs that are cherished and how values are reconciled in the face of modern times. All are explored with sensitivity and passion. The continuous music in the background is often haunting and underscores the spirt of the play, and yet at times, it is a bit distracting from the superb dialog. You will leave with pearls of wisdom that are expressed through beautiful choreography and stories all delivered with humor and soul.

-Ronni Burns-

BAREFOOT

Black Rose Productions presents the World Premiere of BAREFOOT

By: KATE T. BILLINGSLEY and THOMAS G. WAITES
DIRECTOR: THOMAS G. WAITES
CAST: KATE T. BILLINGSLEY, ELISSA KLIE, JUDAH TOBIAS, WILL ROSENFELT and TRENT COX
PRODUCTION DESIGN: ALEX HANEY
STAGE MANAGER/SOUND DESIGN: THOMAS GORDON
LIGHTING DESIGN: GILBERT “LUCKY” PEARTO
SET/PROPS: ALEX HANEY
PRESS AGENT: RON LASKO

Runs January 24 – February 10
The Gene Frankel Theatre
24 Bond Street, between Bowery and Lafayette

Why are any of us be surprised when people behave consistently with what we already know about them? In this well-acted, fast-paced slice of life, the audience still roots for a happy ending which is most unlikely when there is betrayal as the main theme. There is wonderful interplay between each of the four then five main characters, revealing dimensions of class warefare, alcoholism, infidelity, and, troubled childhoods and the assumptions and generalizations we make about others. Is life really just suffering, punctuated by moments of happiness? Spend 70 minutes and immerse yourself in an exploration of what love and life may be all about.

- Ronni Burns -

WICKEDEST WOMAN

Presented by: Strange Sun Theatre 

playwright and Artistic Director of Strange Sun Theater: JESSICA BASHLINE

Cast: JOSE-MARIA AGUILA, JESSICA O’HARA-BAKER, EVAN DAVES, DAWN McGEE, EMILY GARDER XU HALL, JASMINE WALKER, LUKE ZIMMERMAN

Scenic Design: ANNA DRIFTMIER
Costume Design: EMILY WHITE
Lighting Design: CHRISTINA WATANABE
Music Supervisor: BRETT KRISTOFFERSON
Choreographer: STEPHANIE CARD
Stage Manager: KATIE KENNEDY
Assistant Stage Manager: SHANNON STEWART
Creative Producer: SAMMY CHADWICK
Creative PRODUCER: DI ANA PISARRI
Social Media & Marketing: MATTHEW HOUGLAND
Press Agent: ANDREA ALTON

WICKEDEST WOMAN, runs January 19 – February 2
www.wickedestwomantheplay.com
See website for talk-back dates
WP Theater, 2162 Broadway (between 76th & 77th Street), New York,

In less than 2 hours you will be inspired by a little known yet unforgettable midwife and abortionist. Ann Lohman understood the power of marketing and took on the name of Madame Restell to care for and assist hundreds of women who couldn’t afford or didn’t want a child. Eventually, when the laws changed, Madame Restell was accused of manslaughter in the second degree. Her rise to notoriety is a true story with a sad ending. Through fabulous dialog, a clever set, effective music, and beautiful costumes this extraordinary cast takes on multiple roles and transports us to life in New York City in the 1800’s. They skillfully show us that compassion, hard work, feistiness, and a deep commitment to what you are doing may not be enough when you have to go against prejudice, ignorance and “God’s law” surrounding reproductive rights. This play gives you lots to think about and much to discuss.

- Ronni Burns -

St. Louis Actors’ Studio presents three premieres of plays by Tony Award nominated playwright Neil LaBute as part of the

LaBUTE NEW THEATRE FESTIVAL

Directed by NEIL LaBUTE & JOHN PIERSON
Artistic Director: WILLIAM ROTH
Set Design: PATRICK HUBER
Costume Design: MEGAN HARSHAW
Technical Director and Light Design: JONATHAN ZELEZNIAK
Production Stage Manager: SETH WARD PYATT
Assistant Stage Manager: JOSEPHINEROTH
Production Assistant AMY J. PAIGE

Cast: GIA CROVATIN, KEILYN DURREL JONES, BRENDA MEANEY and ERIN DEAN WHITE

Press Agent: JOE TRENTACOSTA

The Davenport Theatre (Downstairs, 354 West 45th Street, NYC).

January 1 - 14, 2019

All three plays are thought provoking with content that is both familiar and disturbing. Unfiltered, stream-of-consciousness conversations from a Nazi sympathizer, a couple meeting for a first date who are unequal intellectually (okay, one of them is clueless and insensitive), and a woman lamenting her past decisions that still haunt her today, are delivered with clever dialog that is sharp, and perceptive. You are drawn in to look at stereotypes and prejudice in a way that asks, “Could that be me?”

Take 90 minutes to see THE FOURTH REICH, GREAT NEGRO WORKS OF ART and UNLIKELY JAPAN and you will have plenty to discuss after the show.

- Ronni Burns -

Dutch Kills Theater presents

SELKIE

The Wild Project
195 East 3rd St.
NY NY
29 November-22 December 2018

Written by Krista Knight
Directed by: Matt Dickson
Featuring: Toni Ann DeNoble, Elia Monte-Brown, Federico Rodriguez

A SELKIE is a mythological creature based on Celtic/Scandinavian Folklore. A seal in the water and a human on land, a selkie can be enslaved by a person if the person captures the sealskin that is shed when the selkie turns human. A captured selkie will never stop longing for its skin so it can return to the water. This makes the selkie a perfect metaphor for a person stuck with a controlling/abusive partner.

When we first meet Keaton (Federico Rodriguez) and Deanna (the charming Toni Ann DeNoble), they seem to be a typical, madly in love couple. It slowly unfolds that there is a nefarious reason they are on this out-of-the-way island and why they can’t go back. And as the mysteries are revealed, so is the level of control issues Keaton has, and how Deanna’s insecurities (and drug use) keep her tied to him.

While out on a drug bender, Deanna meets some “seal women.” It could just be a drug-induced delusion, but Keaton believes her and grabs the sealskin of one of the women, Alondra, making her his slave. He intends to blackmail the other selkies into becoming drug runners for him. What he doesn’t count on is Deanna and Alondra finding common cause being under Keaton’s domination.

Elia Monte-Brown’s Alondra is lovely. Her yearning for freedom is palpable in her every gesture.

The cleverly adaptable set design in combination with the fun sound and projection designs keep the show moving fluidly.

- Jean Tait -

IN YOUR FACE – NEW YORK
https://inyourfaceny.org

Hosted by RUTH REICHL
Created by MARTIN SAGE
Produced by MARTIN SAGE and JOSEPH STEINBERG

Featuring

DANNY MEYER, KELLY HALL-THOMPKINS, A.M. HOMES, ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, KAREN AKERS, HEATHER QUINLAN
And
JOSH BAZELL, VANESSA BRETAS, MARIA DIZZIA, KATIE HALPER, TOM LIPINSKI, ERIC POINDEXTER, HEATHER QUINLAND, JULIE ROTTENBERG & ELISA ZURITSKY, BILL WURTZEL, and HARRY ZERLER

Musical Director: JAY LEONHART
Director: KATHRYN MARKEY
Production Coordinator: KAREN CARPENTER
Stage Manager: BRITTANY MOODEY

Merkin Hall
129 West 67th Street, NYC
www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mh or 212-501-3330
December 6, 2018

As diversified as New York City itself, IN YOUR FACE – NEW YORK, is a delightful blend of music, art, culinary, and politics. Take a seat, get comfortable and prepare to be entertained. Kind of like when you enter the subway – anything goes. You will find fiddlers of extraordinary talent (Kelly Hall-Tompkins), conversations between famed restaurant critics (Ruth Reichl) and renowned restaurateurs (Danny Meyer), award-winning novelists (Anand Giridharadas), cabaret stars (Karen Akers), stand-up comedians/writers (Julie Rottenberg, Elisa Zuritsky), storytellers (A.M. Homes), and filmmakers (Heather Quinlan). And that’s just in the first hour.

A one-night-only event, the next IN YOUR FACE – NEW YORK productions will take place March 13 and May 16. Definitely unique as only the Greatest City in the World can be, go and celebrate your distinctive and madcap culture.

- Laurie Lawson -

To Seek a Newer World LLC, Lisa Dozier King, in association with
David Kronick and New Circle theatre Company present

KENNEDY: BOBBY’S LAST CRUSADE

Written and Performed by DAVID ARROW

With speeches by Robert F. Kennedy
Directed by ERIC NIGHTENGALE
Scenic Design: JAMES MORGAN
Lighting Design: MIRIAM NILOFA CROWE
Sound Design: BEN SCHEFF
Production Design: KATHERINE R. MITCHELL
Production Stage Manager: DENISE YANEY
Production Management: SENOVVA PRODUCTION CORE
General Management: LDK PRODUCTIONS
Advertising/Marketing: RED RISING MARKETING
Press Representative: JT PUBLIC RELATIONS

Theatre at the St. Clement's
423 West 46th Street (between Ninth & Tenth Avenues)
Tickets: KennedyBobbysLastCrusade.com or by calling (866) 811-4111.
November 1 – December 9; Opening Night – 11/08/18

“We have a right to live right.” That’s just one of the many signs that adorn the stage at Theatre at St. Clement’s. The time is 1968, and Bobby Kennedy is running for President of the United States. David Arrow’s KENNEDY: BOBBY’S LAST CRUSADE follows him on his campaign trail. The country is reeling from the resignation of Lyndon Baines Johnson and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., against the backdrop of Vietnam War protests, the fight for civil rights, and aggressive actions of North Korea. It’s a time of chaos, and Americans are looking for someone to begin putting things right. Sound familiar? Enter Bobby Kennedy with his aversion of the easy access to guns and ammunition, the dismaying tolerance for violence, racism, and the neglect of the poor. At times you have to check your program to make sure the setting hasn’t transported back to current times.

David Arrow is Bobby Kennedy. He has the boyish youth, the sincere delivery of RFK speeches, the modesty of his personality, and the ability to instill hope down pat. So much so that you find yourself wondering how things would have been if he had been allowed to pursue his dreams. KENNEDY: BOBBY’S LAST CRUSADE entreats us to set the bar high for our current politicians and reminds us that amidst chaos good can rise to the top.

- Laurie Lawson -

Carol Ostrow and Joan Finkelstein present

ZERO HOUR

Starring JIM BROCHU
Directed by PIPER LAURIE
Featuring JOHN FISCHER, Musical Director

Technical Director: ROBERT COPPOLA
Stage Manager: JERAMIAH PEAY
Public Relations: KATIE ROSIN, Kampfire Springs Public Relations
Print/E-Media Producer: DANIEL C. MILLER
Temple Staff: LARRY ROBERTS, ANGEL VILLODA

The Actors’ Temple
399 West 47th Street (between Eighth & Ninth Avenues)
Monday, November 5, 2018

The Actors’ Temple has performed a great service by bringing back Multiple-Award-Winning Jim Brochu’s ZERO HOUR one day before the mid-term elections. This one-night-only show chronicles the tumultuous life of beloved star Zero Mostel, and Brochu has the flamboyance, the sarcasm, and the droll delivery down pat. Within seconds, you believe you have been transported back to the 50’s and are actually watching the Master himself. You will learn that Mostel’s passion was painting even though he was celebrated on Broadway stages and Hollywood screens. Insider stories of celebrities, along with personal anecdotes, provide a glimpse of this larger-than-life gentleman.

As Brochu recounts the McCarthy era, Mostel’s House Un-American Activities Committee testimony, and the 10 years of blackballing he endured, one cannot help but draw comparisons to the chaos and conflicts of today. Shortly after the worst attack on Jews in the United States at a Pittsburgh synagogue, the prejudices that inflame violence, racism, and religious persecution are making their ugly presence known again. Sixty-plus years later, it is difficult not to lose hope. But The Actors’ Temple brilliantly started this production with an audience-participation rendition of God Bless America. And it worked. Tears spring to your eyes, pride swells your chest, and you are reminded that the values that built this country are worth fighting for.

- Laurie Lawson -

Ted Snowdon Presents

MATTHEW MONTELONGO, ANNA HOLBROOK, and RYAN SPAHN

In

DANIEL’S HUSBAND
www.DanielsHusband.com

Written by MICHAEL McKEEVER

With

LELAND WHEELER and LOU LIBERATORE

Directed by JOE BRANCATO
Scenic Design: BRIAN PRATHER
Costume Design: GREGORY GALE
Lighting Design: JEFF CROITER
Original Music and Sound Design: WILLIAM NEAL
Casting: STEPHANIE KLAPPER, CSA
Production Stage Manager: MICHAEL PALMER
Technical Supervisor: MARY DUFFE
Advertising & Marketing: THE PEKOE GROUP
General Press Representative: SAM RUDY MEDIA RELATIONS
General Management: ROY GABAY for Jumpstart Entertainment

Westside Theatre Upstairs
407 West 43rd Street (at Ninth Avenue)
www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
Opening Night: October 28, 2018

Michael McKeever’s DANIEL’S HUSBAND is a superbly-written reminder that rights for human beings should never be taken for granted. The play starts with a social gathering full of fun, peppered with sharp humor, sophisticated sarcasm, and genuine friendship. Mitchell (Matthew Montelongo) and Daniel (Ryan Spahn) have a seven-year relationship, and although they disagree about the institution of marriage, appear to be the ideal couple. Barry (Lou Liberatore) has a penchant for young boys, and he has brought Trip (Leland Wheeler), his latest acquisition, to the gathering. As so often happens in real life, one event turns the lives of Mitchell and Daniel upside down. It also offers Daniel’s mother (Anna Holbrook) an opportunity to intervene.

McKeever deftly handles a multi-faceted issue by offering up endearing characters that are opinionated, compassionate, wise, and confused – all coping with situations the best they can. It is a thought-provoking piece that encourages us to appreciate and take advantage of the strides that have been made, or as Trip says “Do it because you can.” DANIEL’S HUSBAND will remain with you long after you leave the theatre. Don’t miss this one.

- Laurie Lawson -

The Play Onaje, LLC, in accordance with FringeNYC presents The New York Premiere of

ONAJE
www.thePlayONAJE.com
A New Play by ROBERT BOWIE, JR.

Produced by SUE CONOVER MARINELLO

Starring

TINUKE ADETNJI, ADAM COUPERTHWAITE, JOHN DEWEY, CURTIS M. JACKSON,
MARY E. HODGES, SHEILA JOON OSTADAZIM, BRISTOL POMEROY, TIM RUSH and JAY WARD

Directed by PAT GOLDEN
Production Manager: BRIAN FREELAND
Stage Manager: RALPH MEITZLER

FringeHUB
685 Washington Street (corner of Charles Street)
www.fringenyc.org

The Eastern Shore of Maryland has been the hub of revolutionary acts – “breadbasket of the American Revolution,” Rap Brown-inspired riots in the 1960’s, and Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad in the era of slavery are among its rich history. Robert Bowie, Jr.’s play, ONAJE, moves from the race riots of 1967 to the open roads of 1980 and depicts the long-lasting effects of racism.

Michael, a promising young Black man (Curtis M. Jackson), is forced into a vicious act in order to save his family during the riots. The act forever changes his life, so much so that he has created a new identity for himself (Onaje). Fifteen years later a chance encounter as he is hitchhiking transports him back to that disastrous event, and he finds himself on the Eastern Shore again. Some fences are mended, and some can only serve as reminders.

In our current times of the rise of White Supremacy, Nazis marching in Charlottesville, police shooting unarmed Black men, and a general upswing in unabashed racism, ONAJE brings home the unsightly truth that this is not a problem easily erased. But it also gives hope that, individual by individual heart to heart, improvements can be made.

- Laurie Lawson -

SERVING BRULEE

www.servingbrulee.com

Written and Produced by Soné Anandpara
Directed by Chelsea B. Lockie
Meredith Yannuzzi, Producer
Emma Cavalier, Associate Producer

October 12, 14, 17, 20, 24, 2018

Part of the 2018 New York International Fringe Festival
Fringe Hub 685 Washington Street at Charles Street
Tickets and information: www.fringenyc.org

Starring
Soné Anandpara, Ivy Hong and Emma Cavalier

Serving Brûlée is a 45-minute essentially real-time staged production of the debut episode of a cooking show entitled Serving Brûlée with Lila Das (Soné Anandpara). The theater audience sits in for the television studio audience as Lila Das and her guest Michelle Stiles (Ivy Hong) attempt to create the perfect dessert.

Here, the Brûlée is a metaphor for accomplishment and perfection. Lila equates the success of the dessert with being her best self, but also seems to want to impress her audience while also bordering on denigrating Michelle for not quite achieving her “inner Brûlée”. As might be expected, things do not go flawlessly, and as Lila succumbs to a panic attack onstage, Michelle and the crew (Emma Cavalier) are left to salvage the show.

Staging options are limited in the production space, but this did not hinder the production, as most action was limited to the television kitchen set. A short piece, the action was fluid.

Serving Brûlée is a comedy, if slightly dark. The characters, especially Lila, feel very “New York” in terms of capturing that segment of self-involved, pretentious snarkiness that can creep up all too often. Michelle counters this tone with a more down to earth presence. Overall, the play is a respectable addition to the Festival.

- Kessa De Santis -

SUDDENLY

Adapted by
GIANFRANCO SETTECASI after screenplay by Richard Sale
Presented by LIVE SOURCE THEATRE GROUP

Directed by
TYLER MERCER

Associate Producer
MEGHAN ROSE

Featuring: Drew Allen, Henry Fin Berry, Chris Dieman, Phoebe Dunn, Ariel Estrada, Sean A. Kaufman, Joseph J. Menino and Brendan Walsh

Scenic and Video Design: BRYCE CUTLER
Costume Design: ANGELA HARNER
Lighting: MARY ELLEN STEBBINS
Properties: BRETT WARNKE
The Production Stage Manager: MACKENZIE TROWBRIDGE
Press Agent: BILL COYLE

HERE
145 6th Avenue Enter on Dominick one block south of Spring
October 5th-October 20th

SUDDENLY, you are not even sure if the play has started. With tv screens showing clips of movies from the 50’s, you suddenly realize that you are about to be taken on a multi-media ride. This ride includes the clever staging of a regular family, FBI agents, gangsters for hire, and guns, all thrown together around the potential assassination of the President whose train is supposed to pass by this small-town America.

The acting is excellent and what also sets apart this play adapted from the Frank Sinatra movie of the same name is the fabulous use of lighting and videos powerfully reminding us that past is present and issues of greed, gun control and family values are similar to core issues we are still grappling with today.

- Ronni Burns -

THE EVOLUTION OF MANN

Written by
DAN ELISH (Book and Lyrics) and Douglas J. Cohen (Music and Lyrics)

Directed by
JOE BARROS

Featuring: MAX CRUMM, ALLIE TRIMM and LESLIE HIATT
Set: LIBBY STADSTAD
Costumer: SIENA ZOE ALLEN
Lighting: CHRIS STECKEL
Sound: ALAN WATERS
Projections: NATHAN SCHEUER
The Production Stage Manager: KAYLA SANTOS
Press Agent: RON LASKO

The Cell
338 W. 23rd St (between 8th and 9th)
September 23rd-October 21st www.theevolutionofmann.com

You will quickly remember your experiences with dating, romance, infatuation and fantasy, and how they pull at the heart strings of both men and women. In a most delightful production, with excellent acting, wonderful voices, lyrics that make you laugh and say, “Yup, been there, felt that”, three talented actors take on a variety of roles. They ask the audience to guess at what form true love will take through the many twists and turns of dating, love lost and love found. Many sage pieces of advice are sprinkled in for those who dream of finding the perfect mate, such as, “Don’t get married before your second date, learn to love the quirks, and try to find love in all the unromantic things”.

A truly great 90 minutes of clever wit, great acting, clichés to laugh at and a beautiful set and lighting design enhanced by great music. Fun Fun Fun

- Ronni Burns -

Stuffed Olive, Inc. Presents
www.stuffedoliveinc.com

IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER
A New Play by DOROTHY LYMAN

 Featuring

TIM BOHN, ABIGAIL HAWK, BRENNAN LOWERY
DOROTHY LYMAN, JEANNE LAUREN SMITH, SHANNON STOWE

Directed by KATIE McHUGH
Stage Manager: NATALIE JONES
Asst. Stage Manager: BRENNA SCHAFFELL
Sound Design: JAMES HIGGINS
Set Design: JOHANNA PAN
Light Design: ELIZABETH MAK
Associate Set Designer: LINDSEY FUORI
Assistant Set Designer: DAN WENDEL
Technical Director: JACK GILLIAT
Production Manager: MEGAN SCHADLER
Asst. Production Manager: LILLIE SOKOLSKI

Shelter Studios
244 West 54th Street (between Broadway & Eighth Avenue)
www.stuffedoliveinc.com
September 8th -23rd; Opening Night – 09/08/18

Dorothy Lyman’s IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER tackles the question that most of us will face at least once in our lifetime – what to do with the elderly. It may be ourselves, it may be our parents or relatives, but the reward for living to a ripe-old age comes along with the waning ability to be independent. Recently-widowed Elizabeth (Lyman) is attempting to maintain the farm where she has lived for over 50 years. Her daughter Betsy (Abigail Hawk) is concerned that her mother is facing an impossible task while her granddaughter Liz (Jeanne Lauren Smith) attempts to come up with a workable plan so that Elizabeth can keep her homestead. Tensions run high as each generation considers sacrifices and weighs the consequences.

The two words that come to mind about this powerful play are emotional and authentic. Beginning with the down-home country kitchen where the action takes place and a mouth-watering dinner that will get your stomach rumbling and ending with a bond between characters that will bring tears to your eyes, IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER invites you in as a part of the family. All performances are sublime and convincing; the storyline has been infused with politics and current events; and the characters will keep you company long after you have left the theater. You don’t want to miss this one!

- Laurie Lawson -