Drama Queen

'In the Next Room'....and other theater news

Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) got its professional South Florida debut in May at GableStage.  Now the play about Victorian women, their sexual repression and expression, gets a university production directed by the imaginative, daring Jesús Quintero.

In the Next Room, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, runs this weekend at Florida International University's Wertheim Performing Arts Center, 10910 SW 17th St., Miami, with performances at 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday.  The show resumes Feb. 8-12, with those performances at 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets are $15 ($12 for seniors and FIU faculty or staff, $10 for FIU students and alumni association members).  Because of the adult content and language, those involved with the production recommend it for audiences 16 and older.

Two free special events are connected with the play.  A 45-minute panel discussion about the ideas expressed in In the Next Room will follow this Sunday's matinee.  And at 7 p.m. Feb. 8, a half-hour look at how the production was put together, featuring input from cast members and the production team, will precede the performance.

For info, call 305-348-0496 or visit the FIU theater web site.

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In recognition of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies at the University of Miami, in association with the Holocaust Memorial of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, will present two concert performances of Ghetto Tango.  Performed by Yiddish artists Zalmen Mlotek, Daniella Rabbani and Avram Mlotek, the concert features edgy, sad and sardonic songs that were sung in underground cabarets in Europe's Jewish ghettos during World War II.

The performances are 8 p.m. Monday and Tuesday at GableStage in the Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables.  Tickets are $36 (students pay $10).  For info, call 305-284-6882 or email Maxine Schwartz at mschwartz@miami.edu.

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The Miami Lakes-based Alliance Theatre Lab is betting on young play-writing talent for its 2012 season. 

The lineup kicks off with the world premiere of David Sirois' Off Center of Nowhere March 16-April 8. New World School of the Arts grad Sirois, a best new work Carbonell Award nominee for last year's Brothers Beckett at Alliance, this time focuses on a high school student whose revelation of a secret leads to confessions that might destroy her family.

Sirois' friend and fellow New World grad, Mark Della Ventura, is up next with an expanded version of his solo show Small Membership.  Running June 1-24, the play focuses on an insecure young man as he grapples with issues of love, heartbreak and more.  Della Ventura also has another play, roomies, set to close out the Alliance season Nov. 9-Dec. 2.  That one is about five acting conservatory grads living together as one tries to write a play about them.

Alliance performs at the Main Street Playhouse, 6766 Main St., Miami Lakes, and its shows are presented at 8 p.m. Thursday-Friday, 5 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday.  Tickets are $25 ($15 seniors, $10 students).  For info, call 305-259-0418 or visit the company's web site.

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Times are tough, but the Maltz Jupiter Theatre has some happy news to share.  The company has received a three-to-one challenge grant that will likely result in the company having a $10 million endowment.  The Maltz Family Foundation will give the theater $7 million if the company, which already has $500,000 in its endowment, raises $2.5 million by June 30.  The theater has already raised more than $1.62 million of its share.  For info, visit the theater's web site or email managing director Tricia Trimble at ttrimble@jupitertheatre.org.

(Photo of Michelle Antelo in FIU's In the Next Room by Marilyn Skow)

Barry on Broadway, Lowery at Sundance

Pulitzer Prize-winning Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry, the prolific author and occasional Rock Bottom Remainders rocker, has more than promoting his new comic novel Lunatics (co-written with former Saturday Night Live writer Alan Zweibel) on the horizon.  The news from New York today is that Peter and the Starcatcher, a play-with-music based on Peter and the Starcatchers by Barry and Ridley Pearson, will begin previews at Broadway's Brooks Atkinson Theatre March 28.  Tickets for the show, which has its official opening April 15, go on sale Feb. 13 via Ticketmaster.

Adapted for the stage by Jersey Boys co-author Rick Elice, the play features a dozen actors playing 50 characters in the "prequel" to Peter Pan.  Twice extended during its spring 2011 run at Off-Broadway's New York Theatre Workshop, the show won the 2011 Obie Award for its two directors, Alex Timbers (Tony Award nominated for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) and Roger Rees (Tony winner for his leading performance in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby).  The two will team again to stage the show on Broadway, but the cast hasn't been announced yet.

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Barbara Lowery, a much-admired actress, director and long-time drama teacher, got a wonderful surprise last week when she learned just how much she still means to actor Rob Morrow, who was her student at Miami Sunset High School from 1978 to 1980.

Morrow, the film and television actor who was a regular on Northern Exposure and Numb3rs, nominated Lowery for the non-profit Creative Coalition's 2012 Teachers Making a Difference award.  She'll receive it on Monday at a program and luncheon in Park City, Utah, during the Sundance Film Festival.

This is a big deal for the woman who followed her five years at Sunset with 19 at Miami Dade College's North Campus.  She's one of only two teachers being honored.  The other is Sister Marionette Gibson, who taught actress Alfre Woodard.  Actor Wilmer Valderrama is serving as moderator, conducting a conversation with each teacher-actor pair, and Morrow will present Lowery with her award.

Lowery, who earned her master's degree from the University of Miami, studied at both Stella Adler and the H.B. Studio in New York. She is a Carbonell Award-winning director who has staged professional productions for the now-defunct Acme Acting Company, City Theatre's Summer Shorts, New Theatre and the Coconut Grove Playhouse.

She says of the honor, "Excited, shocked and touched are the words that come to mind.  Rob was not only obviously talented as a teenager, he was extraordinarily focused...in pursuing his dream."

How great that a now-famous student's long memory has led to celebrating the work of a superb teacher who really did make a difference in his life.

 

Stage Door sets a season

In November, Broward Stage Door Theatre founders David Torres and Derelle Bunn revealed that they were in negotiations with Costume World founder and CEO Marilynn Wick to sell the two-theater Coral Springs company they founded 18 years ago in a former movie theater.  The duo had taken on a new venture in the Miami Beach Stage Door Theatre at the Byron Carlisle last summer and felt they were ready to focus on their new venture.

Apparently, that deal for the Coral Springs theater isn't panning out. Torres sent a message Tuesday with titles for a planned 2012-2013 season at the original Stage Door location, explaining, "Due to the fact that ongoing negotiations seem to be stalling and are likely to not come to fruition, the Stage Door is moving ahead with plans to announe the '12-13 season as if there will be no deal."

So here's the lineup, a mixture of comedies, musicals and a thriller:

The new season will kick off with Neil Simon's Rumors Oct. 19-Nov. 11, followed by Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks Nov. 9-Dec. 2.  Fiddler on the Roofis the December highlight, running Dec. 7-31.  The World Goes 'Round, a revue celebrating the music of John Kander and Fred Ebb, runs Dec. 28-Jan. 20, 2013. The Golden Age Broadway classic Damn Yankees runs Jan. 18-Feb. 10, 2013.  Then come Deathtrap Feb. 8-March 3, the Jerry Herman revue Jerry's Girls March 1-2 and Beau Jest April 5-28, all in 2013.

Torres and Bunn have tinkered with their current-season Miami Beach lineup as well. Jon Peterson returns in Song Man, Dance Man Jan. 20-29, with shows at 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.  From Feb. 17-March 11, Miami Beach Stage Door will present Ira Levin's comic thriller Deathtrap.

 Need more info? Call 954-344-7765 or visit the Coral Springs theater's web site; for Miami Beach info, call 305-397-8977 or visit the new web site.

Costume World's Wick offered her own perspective on Wednesday, issuing a statement that said Stage Door management rejected her second offer to buy the theater.

"I am extremely disappointed that I could not put this financial package together," she wrote.  "I had many high hopes for the space, including a renovation, working with the vast array of talented artists and technicians in professional theater in South Florida, and showcasing our incredible costume inventory.  But I guess it wasn't meant to be."

Wick leaves open the possibility that a deal may still be worked out and says, "In the meantime, I will continue to support and encourage the Broward Stage Door and their faithful audience, and I wish them all success with their exciting new season."

New World showcases its stars of the future

The college theater program at Miami's New World School of the Arts expects plenty of its students as they prepare to jump into their careers.  The rigorous training culminates in an event that is both a challenge and a gift for graduating seniors:  Under the guidance of theater division professor David Kwiat, the students write, produce and act in one-person shows.  The pieces not only showcase their talents in a tailor-made way, but they also give the young professionals a play they can do again and again as they're building a body of work.

Fourteen seniors will present their solo pieces in this year's collection of One-Person Shows, running Thursday to Dec. 17 in the Louise O. Gerrits Theater on the eighth floor of the New World building at 25 NE Second St., Miami.  Best of all, you can catch all these new shows and fresh talent for free.

The shows are grouped into three programs.  Bill A features Elaine Flores in Pandamonium, O'Neil Delapenha in The Adventures of Kidney Man, Devon Dassaw in Oo, Mr. Corey, You Bad, Lyndsay McLaren in The King's Daughter and Alma Rose Hoyos in Home Is Where the Corazon Is.

On Bill B are Ashley Chang's Mary Sunshine, Christian Vandepas' Until Then, Heslens Estevez's Do I?, Ryan Jacobs' Boy of Wonder and Luis Restrepo's The Magical Journey of Abraham and the Moon.  Bill C features Gerardo Pelati's Hey Shorty, Armando Diaz's Cockroach Confessions, Lauren Tepper's Love Spell and Jose Elosequi's Who Are YOU?.

Catch Program A at 5 p.m. Thursday and 8 p.m. Friday, Program B at 8 p.m. Thursday and 2 p.m. Saturday, Program C at 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Need more info?  Call 305-237-3541 or visit the New World web site.

 

(Photos of Ashley Chang, top, and Lauren Tepper by Juan E. Cabrera)

 

'Mother,' 'Normal' casts chosen

The directors of wo scorching-hot shows opening next month -- Stephen Adley Guirgis The Motherf**ker with the Hat and the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Next to Normal -- have chosen their casts.  Now comes the hard work of rehearsals that will hopefully lead to opening-night magic in January.

First up, running at GableStage Jan. 7-Feb. 5, is The Motherf**ker with the Hat (aka the play that got Chris Rock to make his Broadway debut last season).  Though the play isn't running on Broadway now, it has been in the news lately because Guirgis openly criticized the current production at TheaterWorks in Hartford, Conn., for using white actors in the key roles of a recovering addict and his girlfriend -- both Puerto Rican.  GableStage's Joseph Adler is certainly not going to come in for that kind of criticism.

Arturo Fernandez (pictured) will play Jackie, a newly sober guy who's on parole, with Gladys Ramirez as his decidedly unsober girlfriend Veronica.  Alex Alvarez plays Jackie's cousin Julio.  Ethan Henry plays Ralph D (the Rock role), Jackie's AA sponsor, and Betsy Graver is Ralph's unhappy wife, who finds Jackie way hot.

The show has performances at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday (no late show Jan. 9).  Tickets are $50 on Saturday, $47.50 for the Sunday matinee, $42.50 Thursday-Friday and $37.50 Sunday evening.  GableStage is in the Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables. For info, call 305-445-1119 or visit the theater's web site.

Actors' Playhouse is following up its triumphant production of Tracy Letts' August: Osage County from last season with another Pulitzer winner:  the searing, rock-driven musical Next to Normal.  The 2009 Broadway hit, which won three Tony Awards, centers on a wife and mother who is battling bipolar disorder, and it delves into grief, suicide, drug abuse and medical ethics.

For a cast with plenty of Broadway and touring experience, David Arisco has chosen Jodie Langel (currently starring as the Narrator in the Maltz Jupiter Theatre's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) to play the troubled mother Diana.  Eddy Rioseco, a New World high school grad, plays her son Gabe, with Mark Sanders as Diana's husband Dan. University of Miami grad Sarah Amengual (pictured) is Diana's daughter Natalie, and New World grad Nick Duckart is Diana's shrink.  Still to be cast is the role of Henry, a boy interested in Natalie.

Next to Normal will preview Jan. 18-19 and open Jan. 20, running through Feb. 12 at the Miracle Theatre, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables.  Performances are 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday.  Tickets are $40-$48.  For info, call 305-444-9293 or visit the Actors' Playhouse web site.

 

Manzelli, Tyrrell get new gigs

Actor-director John Manzelli, a Barry University theater faculty member, has been with City Theatre and its popular Summer Shorts program for four years, last season serving as the festival's artistic director.  As the company prepares for its 17th season of presenting a collection of short plays, Manzelli has a new title and greater responsibilities.  Stephanie Norman, one of City Theatre's founders, has left her active leadership role for a new job and is joining the company's board of directors.  So Manzelli, who will continue as an assistant professor of theater at Barry, is becoming City's newest producing artistic director.

"In this economy, we're trying to look at programming that makes sense," Manzelli said Tuesday.  "We're talking to the Arsht Center and the Broward Center about collaborative partnerships and co-presenting."

Playwright Susan Westfall, another City Theatre founder, returned as the troupe's literary director last year, and will continue leading the annual CityWrights playwrights' weekend, which just received a $75,000 grant from the Knight Arts Challenge.  Attorney Steve Eisenberg is joining the company as its general manager.  For info on City Theatre, call 305-755-9401 or visit its web site.

Also on the theater jobs front, Florida Stage founder and artistic director Louis Tyrrell has found a new home at Delray Beach's Arts Garage.  Tyrrell, who led the critically acclaimed theater for 24 years along with managing director Nancy Barnett, has been out of work since Florida Stage's board abruptly shut it down and filed for bankruptcy in June.  The company's debt had risen to $2.7 million in debt (some of that money paid by subscribers for a 2011-2012 season that didn't happen), and bankruptcy proceedings continue.

While Barnett has returned to acting (she recently appeared in After the Revolutionat the Caldwell Theatre Company), Tyrrell is again focusing on the new play work that helped make Florida Stage a nationally respected theater.  He is becoming artistic director of a new company dubbed The Theatre at Arts Garage.  The facility at 180 NE First St. in Delray's Pineapple Grove area presents multidisciplinary work, including dance, music visual arts and movies.

On a modest $150,000 budget for his first  season (Florida Stage's at one point hit $4.1 million), he will present a series of Tuesday evening play readings in February, with Israel Horovitz, John Guare and William Mastrosimone in attendance to hear the works and participate in post-play discussions. Tyrell says he's hoping that the fourth playwright will be Eve Ensler, but that isn't set yet.  From March 1 to March 4, the Theatre at Arts Garage will present The New Play Festival, an event inspired by Florida Stage's 1st Stage New Works Festival, with readings of six new works and Mastrosimone leading play-writing workshops.  Pulitzer Prize winner Marsha Norman will be the keynote speaker. The company's first full production, a play-with-music titled Woody Sez (about folk legend Woody Guthrie), will run March 16-April 8.

"I had a reflective summer, and when this opportunity came up, it felt right on so many levels," Tyrrell said.  "You have to ask, 'What is the new model? What do people want in an evening of going out to theater?'  The Arts Garage space is a raw, storefront space.  It's great fun...There are relationships that don't go away, that exist because of a shared love of new work.  But there will be new writers, new titles, new stories to tell."

For info on Arts Garage, call 561-450-6357 or visit its web site.

Castellanos shares his creative style

Teo Castellanos is a creative chameleon.  Playwright, director, actor, dancer and artistic director of D-Projects, the multifaceted artist is also a compelling teacher, one who mentored and helped launch Miami playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney on his path to international acclaim.

Castellanos, who appeared at GableStage this fall in McCraney's searing drama The Brothers Size, will perform again in Miami Jan. 19-21 when he brings the 10th anniversary edition of his award-winning solo show NE 2nd Avenue to the Carnival Studio Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.  But first, from Sunday through Tuesday, Castellanos will share his wealth of experience in a workshop titled Crossing Thresholds: Creating Original Work.

The sessions take place at the PlayGround Theatre, 9806 NE Second Ave., Miami Shores.  For a $65 fee, participants ages 16 and older can spend three hours each evening with Castellanos, developing original work or refining a work in progress.  Students should wear movement clothes and dance shoes, or go barefoot.  The sessions are from 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday, 7 to 10 p.m. Monday and Tuesday.  For information, call Suzana Berger at 305-751-9550, ext. 260, or email her at suzana@theplaygroundtheatre.com. 

(Photo by Randy Valdes)

Kids do 'Avenue Q'

Area Stage's conservatory students regularly wow audiences of all ages with their ability to tackle -- and handle -- challenging musical theater.  They'll try it again, with puppets no less, when Area's production of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Avenue Q opens Friday for a run through Dec. 18.

David Harrison, Evelyn Cardenas, Lourdes Maria Artiz, Kristina Cibran, Tito Sanchez, Frankie Gonzalez, Ale Mesa, Giancarlo Rodaz and Anamari Mesa comprise the human part of the cast, operating the puppets and singing the score by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx.  Area's artistic director, John Rodaz, is staging the show about twentysomethings trying to make it in New York as they figure out their identities and purpose in life.  Though Avenue Q is something of a homage to Sesame Street, its decidedly grown-up content makes it inappropriate for younger kids (Area suggests that, if Avenue Q were a movie, it would be rated PG-13).

You can see Avenue Q in Area's theater at 1560 S. Dixie Hwy., Coral Gables. Performances are 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday, with tickets priced from $10 to $25. For info, call 305-666-2078 or visit the theater's web site.

 

'Red,' 'Prisoner' extended

In the middle of Black Friday madness, two theaters are feeling confident enough in their current productions (and their patrons' devotion to culture) to extend the shows' runs.

At GableStage in Coral Gables' Biltmore Hotel, John Logan's Red has proven a hit with both regular audiences and weekday morning high school crowds.  So Gregg Weiner will get an extra week of playing painter Mark Rothko, with Ryan Didato as the intense artist's assistant Ken.  The play now runs through Dec. 11, with performances at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday.  Tickets are $37.50-$50, and the theater is located in the hotel at 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables.  Call 305-445-1119 or visit the theater's web site for info.

Also extended through Dec. 11 is the Miami Beach Stage Door Theatre production of Neil Simon's 1971 comedyThe Prisoner of Second Avenue.  The show, featuring Derelle Bunn and Dan Kelley, goes on at the Byron Carlyle Theater, 500 71st Ave., Miami Beach, at 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday.  Tickets are $42 ($38 on Friday).  You have to call 305-397-8977 to order.

 

New Theatre has its new home

When the building that housed New Theatre on Laguna Street in Coral Gables was sold, the troupe was left scrambling. Having to vacate its home for the past 10 years by Dec. 15, the company couldn't open its world premiere production of Chambers Stevens' Twain and Shaw Do Lunch (set for Dec. 2-18) in the space where Nilo Cruz's Pulitzer Prize-winning Anna in the Tropics premiered in 2002.  So New Theatre has been on the hunt for a place where the rest of its season can play out.

Monday, the company announced an agreement with the Roxy Performing Arts Center, which is located across from Florida International University's main campus in Miami.

"The theater community has been incredibly generous in offering us different kinds of support," says Ricky J. Martinez, New Theatre's artistic director.  "But the day we went to Roxy, they said, 'We want you here, now.'  We felt the choice to go to Roxy was synchronized with our vision, and our shows fit into their schedule."

The Roxy Performing Arts Center, entering its 10th season in 2012, offers arts classes for children ages 3 to 17, and it stages large-scale, large-cast musicals featuring performers from 10 to 22.  Spokesperson Susanne Pinedo says, "I'm just beyond excited.  Both organizations highly value education, and we feel it will be an extraordinary partnership."

Martinez says the rest of New Theatre's 2011-2012 season will be presented at Roxy, with all subscriptions honored.  After Twain and Shaw Do Lunch, the company will present the world premieres of Robert Caisley's Winter and Juan C. Sanchez's Property Line, plus one more show to be announced. Though some dates may shift slightly due to the relocation, all shows announced for the season will be presented.

Roxy has two theater spaces, one with 125 seats, the other with nearly 200; both are larger than New Theatre's 100-seat Coral Gables theater.  Martinez says that at the end of the season, both organizations will assess how well the temporary partnership has worked, and he is excited about the possibilities.  More affordable rent will allow New Theatre enhanced production values, including the creation of two-story sets.

"We both have mutual long-term goals," he says.  "This is New Theatre's fourth move, and we're excited to look ahead to this new phase of its life.  We're hoping to host the National New Play Network's conference next year -- hopefully in our new space."

The Roxy Peforming Arts Center is located at 1645 SW 107th Ave., Miami.  For information on New Theatre and its move, call the box office at 305-443-5909 or visit the theater's web site.

 (Nora Oñate photo shows, left to right, New Theatre artistic director Ricky J. Martinez and managing director Eileen Suarez; Roxy theater arts director Charles A. Sothers and artistic director Jorgina Fernandez.)