Drama Queen

(Mostly) new theater at New Theatre

As South Florida companies are assembling and announcing their 2008-2009 theater seasons, it is becoming clear that the bad economy and cuts in arts funding are affecting programming decisions.  Certainly, that's the case at Coral Gables' New Theatre, which is coming at the problem in several ways.

Though the company had planned to present a three-show "Shakespeare and Friends" summer season -- George Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House, Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie and the bard's As You Like It -- artistic director Ricky J. Martinez (right) has scrapped the Shaw and folded the other two productions into an elongated regular season.

New Theatre's 2008-2009 lineup begins with As You Like It Aug. 14-Sept. 7.  Then come three world premieres: Andrew Case's The Rant, a play about an investigator looking into the fatal shooting of a black teen by a New York police officer, Sept. 25-Oct. 26; Michelle Rosenfarb's The Gates of Choice, about a young Hasidic woman in a forbidden relationship with a soldier, Nov. 13-Dec. 14; and Robert Caisley's Kissing, about the aftermath of an illicit office kiss, Jan. 8-Feb. 8.  Williams' The Glass Menagerie will run Feb. 26-March 29, followed by the regional premiere of Theresa Rebeck's Broadway play Mauritius, about the battle over a rare stamp collection.

What this means is that instead of presenting eight plays, New Theatre is mixing its summertime classics and regular-season new works into a six-show lineup -- something managing director Eileen Suarez calls a "nouveau classic season."

The company is also trying to tackle funding issues with a campaign it calls "Act 10," seeking 1,000 people to donate $10 each.  Need info? Call 305-443-5909 or visit the website.

Funny Jewish girls and a moving Jewish woman

A frenetic summer theater season begins this weekend with a pair of festivals: City Theatre's popular Summer Shorts Festival at the Carnival Studio Theater in Miami's Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, and the Lavender Footlights Festival (honoring Tony Award-nominated playwright Douglas Carter Beane) at the Miami Museum of Science.

But if festival-going doesn't float your particular boat, consider checking out two one-time-only performances also happening this weekend.

Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad (those are the girls, in a sea of bagels, at left) is an out-there, stereotype-bashing comedy cabaret piece happening Saturday at the Alfred I. DuPont Building, 169 E. Flagler St., Miami.  The women, including creator Susannah Perlman (who serves as ringmaster/emcee), start their 21st century vaudeville at 9 p.m.  Tickets are $18, available through www.brownpapertickets.com or by calling 1-800-838-3006. Email The Open Tent for more info.

In a far more serious vein, Rafael de Acha's Theater by the Book company presents its second free staged reading at 11:30 a.m. Sunday.   The piece is The Book of Ruth by Argentine playwright (and longtime Miami resident) Mario Diament (that's Mario at right).  Commissioned by New Theatre and premiered there in 2000, Diament's theatrical version of his Polish mother's flight to Argentina at the start of World War II is "...the finest contemporary play I have ever been privileged to stage," de Acha writes.

The reading has a stellar cast:  Sally Levin, Barbara Sloan, Ramon Gonzalez-Cuevas and Larry Jurrist (all of whom appeared in the world premiere), plus Marta Velasco, Margerie Lowe, Jonathan Angress and Jessica Peterson.  It takes place at the Futternick Family Art Gallery at the Dave and Mary Alper Jewish Community Center, 11155 SW 112th Ave., Miami. Those attending can share a light brunch with the cast at 11 a.m., and also take in the art exhibition Waldsee 1944, the work of more than 80 artists who created postcards symbolic of the ones prisoners at Auschwitz were forced to send to their families.   For information, call 305-271-9000, ext. 268, or visit the Alper JCC web site.

Winning new plays

Actors' Playhouse, partnering with the Funding Arts Network, has found two winners in its "From Page to Stage" play-writing competition.

Michael McKeever (that's Michael at the piano in the world premiere of his play Suite Surrender at Boca Raton's Caldwell Theatre Company earlier this season) has written a hard-hitting piece called Unreasonable Doubt.  The play explores a man's vengeance after his daughter's murder -- revenge visited upon the killer's attorney.

Also selected for a staged reading is When the Sun Shone Brighter by Christopher Demos-Brown.  That play centers on a political candidate and the Cuban exile bombing campaign of the 1970s and '80s.

Both plays will get staged readings, directed by Actors' Playhouse artistic director David Arisco, on June 7 -- McKeever's at 3 p.m., Demos-Brown's at 7 p.m.  A panel discussion and audience talkback will follow each reading.

The hope, according to the theater, is that the plays will launch a second stage season of new works.  For information, call 305-444-9293 or visit the theater's website.

A classic season

Palm Beach Dramaworks has just spilled the details of its 2008-2009 season, and three of the four plays are by theatrical giants.

The company's ninth season begins Oct. 17-Nov. 30 with a production of Nobel Prize winner Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten, the 1947 play that pairs two lonely souls, the alcoholic James Tyrone and farmer's daughter Josie Hogan.  Next (Dec. 19-Feb. 1) is Eugene Ionesco's absurdist classic The Chairs, a tragic farce about an old man and woman trying to inject meaning into their empty lives.

Connor McPherson's Olivier Award-winning The Weir, a collection of ghost stories told in an Irish tavern, runs Feb. 20-April 5.  Winding up the season is the regional premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Albee's Peter and Jerry (April 24-June 14, 2009; that's Albee at right).  Staged Off-Broadway in December, the double bill pairs the 80-year-old Albee's first play -- 1958's Zoo Story -- with his 2001 "prequel," Homelife.

Tickets to individual shows at Palm Beach Dramaworks are $38 and $40.  The theater is located at 322 Banyan Blvd. in West Palm Beach. For information, call 561-514-4042 or visit the theater's web site.

Daytime drama -- well, dark comedy

Looking for something different to do on this long holiday weekend? The Pinecrest Repertory Theatre Company is unveiling its second double bill of short plays:  Tennessee Williams' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and A.R. Gurney's The Golden Fleece.

The 1946 Williams play is about a cotton gin owner who torches his rival's business, only to have the other man seduce his wife (Ambar Aranaga and Paul Homza, in photo at right, are in that cast).  In Gurney's dark 1966 comedy about hero worship, a couple claims to be in contact with Jason and Medea. Featured in the two plays are actors Laura Alvarado, Daniel Lugo, Chris Perez, Aranaga and Homza.

Pinecrest Rep performs outside in the Banyan Bowl at Pinecrest Gardens, 11000 Red Rd., Pinecrest -- so wear cool clothing!  Performances are at 4:30 every Saturday and Sunday through June 15.  Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for students, seniors and military personnel.  For information, phone 305-720-0811 or visit the theater web site.

Celebrating Hispanic theater

The lineup for the 23rd annual International Hispanic Theatre Festival, which runs July 9-27, has just been announced.  The enduring passion of Teatro Avante founder Mario Ernesto Sanchez (right) will feature a dozen productions this year: four from Spain; one each from Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Slovenia; and four from the United States. 

Most performances will be in either the Carnival Studio Theater at Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts or the Prometeo Theatre at Miami Dade College's Wolfson Campus. There will be performances in Spanish, English, and in Slovene and Spanish with English supertitles.

Spanish playwright Jose Sanchis Sinisterra will get the festival's lifetime achievement award on July 19 following the performance of his play Naque o de piojos y actores at the Carnival Studio Theater.  The Slovenian company, Ljubljana City Theatre, is also doing a Sinisterra play, Ay, Carmela.

For information on the festival or its educational component, phone Teatro Avante at 305-445-8877.

Help shape a play

One of the stepping stones in the journey from page to stage is the play reading.  Plantation resident Michelle Rosenfarb gets the thrill of hearing her debut work, The Gates of Choice, read at 2 p.m. Sunday (May 25) at the David Posnack Jewish Community Center in Davie.

The event is the first in an intended series called the "Emerging Playwrights' Forum'' at the Posnack JCC.  Ricky J. Martinez, artistic director of the Coral Gables-based New Theatre, will direct the reading, and intends to stage the world premiere of Rosenfarb's play as part of New Theatre' 2008-2009 season.

The piece by the 29-year-old writer details the forbidden relationship of a young Hasidic girl living in an Ultra Orthodox community in Israel and the man she loves, a former soldier.

A talk-back following the reading will let audience members offer feedback and ask questions.  Tickets are $7 for Posnack members, $10 for non-members.  Call 954-434-0499 or visit the community center's web site.

New World tackles a Pulitzer winner's early play

Lanford Wilson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Talley's Folly, wrote The Rimers of Eldritch in 1967. Forty-one years later, the high school theater division at Miami's New World School of the Arts is winding up its mainstage season with a production of this mysterious work.

Directed by James Randolph and featuring senior Jesse Bookman (right) as small-town resident Skelly Manor, the play is set in a community so small that it's almost a ghost town -- one full of scapegoats, victims and outcasts.

The Rimers of Eldritch will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. on Sunday.  A reception at the New World Gallery after Friday's performance honors Congreswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Tickets are $12 (students and seniors pay $5).  Performances are in the Louise O. Gerritts Theatre at New World, 25 NE Second St., Miami.  Call 305-237-3541 or visit New World's web site for more information.

A reading here, awards there

If you're not busy tonight, head on over to GableStage for the staged reading of Donald T. Beldock's play Marlowe.  Directed by John Soliday, the reading features several performers from GableStage's current production of The Accomplices -- Jessica K. Peterson, Kevin Reilley and Wayne LeGette (in photo at right), plus Howard Elfman and Gregg Weiner -- as well as Stephen Neal and Ricky Waugh.  Beldock's script stems from the theory that tragedian Christopher Marlowe faked his own death and then resumed writing under another well-known name: William Shakespeare.

The free reading is at 7:30 p.m., and Beldock will be on hand to participate in a discussion afterwards.  GableStage is in the Biltmore Hotel at 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables.  For more info, call the box office at 305-445-1119 or visit the GableStage web site.

***

The 53rd annual Drama Desk Awards were handed out in New York on Sunday, and to no one's surprise, Tracy Letts' tumultuous (and darkly funny) Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County was named outstanding play.  Deanna Dunagan, who plays the clan's viper of a matriarch, was chosen best actress, and Anna D. Shapiro got the best director honor for staging Letts' play.  Chances are all three will take home the Tony Award as well.

Other Drama Desk winners likely to repeat at the Tonys are South Pacific as outstanding musical revival and director Bartlett Sher for his staging of it, Paulo Szot (the show's Emile) as outstanding actor in a musical, Patti LuPone as outstanding actress in a musical for Gypsy, and her costars Boyd Gaines and Laura Benanti as outstanding featured actor and actress in a musical.

Passing Strange, an experimental rock-driven musical by writer-performer-composer Stew (just the one name, Stew) and fellow composer Heidi Rodewald, won the Drama Desk honors for outstanding musical, oustanding lyrics and outstanding music.  And while it is very much an award-worthy show, don't expect it to take home the Tonys.  Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights, which was eligible for the Drama Desk Awards last season during its Off-Broadway run, is the new musical to beat at this year's Tonys.

Broadway, past and present

You doubtless have heard of Encores!, the musicals-in-concert series at New York City Center that has led to the Broadway revivals of Chicago and the current Tony Award-nominated Gypsy. (Next up, July 5-27, a summer presentation of Damn Yankees starring Will & Grace alum Sean Hayes and Jane Krakowski of 30 Rock.)

Earlier this week, I was in New York, where I sampled another series highlighting vintage Broadway. Broadway by the Year is the brainchild of critic-writer-host Scott Siegel, who puts together Town Hall programs of numbers culled from the musicals of a certain year.  On Monday, 1965 got the Broadway by the Year treatment, and a packed Town Hall thrilled to the results.

The talent lineup featured a number of Tony nominees and award winners: Brian D'Arcy James, who will play the title role in the musical version of Shrek next season; the wry and charming Gregg Edelman, a four-time Tony nominee; actresses Julia Murney and Shannon Lewis; cabaret performers Julie Reyburn and Branton Cutrell; sizzling young dancers Kendrick Jones and Melinda Sullivan; and Plantation's gift to Broadway, booming baritone Marc Kudisch.

Kudisch, who is capable of both leading man bombast and sly comedy, showed the range of his talents throughout the evening, singing a booming Man of La Mancha, Take the Moment from Do I Hear a Waltz? and a comedically self-adoring Look at that Face (with James and Edelman) from The Roar of the Greasepaint. Kudisch is, in many ways, the series star -- and he earns it.

The Broadway by the Year experience is illuminating, entertaining and fun, so if you happen to be in New York when it happens again, go for it.

***

For a bit of Broadway closer to home, check out the revamped version of Stephen Schwartz's Working, opening tonight (May 16) and running through June 8 at Sarasota's Asolo Repertory Theatre.  Adapted by Schwartz from the best seller by Studs Terkel, the musical bowed on Broadway in 1978 with a 17-actor cast that included Patti LuPone (nominated this week for a Tony as best actress in a musical for her star turn in the revival of Gypsy).

The piece about how folks feel about working has always had numbers by different composers: Schwartz, James Taylor, Micki Grant, Craig Carnelia, Susan Birkenhead.  But the Asolo's production, featuring six actors playing numerous roles in 90 minutes, features the work of an exciting addition to the composer roster.  Lin-Manuel Miranda, the 28-year-old whose current Broadway hit In the Heights was just nominated for 13 Tony Awards, has written two new songs for the production, which is being directed by Gordon Greenberg.  Miranda (that's him in the red shirt and black cap) has created a song about a guy who works at McDonald's and one about immigrants who care for senior citizens.

Tickets to Working at the Asolo are $10-$56.  For information, call 1-800-361-8388 or visit the theater's web site.

Kids expressing themselves

School is starting to wind down, but kids who love acting are busy performing or looking towards summer.

This weekend and next, Miami Children's Theater presents Mulan, the stage musical version of the popular animated Disney movie.  Mackenzie Dorr, Katie Susik, Crystal Ortiz and Katarina Martinez (at left in Lenny Rohrbacher's photo) are among the young actors who tell the story of a brave girl who fights to save China's emperor. 

Performances are Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m. through May 24 at the Coral Gables Youth Center, 405 University Dr., Coral Gables.  Tickets are $10-$12 in advance, $18-$20 at the door. For more information, call 305-274-3595 or visit the Miami Children's Theater web site.

For parents looking for a summer camp experience that is arts-filled and educational might want to check out Los Prometeitos Summer Camp at Miami Dade College's Wolfson Campus, 300 NE Second Ave., Miami.  Run by Teatro Prometeo Theatre at the Florida Center for the Literary Arts, the camp offers three week-long sessions in June in which kids will dance, sing and act -- in Spanish.  The fee for each session is $150.  For information, call 305-237-3262 or visit Prometeo's web site.

Prometeo is also offering vocational theater classes in Spanish for adults and, from May 19-31, a bilingual master class with Neil David Seibel.  Check the web site for details.

Tony time for a South Florida trio?

Nominations for the 62nd annual Tony Awards were announced in New York this morning, with a svelte Sara Ramirez (wearing a neon chartreuse number) and a serious David Hyde Pierce (he wore a suit) doing the honors.

Among the names called were those of three guys who grew up in South Florida.

Alex Lacamoire, whose parents (Maria and Alfredo) and sister (Michelle) all live in Miami, is up for the Tony for best orchestrations (along with Bill Sherman) for In the Heights, a joyous musical set in Manhattan's Washington Heights neighborhood.  Lacamoire, who graduated from the New World School of the Arts high school program, is a hot Broadway orchestrator/musical director these days.  And he gets to share in all the pre-Tony excitement surrounding this Lin-Manuel Miranda musical, which earned 13 Tony nominations -- more than any other musical or play of the 2007-2008 Broadway season.

Also up for a Tony is producer Adam Epstein, who grew up on Miami Beach.  Epstein has been the producing force behind the development of Cry-Baby, a musical based on the 1990 John Waters movie that starred Johnny Depp.  The show got mixed reviews (some good, some negative, some truly mixed), but its Tony nomination as best musical should be a help at the box office.

And for the second year in a row, former Miamian Raul Esparza is up for a Tony (his third nomination).  Last year, he was a strong contender for leading actor in a musical for his portrayal of bachelor Bobby in Company, though he lost to Hyde Pierce.  This year's nomination is his first for work in a play, for his performance as the brutal Lenny in the revival of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming.  Though that production is now closed, so are all the other plays with nominees in the featured actor category. 

The Tony Awards will be presented from 8 to 11 p.m. June 15 in a ceremony at Manhattan's Radio City Music Hall.  For more info, visit the Tonys web site.  And to Alex, Adam and Raul: way to go!

It's Tony time

Nominations for the 62nd annual Tony Awards will be announced bright and early Tuesday morning in Manhattan.  David Hyde Pierce, the Tony-winning star of Curtains and TV's long-running Frasier, and Sara  Ramirez, who won a Tony for Spamalot and is now a Grey's Anatomy star, will do the honors. And I'll be among the gaggle of media types watching it all unfold live.

I've been seeing this spring's crop of Broadway shows since last Wednesday, so I know that certain nominations are sure things.  Lincoln Center Theater's glorious revival of South Pacific will be the front-runner for best revival of a musical.  Opera star Paulo Szot will be nominated as best actor in a musical -- and should win.  He's from the Errol Flynn-Kevin Kline school of handsome leading men, his acting is of a piece with the other performances in the show (terrific), and when he sings This Nearly Was Mine, he earns a mad chorus of "bravos" for his thrilling show-stopper (if Szot doesn't give you chills, check to see if you have a pulse).  His slender blonde costar, Kelli O'Hara, will get a best actress in a musical nod (deservedly so -- she's wonderful).  But Patti LuPone is as close to a sure thing as you can get in that category.  Her Mama Rose in the revival of Gypsy is a magnificent, force-of-nature star performance.  She gets "bravos" and a standing "o" after Rose's Turn.

As for plays, Tracy Letts' Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County has little competition for the best play Tony.  If you know Letts' work (Bug, Killer Joe), imagine that crossbred with Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, and you get a hint of what Letts' darkly funny, disturbing, long family drama is about.  Deanna Dunagan, who plays the clan's dying, pill-popping, tart-tongued matriarch Violet, is a shoo-in for a best actress nomination (and will probably win).  But Amy Morton, a fellow Steppenwolf company member who plays Violet's eldest daughter, is mesmerizingly good too.

The season's new musicals are all over the place, from the colorful spoofiness of Cry-Baby to the campy Xanadu to the old-fashioned A Catered Affair to the intriguing, rock-driven Passing Strange.  A disappointing Young Frankenstein proves that, despite all the roiling storms onstage, lightning (ala The Producers) didn't strike twice for Mel Brooks.  I'm betting that Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights, a joyous musical about people from different Latino cultures living and loving in New York's Washington Heights neighborhood, is going to get multiple nominations -- and quite probably, the win.

Feeling lucky? Take a chance on "Q"

Sure, it's a promotional gimmick.  But there's never anything wrong with saving some green.

Taking a page from the Rent playbook, the folks behind Avenue Q are selling 20 front orchestra seats for $25 each at every performance of the Tony Award-winning people-and-puppet musical at Miami's Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.

Regular tickets are $20 (but those are in nosebleed territory, mostly) to $68, so $25 for one of the best seats in the house is a good deal.  As the show's porn-obsessed Trekkie Monster details at left, all you have to do is show up 2 1/2 hours before showtime, put your name in a lottery bin and wait to see if you're one of the lucky ones; if so, you can buy one or two tickets, cash only.

Need Q info? Call the box office at 786-949-6722 or visit the Arsht Center web site.

And just in case you didn't catch the part about Trekkie being an Internet porn junkie, Avenue Q (despite the puppets) is no kiddie show. Mature teens and older only.

Bravos for South Florida theater

The third Theatre League of South Florida festival is almost history, and at the closing night party on Monday, individuals, organizations and productions will be honored with an array of awards.

League president Meredith Lasher has announced winners of a dozen Silver Palm awards, a new honor created for this year’s festival.  Also slated for recognition at the closing event are Jack Zink, Sun-Sentinel theater critic and Carbonell Awards co-founder, who will get the Lifetime Achievement Award; producer Jay Harris, who will get the Remy Pioneer Award; and League vice-president Ron Levitt, who will get the Remy Service Award.

Winners of the inaugural Silver Palms, recognizing work done during the festival, are Jim Stork of Stork’s Las Olas, WLRN, the Miami-Dade Department of Cultural Affairs and Doug Jones of Sixth Star Entertainment and Marketing, all for outstanding contributions to the festival; The Naked Stage, outstanding emerging theater company; and Jules Tasca, whose play The Mission at New Theatre was chosen outstanding new work.

Performance winners are the ensemble casts of Neil LaBute’s Some Girl(s) at Mad Cat Theatre Company (that's the photo at left, above) and Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland’s From the Mississippi Delta at M Ensemble(pictured at right); and Ricky Waugh in New Theatre’s The Mission and Promethean Theatre’s Two Sisters and a Piano, Erik Fabregat in Mosaic Theatre’s Dirty Story, Bruce Adler in New Vista Theatre’s I’m Not Rappaport and Nanique Gheridian in Palm Beach Dramaworks’ Benefactors, all for their outstanding performances.

Theatre League members get into the party, which is at 7:30 p.m. at Stork’s Las Olas, 1109 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, for free.  But anyone else can come too, for a $20 donation to the Theatre League.  For info or a reservation, email the organization’s executive director, Andie Arthur.

Congrats to all the winners!

A designing gentleman departs

I spoke to Alvin Colt, aTony Award-winning costume designer, before Forbidden Broadway began its "vacation" run in the Carnival Studio Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in March.

Colt (at left in a photo by Aubrey Reuben for Playbill) was 92, a Theatre Hall of Fame inductee who made his Broadway designing debut with the musical On the Town -- 'way back in 1944. He designed for great shows (Guys and Dolls was his) and great stars through the decades, and for the past 15 years was the clever, twisted costume creator for Forbidden Broadway, parodying costumes as deftly as revue creator Gerard Alessandrini spoofed the shows.

Over the phone from his home in New York, Colt was effervescent as he spoke of his work on Forbidden Broadway. 

"I try to see the shows they want to make fun of," he told me.  "I coudln't get anyone to go to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with me...But I had a great time. I loved a lot about it.  The [show's flying] car was sensational.  It went right over my head.  So I thought, 'I guess it's showgirl time.'

He turned a cast member into a semblance of the car, giving her "plastic wings, a horn, spotlights on each boob."  For Spamalot, he crowned Arthur (Michael West, in Ronna Gradus photo at right) with cans of Spam.

Colt passed away on Sunday.  The many obituaries that followed, like this one from Playbill, took note of his lifetime of accomplishments.  But the facts didn't quite convey either his charm or his sense of humor -- not the way his Forbidden Broadway costumes did.

Insight into a mind brought low

The most exciting play in South Florida at the moment is Naked Stage's extraordinarily inventive production of Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis, a chilling and fascinating trip through the mind of a suicidal woman.  Next Friday, Miami gets another highly creative theater piece (this one rooted in poetry and hip-hop), a play that explores similar territory in a different but equally powerful way.

The author and performer of the solo show Low: Meditations Trilogy Part 1 rechristened herself Rha Goddess in 2001.  Born Rhamelle Greene, the geek-turned-poet majored in chemistry and computer science at Vassar.  She turned to writing as a way of sorting out her feelings about the deaths of friends and loved ones, about mental illness in her family, about the suicide of a mentor.  In 2006, Low -- her first full theater piece -- shook up audiences at the prestigious Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville.  That's where I saw it and was moved to tears.

A multimedia piece about a young woman and aspiring hip-hop artist named Lowquisha, Low traces a journey from innocence to madness.  The story is stark, warm-hearted, tragic, totally involving.

The play, presented by the Miami Light Project and the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, visits the Carnival Studio Theater at the Arsht Center at 8 p.m. May 9-10.  Tickets are $25.  Call 305-949-6722 for information.

Rha Goddess will do a post-performance question and answer session May 9.  Prior to her Miami shows, she and Peter Fraenkel from the Hip-Hop Mental Health Project will discuss mental illness during WLRN-91.3 FM's Topical Currents show at 1 p.m. May 7.

Summer musicals (and a play)

Each summer, Florida Atlantic University theater students team up with a few professional actors to offer South Florida's equivalent of summer stock theater in Boca Raton.

Two musicals and a play are on tap for the 2008 Festival Repertory Theatre lineup, and there's a bit of a twist to this year's casting:  Trent Blanton and Rebecca Simon, married Equity actors, are playing lead roles in Carousel and Evita -- and in both shows, they'll be husband and wife.  In the Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein Carousel, which runs June 20-July 5, Simon plays Julie Jordan opposite Blanton's Billy Bigelow.  In Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Evita, which runs July 11-27, Simon is Eva Peron, Blanton her esposo Juan.

There is a third professional actor, Bruce Linser, in FAU's summer company, and a third show: A Thurber Carnival, a play based on the work of cartoonist-humorist James Thurber.

FAU is offering a see-more/pay-less deal on tickets.  The price for one show is $20, two shows $30 and all three shows $39.99 (FAU faculty, staff and alumni pay less, as do groups and kids).  For info, call 1-800-564-9539 or visit the FAU web site.