Drama Queen

Summer Shorts plays are set

City Theatre's popular Summer Shorts festival goes into rehearsals in a little over two weeks, and now we know what plays the company -- Renata Eastlick, Irene Adjan, Ken Clement, Todd Allen Durkin, Rayner Garranchan and Vera Varlamov -- will be rehearsing.

This year's program consists of a dozen plays divided by an intermission, with Producing Artistic Director John Manzelli, Antonio Amadeo, Margaret M. Ledford and Mcley LaFrance doing the staging.

Seven of this year's plays are world premieres:  Kendra Blevins' iZombie, Holly Hepp-Galvan's Departure, David Bar Katz's Handing Down the Recipe and Mothra vs. the Casting Agent, An Allegory, Nina Mansfield's Bite Me, Susan Westfall's Feel the Tango and Steve Yockey's Serendipty.  Also part of this year's festival are Leslie Ayvazian's The Favor, Matt Hoverman's The Student, Rick Park's Please Report Any Suspicious Activity, Paul Rudnick's The Gay Agenda and Sheri Wilner's A Tall Order.

Summer Shorts begins June 7 and runs through June 30 in the Carnival Studio Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center's Ziff Ballet Opera House, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami.  Performances are 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 4 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, and tickets are $35.  For more information, visit City Theatre's web site.

 

City Theatre picks its Summer Shorts company

Blink and it will be summer, so it's no surprise that City Theatre has put most of the pieces of its 18th annual Summer Shorts festival together.  Artistic director John Manzelli has just revealed the six performers who will make up the must-be-versatile acting company, and it's a good one.  Back again are Irene Adjan and Todd Allen Durkin, two standouts from last year's troupe.  They're joined by Ken Clement, Renata Eastlick, Rayner G. Garranchan and Vera Varlamov.  Long-time festival fans will note that Stephen Trovillion, aka "Mr. Summer Shorts," isn't in the company this year, though he has appeared in nearly every festival so far.

"I think change is a good thing sometimes," Manzelli says.  "I'm sure Steve will be back.  I've wanted to work with Ken for a long time, and I'm excited to bring Irene and Todd back."

Manzelli will be sharing most of the directing duties for the festival, which will run June 6-30 in the Carnival Studio Theater at Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, with Margaret M. Ledford.  Mcley LaFrance will direct one of the short plays, and another guest director will stage one play.

The lineup of plays and playwrights is coming soon.  But Manzelli says that the Arsht program, while presented as a single production, will have an intermission separating six plays dubbed Program A, six in Program B.  The annual CityWrights playwrights' weekend will return too, with the program to be announced shortly.

The Miami lineup won't travel to Broward. Instead, City Theatre will coproduce a four-week short-play program with Island City Stage in August.  That program will focus heavily on work by South Florida playwrights, Manzelli says.

Also on the horizon is a January-February Florida tour for Dr. Wonderful, the company's musical for family audiences.  And Manzelli is working toward a regional/national tour of Summer Shorts next season.

For more information, call the Arsht Center box office at 305-949-6722, visit the Arsht web site or visit City Theatre's web site.

(Photo of Irene Adjan and Todd Allen Durkin by Rodrigo Gaya of World Red Eye.)

 

Help get a play on...and have some fun

Putting on a play is never easy nor cheap, at least if you're aiming for high-quality professional work presented in a major performing arts center.  Alliance Theatre Lab is in the midst of a campaign to raise $5,000 for its March 7-24 production of Brothers Beckett, the David Michael Sirois comedy about twentysomethings who are finding adult life none too easy.  The award-winning play was a major hit for Alliance when the company did it almost two years ago at the Main Street Playhouse in Miami Lakes, but mounting a full production in the Carnival Studio Theater at Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts is way more pricey.

So the company has come up with a couple of fun fundraisers to augment its ongoing Indiegogo campaign, which will soon hit $2,000.  First up is a comic murder mystery-Italian dinner night this Sunday at 8 p.m. at Dellaventura's Pizzeria, 4120 SW 64th Ave., Davie.  (Alliance company member Mark Della Ventura, who's in the Brothers Beckett cast, is a driving force in the fundraising.)  The cost for the interactive murder mystery show, a family-style dinner and two glasses of beer or wine is $50 per person, advance reservations required.  Visit the Alliance site for reservations and info.  

On Monday, Feb. 4, the Beckett boys (and girls) will go bowling at SpareZ Bowling Alley, 5325 S. University Dr., Davie, to raise some more dough.  If that's more up your alley, the event happens from 8 to 10 p.m., with a 7:30 p.m. check-in.  Cost is $20 in advance, $25 at the door.  Again, visit the Alliance site or call 305-259-0418.  Proof that arts fundraising doesn't have to be all earnest and stodgy.

Zach Braff sees his play, Miami-style

The talented (and very busy) Zach Braff, part of the soon-to-open movie Oz: The Great and Powerful, took a break from project-juggling in Los Angeles for a quick trip to Miami over the weekend.  He had heard from his dad Harold (who lives in South Florida) and others that the current Zoetic Stage production of his first play, All New People, was really good and rather different from the play's 2011 New York production and the 2012 London production in which Braff played the suicidal yet appealing Charlie.

So he flew to Miami with his girlfriend and saw the Saturday night performance with her, his dad and other family members.  The verdict, according to Zoetic artistic director Stuart Meltzer?  He liked it.

To be there for Braff's hush-hush visit, Meltzer drove back to Miami from Key West, where he's directing a production of Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks for the Waterfront Playhouse (it previews Jan. 29-30, opens Jan. 31 and runs through Feb. 16).  After the show, the former Scrubs star posed for photos with the cast, offered positive feedback, and then everyone went to the nearby City Hall restaurant for a happy late-night dinner.

All New People winds up its run in the Arsht's Carnival Studio Theater on Sunday.  Performances are 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday, with tickets priced at $40 and $45.  Meltzer says the shows have been packed, to a large degree with theater lovers 40 and younger.  If you want to see what Braff wrote -- and what he saw -- call the Arsht at 305-949-6722 or visit the web site. The Carnival is in the Ziff Ballet Opera House at 1300 Biscayne Blvd.

Oh, and Meltzer says Braff is warm, humble and very nice. That's not always the case with Hollywood types, but it's refreshing to hear that the director, writer and star of Garden State is one of the good guys.

(Photos of Braff solo and Braff with cast members Todd Allen Durkin, Betsy Graver, Nicholas Richberg and Amy McKenna by Nathan Valentine/World Red Eye.)

Zoetic Stage joins National New Play Network

The National New Play Network (NNPN) has a new member company: Zoetic Stage, which will kick off its season Oct. 4-21 with Doug Wright's Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife. The play, a solo show starring Tom Wahl as Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (a German man who lived as a woman and survived both the Nazis and East German communists), will be done in the Carnival Studio Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.  Zoetic's work is part of the Arsht's Theater Up Close series, and this particular play is one of the offerings during the center's ongoing Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project.

The NNPN affiliation is a valuable one for Zoetic in two ways.  As artistic director Stuart Meltzer observes in announcing the relationship, "It is vital to the health of every community that new writers continue to strive, question society and bring humanity back to our social media-frenzied world.  Becoming a member means that we can now include our very own playwrights on a larger circuit and recruit the work of outside playwrights to Miami."

In NNPN's model, several theaters agree to stage a "rolling world premiere" of a script they all like, giving a playwright different productions of a new play, exposing the work to audiences in different cities and allowing the writer to do ongoing developmental work between premieres.  Zoetic, which has staged world premieres by founding playwrights Michael McKeever (South Beach Babylon and Moscow) and Christopher Demos-Brown (Captiva), will now have more opportunities to help the work it originates have an ongoing life.

Miami's New Theatre, which will stage Robert Caisley's Happy Nov. 30-Dec. 16 as part of a rolling world premiere, is part of NNPN, as are the Orlando Shakespeare Theatre and Sarasota's Florida Studio Theatre.

Storm scrubs Sunday 'Donkey Show'

The Donkey Show is racing toward its final performance on Sept. 2, but due to the uncertainty surrounding Tropical Storm Isaac's impact on South Florida, the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts has canceled the 7:30 p.m. show for this Sunday, Aug. 26.

The center's popular melding of A Midsumnmer Night's Dream and Studio 54 goes on as scheduled this Friday-Saturday at 7:30 and 10:30 p.m., then has its closing weekend performances at 7:30 and 10:30 p.m. Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, 7:30 p.m. Sept. 2.

Harry Casey of K.C. and the Sunshine Band hosts tonight's shows and each of next weekend's performances.  Tickets range from $25 to $75, depending on the performance, and there are discount deals.  For information on the show or ticket exchanges for this Sunday's canceled show, call the Arsht at 305-949-6722 or visit the center's web site.

(Photo by Justin Namon)

'Donkey' extends, New Theatre picks, Ground Up resurfaces

Some late-Monday random theater news you can use:

*  The Arsht Center's big summer deal, The Donkey Show, is extending through Aug. 18.  But the center wants more booty-shakers at its disco remixed Midsummer Night's Dream, so special weekend theme nights and discounts are being offered.  The 7:30 p.m. shows on Friday have a girls' night out theme; groups of five or more using the promo code GIRLS get a discount.  After-parties follow the Friday shows at Ricochet (Aug. 10) and Will Call (Aug. 17).  Show your Donkey Show ticket stub to get free admission and a cocktail.

Guys get a boys' night out experience at 10:30 p.m. Saturday, with groups of five or more getting a price break. Use the promo code BOYS on the Arsht's web site. Harry Casey, the KC of KC and the Sunshine Band, hosts earlier Boogie Nights performances at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Regular prices are $45-$60 for the dance floor, $60-$75 for VIP seating, depending on the performance. Need info? Call the Arsht box office at 305-949-6722 or visit the web site.

* New Theatre has filled in the other half of its four-play 2012-2013 season lineup.  The world premiere of Robert Caisley's Happy kicks off the lineup Sept. 7-23. Then comes a fresh production of Willy Russell's Educating Rita, to be directed by Steven A. Chambers; that one runs Nov. 30-Dec. 16.  The world premiere of artistic director Ricky J. Martinez's play Road Through Heaven runs Feb. 1-17, and the season winds up with a Martinez-directed production of John Pielmeier's Agnes of God April 26-May 12.  The theater is also inaugurating a late-night series of edgy theater dubbed BOOMFrog, which will run Oct. 19-27 and March 15-23.  Subscribers will get admission to two BOOMFrog performances with their season passes.

Subscriptions are $160 if you buy before Aug. 17, $210 after.  New Theatre performs at the Roxy Performing Arts Center, 1645 SW 107th Ave., Miami.  Call 305-443-5909 or visit the company's web site for more info.

*  Ground Up & Rising is resurfacing on Saturday with two free performances of an hour-long adaptation of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.  Curtis Belz did the adaptation and appears in the show along with Collin Carmouze (who also directs), David Gallegos and Jenny Lorenzo.  Future Ground Up plans include a free hour-long Macbeth and a black-box production of John Patrick Shanley's Danny and the Deep Blue Sea.

Julius Caesar happens at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday at the Miami Beach Botannical Garden, 2000 Convention Center Dr., Miami Beach.  Call 305-673-7256, ext. 201, for info.

Hispanic Fest celebrates Latino theater in the U.S.

The 27th annual International Hispanic Theatre Festival doesn't kick off until mid July, but producing artistic director Mario Ernesto Sánchez already has nearly all the pieces of an always-challenging puzzle assembled.

After paying tribute in past festivals to the theater of Mexico, Colombia and other countries, this year's festival will focus on Latino theater in the United States.  And its offerings -- some in English, others in Spanish, still others bilingual -- are casting a wide net in terms of audience inclusion.

The festival gets an early launch June 8 with an invitation-only cocktail reception to reveal artist Roberto Silva's poster.  A jazz concert from the Jaume Vilaseca Trio of Barcelona will keep the party going from 7 to 10 p.m. in Miami Dade College's Wolfson Campus Auditorium.

This year the festival will give its lifetime achievement in the performing arts award to Teresa María Rojas, founder of Prometeo Theatre and a prominent theater educator who was the first mentor to Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz. She'll receive the honor immediately after the opening night performance July 12.

That show is a production of Miguel Piñero's incendiary Short Eyesby the Los Angeles-based Urban Theatre Movement.  It kicks off the festival at 8:30 p.m. July 12-13 in the Carnival Studio Theater at Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. For mature audiences, the play features brief nudity and is performed in English.

At 8:30 p.m. July 13-14, Prometeo Theatre will perform Marco Antonio de la Parra's Infieles (Unfaithful), a play about being unfaithful personally and politically.  That show will be presented in the Wolfson Auditorium. 

The Los Angeles-based Latino Theater Company will perform Evelina Fernández's play Solitude, a work inspired by Octavio Paz's The Labyrinth of Solitude.  The play will be done at the Carnival Studio Theater in English at 8:30 p.m. July 14, 5 p.m. July 15.

Flor de un Día, a company from Buenos Aires, will present Santiago Loza's Nada del amor me produce envidia (Nothing About Love Produces Envy), a musical theater piece about a seamstress who gets orders for identical dresses -- one coming from Eva Perón.  That show goes on in Spanish at 8:30 p.m. July 18-19 in the Prometeo Theatre at Miami Dade's Wolfson Campus.

Mexico City's La Máquina de Teatro performs Juliana Faesler's Malinche/Malinches in Spanish at 8:30 p.m. July 19-20 at the Carnival Studio Theater.  New York's Teatro Zero will present Diana Chery-Ramírez's Aviones de papel (Paper Airplanes), a piece that considers lack of communication, isolation and domestic violence, in Spanish at 8:30 p.m. July 20-21 at Prometeo Theatre.

At 5:45 p.m. July 21 at the Key Biscayne Community Center, New York's Teatro Sea will present the free bilingual family play El encuentro de Juan Bobo y Pedro Animal (The Encounter of Juan Bobo and Pedro Animal) by Manuel Antonio Morán.

A production of Oscar Martinez's Ella en mi cabeza (She's On My Mind) by Arte & Friends from Bogota, Colombia, will be done in Spanish at the Carnival Studio Theater at 8:30 p.m. July 21, 5  p.m. July 22.

The festival's free annual International Children's Day runs from 2 to 7 p.m. July 22 at Miami Dade College's InterAmerican Campus.  The bilingual programming includes a 3 p.m. performance of Cristina Ferrari's Yo la llama Rusita Rojas (I Call Her Rusita Rojas) by Miami's Teatro Doble and a 6 p.m. performance of El Encuentro de Juan Bobo y Pedro Animal.

The festival winds up with performances from two companies.  Ecuador's Contra el Viento Teatro performs Patricio Vallejo Aristizábal's  La flor de la Chukirawa (The Flower of Chukirawa)at 8:30 p.m. July 27-28 in Spanish at Prometeo Theatre.  And artistic director Sánchez's company,
Teatro Avante, closes out the festival at 8:30 p.m. July 26-28, 5 p.m. July 29, with Virgilio Piñero's play El no (The No), adapted by Gilda Santana and presented in at the Carnival Studio Theater in Spanish with English supertitles.

Special events during the festival include a Spanish-language educational conference on trends in Latino and Latin American performing arts from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. July 13-14 at Miami Dade's Wolfson Campus, Room 2106.  Prometeo will also do a free staged reading at 8:30 p.m. July 16 of three short plays by Julio Matas (The Change,Tonos and The Ladies' Game) at its Wolfson Campus theater.  The company will do another free reading at 8:30 p.m. July 17 of Luis Enrique Gutiérrez Ortiz Monasterio's The Girls from the 3.5 Floppies, a play for mature audiences.  Both evenings are in Spanish.

Tickets to individual festival shows are $30 each, but they're discounted to $25 each for three or more shows, seniors, students or those with disabilities.  For tickets to events at the Arsht Center's Carnival Studio Theater, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, call 305-949-6722 or visit the center's web site.  For tickets to events at Prometeo, 300 NE Second Ave., Miami, call 305-237-3262 or visit Prometo's site.  Miami Dade's InterAmerican Campus is at 627 SW 27th Ave., Miami; the Key Biscayne Community Center at 10 Village Green Way, Key Biscayne. Both of those venues have free parking.

For festival questions, call Teatro Avante at 305-445-8877.

 (Photo of Mario Ernesto Sánchezby Mitchell Zachs)

 

 

'Houdini' conjures up an extra matinee

How successful is the run of the House Theater of Chicago's Death and Harry Houdini at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts? So successful that every performance in the Carnival Studio Theater run, which winds up May 20, is sold out.

But fans of theater, magic and/or the House just got lucky.  The Arsht has added a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday, May 19, so that's one more chance to see the charismatic actor-magician Dennis Watkins playing history's greatest illusionist.

Tickets are $45, and you can get them by calling 305-949-6722 or visiting the center's web site. Get 'em before they, like Houdini, disappear.

(Photo by Michael Brosilow)

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)