Drama Queen

GableStage gets NEA grant for McCraney 'Hamlet'

GableStage, which will join with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and New York's Public Theater in premieringTarell Alvin McCraney's set-in-Haiti Antony and Cleopatra next season, has just been awarded a $10,000 National Endowment for the Arts Art Works grant to support its upcoming production of Hamlet.  The 90-minute adaptation by McCraney and Bijan Sheibani, commissioned by the RSC, will run at GableStage Jan. 12-Feb. 10, then be performed free for 15,000 Miami-Dade County Public Schools students at the Joseph Caleb Auditorium in Liberty City and the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center in Cutler Bay.

The NEA received 1,509 eligible applications for the Art Works grants from not-for-profit groups seeking more than $74 million in support.  GableStage's is one of 832 approved grants totalling $22.3 million.

McCraney will direct his adaptation, and he has now settled on his cast.  Edgar Sanchez will play Hamlet, with Dylan Kammerer as Horatio, James Randolph as Claudius and the Ghost, Alana Arenas as Gertrude, Peter Haig as Polonius, Ryan George as Laertes and Rosencrantz, Mimi Davila as Ophelia and Arielle Hoffman as Guildenstern and a player.

Performances will be at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday (no evening show the first weekend).  Tickets range from $37.50-$50.  GableStage performs in the Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables.  For information, call 305-445-1119 or visit the theater's web site.

Naked Stage's 24-Hour Theatre Project returns

The Naked Stage recently wrapped up an impressive, much-lauded production of the spooky Turn of the Screw at Barry University's Pelican Theatre.  Now comes word that artistic director Katherine Amadeo and her hubby-colleague, Antonio Amadeo, have a date and a venue for the sixth edition of their way-popular 24-Hour Theatre Project.

This year's celebration of the quick-turnaround talents of South Florida playwrights, actors and directors will happen Nov. 12 at GableStage in the Biltmore Hotel.  That's where the annual fundraiser was born in 2007, and after taking it to Actors' Playhouse and the now-in-limbo Caldwell Theatre Company, Naked Stage is returning the event to its intimate roots.

GableStage artistic director Joseph Adler says, "It's a pleasure to have them back.  I thought their production of Turn of the Screw was terrific, and I want to see Naked Stage continue."

Participating artists and specifics are still being worked out. But you can bet that an array of playwrights will gather on Sunday, Nov. 11, to get titles, actors and directors for their unwritten short plays.  They'll write all night, then early Monday morning, their casts, directors and the rest of the 24-Hour staff will gather to bring the short scripts to life.  That evening, fans will assemble to see just how much fun speedily assembled theater can be.

To track updates on the event, visit The Naked Stage's blog.

Hot casting news

South Florida's artistic directors do compete for the services of actors they like working with, and increasingly they find find some stage veterans unavailable due to shooting schedules for made-in-Miami TV shows like Burn Notice and Magic City. Those realities may factor into some early -- and exciting -- casting news.

At GableStage in Coral Gables, Joseph Adler is getting ready to open his production of Lynn Nottage's Ruinedon Sept. 8, but he has already picked the duo who will star in David Ives' Venus in FurNov. 10-Dec. 9.  Matthew William Chizever plays a playwright auditioning actresses for his stage adaptation of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's 19th century erotic novel; Betsy Graver is the young actress who turns out to be just right for the part.

Plantation's Mosaic Theatre is opening its season Sept. 20-Oct. 14 with Nikolai Gogol's Diary of a Madman, adapted by David Holman along with Neil Armfield and Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush.  Ken Clement gets the dazzling role of Russian civil servant Poprischin, a man driven crazy and delusional by bureaucracy.

In West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Dramaworks has announced some key casting for its entire season, which begins Oct. 12-Nov. 11 with Erin Joy Schmidt and Brian Wallace starring in Lanford Wilson's Talley's Folly.  Edward Albee's searing drama A Delicate Balance, which runs Dec. 7-Jan. 6, will star Broadway (and Albee) veteran Maureen Anderman, along with Carbonell Award winners Angie Radosh and Dennis Creaghan.  Ethan Henry gets the lead role in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, running Feb. 1-March 3.  The infinitely watchable Colin McPhillamy will star in Eugene Ionesco's absurdist classic Exit the King March 29-April 28.  Julie Rowe and Margery Lowe close out the season May 24-June 23 with Brian Friel's Tony Award-winning Dancing at Lughnasa.

Don't know about you, but the prospect of seeing these actors at work makes me eager for the season to start.

(Photos of Betsy Graver and Matthew William Chizever in Venus in Fur and Ken Clement by George Schiavone; photo of Angie Radosh, Dennis Creaghan and Maureen Anderman in A Delicate Balance by Alicia Donelan)

 

 

Guirgis is heading to GableStage

Stephen Adly Guirgis, award-winning playwright and one of the three artistic directors of New York's hot LAByrinth Theater Company, is coming to Coral Gables to check out GableStage's smash version of his play The Motherf**ker With the Hat.  But seeing Joseph Adler's production of a play that has won raves from South Florida critics and the Wall Street Journal's Terry Teachout (he called Motherf**ker "the best new play of 2011") isn't the only thing Guirgis will be doing during his visit.  Like Adler himself so often does, Guirgis will be giving back to the region's theater community.

On Monday, Feb. 6, the playwright whose works include Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train, Our Lady of 121st Street, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot and The Little Flower of East Orange will lead a free writing workshop from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at GableStage -- but the session is open only to members of Actors' Equity and the Dramatists' Guild, Theatre League members, and students or faculty from college or university theater departments.  Anyone who wants to attend must email Adler at jadler@gablestage.org. 

Guirgis describes the workshop this way:  "You don't have to be a writer to do the class...this is to encourage self-empowerment...experienced writers are free to come.  Attendees should bring pen and paper.  The substance of the workshop is a few writing exercises flcused on writing from a personal place, mixed in with conversation demystifying the writing experience.  There will also be time for questions and discussions about anything writing- or theater-related."

The playwright, whose fellow LAByrinth company members include Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Ortiz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Bobby Canavale, David Zayas, Eric Bogosian, Sam Rockwell and numerous other actors and playwrights, is also sticking around for a special industry-only performance of The Motherf**ker With the Hat at 8 p.m. next Monday at GableStage, which should be a special thrill for cast members Arturo Fernandez, Gladys Ramirez, Ethan Henry, Betsy Graver and Alex Alvarez.

But again -- only those South Florida theater community members, theater faculty and theater students can attend, and they must request a free ticket by emailing Adler.  GableStage is, of course, located at the Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables.  Check out its web site for more info on the company.

'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.

***

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.

***

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.

***

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)

'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.

 

'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.

 

See stars at Mosaic, GableStage

Plantation's Mosaic Theatre and GableStage in Coral Gables both have hit shows at the moment:  Eric Simonson's Lombardi, about legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, at Mosaic, and Red, about abstract expressionist Mark Rothko, at GableStage.  Both plays are running through Dec. 4, with some performances sold out or nearly so, so if you're interested in going and have been procrastinating, call or click for tickets. 

Mosaic artistic director Richard Jay Simon is helping drive his show's solid box office with a series of celebrity talk-backs after certain performances.  This weekend original Broadway Lombardi star Dan Lauria and the coach's daughter, Susan Lombardi, will chat with the audience after the 7 p.m. Sunday performance.  Columnist Dave Hyde and ex-Dolphins player Jim "Crash" Jensen are to talk after tonight's 8 p.m. show.  Columnist Ethan Skolnick is seeing the show at 8 p.m. this Saturday.

Other special guests who have confirmed are CBS4's Jim Berry (8 p.m. Nov. 25), the Herald's Greg Cote (3 p.m. Nov. 26), Local 10's Will Manso (2 p.m. Nov. 27) and Local 10's Andrea Brody (8 p.m. Dec. 2).

With Lauria in town this weekend, Simon has engineered a fundraiser for both his theater and GableStage.  The actor, who played the dad on the popular TV series The Wonder Years, has written a dark comedy called Dinner With the Boys. He, Mosaic's Lombardistar Ray Abruzzo and actor Richard Zavaglia will do two benefit staged readings of the play.

The first is Monday, Nov. 21, at 7 p.m. at GableStage in the Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables.  Admission is $25 for subscribers, $30 for others.  Wine and light refreshments come with the cost of the ticket.  For GableStage info, call 305-445-1119 or visit the theater's web site.

Mosaic's reading is at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 22, in its theater at the American Heritage Center for the Arts, 12200 W. Broward Blvd., Bldg. 3000, Plantation.  Again, subscribers pay $25, others $30, and you get wine and munchies.  Call 954-577-8243 or visit the Mosaic web site.

Go to either, and you're seeing stars while helping a not-for-profit theater company fund its work.

(Photo of Ray Abruzzo as Vince Lombardi by George Schiavone)

Adler unveils a hot GableStage season

GableStage artistic director Joseph Adler takes his time in putting together a season, vying for hot titles, making repeated trips to New York to check out the plays that might be a good fit for South Florida's consistently edgiest theater.  But as GableStage's loyal subscribers would tell you, the wait usually pays off in an exciting lineup.  The just-announced 2011-2012 season looks like no exception.

First up is John Logan's Tony Award-winning Red, the intense play about painter Mark Rothko.  Running Nov. 5-Dec. 4, the drama focuses on the master-student relationship of the volatile, brilliant Rothko and a new assistant.  And Adler already has his cast:  Carbonell Award-winning actor Gregg Weiner will play Rothko, Ryan Didato the young painter who has come to learn from the great man.

 Next up, running Jan. 7-Feb. 5, is Stephen Adly Guirgis' recent Broadway hit The Motherf**ker with the Hat.  The searing dark comedy is about a clean-and-sober guy on parole who's trying to stay that way (despite the pull of his non-sober girlfriend) with the help of his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor.

Keith Huff's A Steady Rain, the 2010 Broadway hit about two Chicago cops whose friendship goes back to childhood, will follow Guirgis' play March 3-April 1.  Next is Time Stands Still by Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies.  Running May 5-June 3, the play centers on the relationship of a wounded photojournalist and a foreign correspondent. 

David Mamet's provocative, stinging play Race will run July 7-Aug. 5, 2012.  That one is about three lawyers, two black and one white, who are asked to defend a white man charged with a crime against a black woman.

Winding up Adler's next season is Lynn Nottage's 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Ruined, which runs Sept. 8-Oct. 7, 2012. Inspired by Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage, the play takes place in a Congolese brothel as war rages.

And a note: You needn't wait 'til November to sample GableStage's work.  Hot Miami-raised playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney begins rehearsals today for the first South Florida production of his much-praised smash The Brothers Size.  McCraney is directing the play, whose cast includes his friend and former mentor, Teo Castellanos.  The Brothers Size, part of McCraney's trilogy the Brother/Sister Plays, opens Sept. 3 and runs through Oct. 2.

Flexible six-show subscriptions to the new season are $225, which saves as much as 25 percent over single tickets.  Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. GableStage is located in the eastern end of Coral Gables' historic Biltmore Hotel at 1200 Anastasia Ave.  For information, call the box office at 305-445-1119 or visit the theater's web site.

(Photo of Joseph Adler, top, by Barbara P. Fernandez; photo of Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne in the Broadway production of Red by Johan Persson.)

Rosenfarb play to be read at GableStage

If you're looking for an intriguing arts experience tonight, how about a free reading of a new play by award-winning playwright Michelle Rosenfarb?

A Barren Man is the new script from the playwright whose The Gates of Choice had its world premiere at New Theatre in 2008. Directed by Avi Hoffman, the play focuses on a young Orthodox Jewish man living in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood.  Wanting to save his two-year marriage and maintain his faith, he seeks counseling to deal with his repressed urges and issues surrounding his sexual identity.

In the cast are Lela Elam, Howard Elfman, Abdiel Gabriel, Rachel Keller and Andrew Wind. 

The reading is tonight at 7:30 at GableStage in the Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables.  For information, call 305-445-1119 or visit the GableStage web site.