Drama Queen

Tears for the Tony-less

The fallout from last Sunday's Tony Awards is beginning, as struggling shows that voters shunned are starting to announce closing dates.

Shed a tear for Cry-Baby, the John Waters movie-turned-musical that hoped to follow Hairspray to Broadway triumph.  Some critics liked it; more didn't. For the week that ended with the Tony Awards, the show sold only $276,245 worth of tickets at the huge Marquis Theatre.  Not not nearly good enough, considering that the scathingly reviewed The Little Mermaid is selling more than $1 million worth of tickets each week.  Kid power.

So Cry-Baby will say see-ya as of Sunday, after 48 previews and 68 regular performances.  But that may not be all for the show that counts ex-South Floridian Adam Epstein among its lead producers.  A national tour is expected to begin in the fall of 2009.  That news may not quicken the hearts of subscribers around the country, but it should soothe its creators' bruised egos a little.

Also playing its last Broadway performances is the smaller-scale A Catered Affair.  The Harvey Fierstein-John Bucchino musical will close July 27, after 27 previews and 116 performances.  But here's betting it will wind up in South Florida, whether on tour or as a local production.

So there can be life after Broadway -- and after Tony snubs.

The sound of music(als)

So the 2008 Tony Awards are history, and soon the big-budget shows that didn't collect any medallions probably will be too.  But if you caught Sunday's Tony telecast -- Broadway's three-hour commercial love letter to itself -- you realize that some wonderful musicals are running in New York right now.

Though nothing beats seeing a new Tony-winning show on Broadway, there is an alternative to spending loads of dough for a Big Apple theater experience:  the cast CD.  Two terrific ones -- In the Heights and the South Pacific revival -- are available now.  And on July 15, you can get the CD of another show that didn't get nearly enough Tony love, Passing Strange.

In the Heights, the show that won the best musical Tony, has put out a two-CD set that features the musical's vibrant mix of hip-hop, salsa, Reggaeton, merengue and more.  You get a clear sense of the show's story as you listen, and you'll feel the energy and joy that creator Lin-Manuel Miranda the cast so clearly displayed on the Tony telecast.  The Ghostlight CD sells for $21.98, but Amazon has it for $14.99.

On the Tony show, best actor Paulo Szot and his leading lady, Kelli O'Hara, offered a great sample of just how gorgeous the Lincoln Center Theater's revival of South Pacific sounds.  Szot, an opera star who grew up in Brazil, is not just (arguably) the best looking guy to play Emile; his voice, particularly on Some Enchanted Evening, is simply thrilling.  O'Hara is superb too, and if not for Patti LuPone's stunning Mama Rose in Gypsy, would have won a Tony too.  The lush original orchestrations make this Sony Classics CD a must-have.  It sells for $18.98, but Amazon has it for $9.99.

Ghostlight will issue the Passing Strange cast CD on July 15, but I've listened to an advance copy, and it's superb.  Dynamic, smart and engaging just like its creator Stew, the show traces a young black man's search for self, a trip that takes him from from middle-class comfort in Los Angeles to Amsterdam and Berlin, with some sex-drugs-rock 'n' roll along the way.  Not your average Broadway show nor your average Broadway CD -- my husband, listening in the car, said, "Wow -- that's on Broadway? I want to go." The Passing Strange will sell for $18.97 ($12.99 on Amazon).

Classic musicals

Three strong revivals (and one not-so-hot one -- guess which) are up for the Tony Award as best musical revival.  My predictions for the winners of this and every other category will be in the Miami Herald's print and online editions on Tony Sunday, June 15. Meanwhile -- which musical revival do you think will take home the Tony?

Opinion Polls & Market Research

A creative stretch

Charlie Sutton grew up in Pinecrest, where his mom Deborah Rodriguez indulged her inner showgirl by dancing in charity shows with the Gold-Diggers at Gusman Center for the Performing Arts.  Sutton became an actor-dancer, too, getting his training at Miami's New World School of the Arts high school, graduating in 2002, then heading north to New York for college.

A Broadway career -- happily -- got in the way. He danced in Wicked and La Cage aux Folles, toured in Wicked and Aida, hoofed in the movie version of The Producers.  Now Sutton, 24, is one of the dazzling dancers doing Rob Ashford's Tony Award-nominated choreography in Cry-Baby, one of the shows nominated for this year's best musical Tony.  One of its lead producers is Adam Epstein, another former South Floridian.

Sutton and his fellow cast members will be performing during the Tony ceremony at New York's Radio City Music Hall this Sunday.  Whether or not Cry-Baby takes home any Tonys, Sutton's dance partner Mayumi Miguel will have reason to celebrate: when not onstage, she'll be wearing a Charlie Sutton original (shown in Sutton's sketch at left).

Interested in fashion, Sutton began by making hand-sewn pillows. Miguel asked him to design her dress for the Cry-Baby opening in April, then asked again for the Tonys.  The dancer and neophyte designer, thinking about life beyond Broadway, said yes.

For info on the show that is Sutton's day job -- well, night job -- check out the Cry-Baby website.

It's Tony time

The 62nd annual Tony awards are this Sunday.  From 8 to 11 p.m. at Manhattan's Radio City Music Hall, Broadway's highest (and most career-boosting) honor will be bestowed upon the lucky winners in 26 categories.  Then the winners will celebrate and losers drown their sorrows at the post-Tony bash.

But first things first: What do you think about the likely winners?  (No bias against Passing Strange -- I'm waiting for a photo!)

Here's the first in a short series of polls.  Feel free to explain or lobby for your choices in the comments section.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Go, Cubby, go

If you're a Tony Awards junkie (c'mon, we know a few of you are out there), you've probably heard the buzz about Cubby Bernstein, Tony campaign manager extraordinaire.

Sure, to outsiders, Cubby looks like nothing more than a precocious kid who spouts showbiz cliches as he plays the Tony king-maker.  But watch the ongoing You Tube "coverage" of Cubby's current campaign, and you'll see a master at work.

It helps that Cubby, who is pushing dark horse Xanadu for this year's best musical Tony, has lots of famous Tony-winning pals who can testify to his prowess at helping his clients win Broadway's highest honor.  Carole Shelley, John Lloyd Young, John Gallagher Jr., Nathan Lane -- well, the list of Cubby's award-winning "clients" who make cameos in the You Tube videos goes on and on.  The rumor that Xanadu book writer Douglas Carter Beane is the man behind it all?  Cubby would beg to differ.

Cubby has his own website, where you can view all the episodes (six so far) in his Xanadu march toward the Tony. Here's the latest, featuring Nathan Lane and many men in dance belts:

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.

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.

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.

A new musical and a classic play

So the reviews for Cry-Baby, the second Broadway musical based on a John Waters movie, are in.  And they're a real mixed lot: very good, very bad and just about everywhere in between.

Linda Winer of Newsday liked it a lot, and so did Elysa Gardner of USA Today and Malcolm Johnson of the Hartford Courant.  Among those at the opposite end of the spectrum were Ben Brantley of the New York Times, John Simon of Bloomberg.com and Peter Marks of the Washington Post.

Given that all-over-the-map bunch of notices, Cry-Baby is likely to have a bumpier road to long-running hit status than its Waters musical predecessor, Hairspray.  But if Miami Beach-raised producer Adam Epstein can get the word out about the show's true-to-Waters aesthetic (in the Joan Marcus photo at left, stars James Snyder and Elizabeth Stanley illustrate the musical question Girl Can I Kiss You [With Tongue]?), and if he can find a way to convey the show's exuberant faux-'50s fun, it could last.  For more info, check out the Cry-Baby web site.

***

New Theatre founder Rafael de Acha kicks off his Theater by the Book venture Sunday at 7 p.m. at GableStage.  First up is a reading of Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning Our Town.  In the cast are David Kwiat, Bill Schwartz, Robert Strain, Kimberly Daniel, Sally Levin, Nicholas Richberg and Cecilia Torres, all veterans of the De Acha era at New Theatre.  Admission to the staged reading is free; GableStage is in the Biltmore Hotel at 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables.

De Acha, as organized as ever, also has seven future readings planned at various locations:  Mario Diament's The Book of Ruth June 1, John Strand's adaptation of Alfred de Musset's Lorenzaccio July 8, Pedro Calderon de la Barca's Life's Dreaming Aug. 3, De Acha's own Shakespeare adaptation Falstaff and Hal Sept. 6-7, Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart Oct. 5, Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac Nov. 9 and Paula Vogel's The Long Christmas Ride Home Dec. 12-13.

Tears or cheers?

Adam Epstein has a big-deal opening on Broadway tonight: He's the lead producer of Cry-Baby, the second splashy musical based on a John Waters movie.

First came Hairspray, which hit Broadway and became a smash when Epstein (who was one of many producers on that show) was only 28.  Now the Miami Beach-raised theatrical entrepreneur is 33, and he's been carefully nurturing Cry-Baby its journey toward Broadway and its celebrity-packed opening.

Set in Baltimore in 1954, the musical is about the bad boy (played by Johnny Depp in Waters' movie) who gets the good girl.  It has a score by Daily Show producer David Javerbaum and Fountains of Wayne songwriter Adam Schlesinger.  Mark Brokaw is the director, Tony Award winner Rob Ashford the choreographer.  Hairspray book writers Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan did this one, too.

James Snyder plays the title role, with Elizabeth Stanley as his squeeze.

Cry-Baby is at the Marquis Theatre.  For info, visit the show's web site.  Hopefully, Epstein and company will all break a leg (figuratively, of course) tonight. And tomorrow, we'll see whether the show made the critics laugh or cry.

A fun night for Simon Cowell

This week's American Idol performance show is unlikely to bring out the love from British judge Simon Cowell. Among Cowell's evergreen damning-with-faint-praise assessments is pronouncing a performance "too Broadway" (the others being "hotel lounge," "karaoke," "theme park" and "cruise ship").  Yet Broadway is what this week's Idol is all about.

Many Idols, winners and non-winners alike, have gone on to Broadway/Off-Broadway and other theater success, as this story in today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram details.  Season two runnerup Clay Aiken (at left, in a wavy red wig) has attracted throngs of Claymates to the audience and the stage door during his current gig as Sir Robin in Broadway's Spamalot, and Fantasia got raves in her Color Purple stint.  These people can sing.  But as Cowell correctly points out, the purpose of American Idol is to find new pop/rock stars, not to troll for fresh Broadway talent.

This week, though, the Idol wannabes don't have much wiggle room. Phantom of the Opera composer Andrew Lloyd Webber -- that's Lord Lloyd Webber to you, peasants -- will coach the contestants as they try to deliver vote-getting versions of his songs from Phantom, Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats. Even Sunset Boulevard?  For trainwreck potential, one can always hope.  Then we could join Cowell in his cringe-fest.

For more on Idol, check out Howard Cohen's Idol Watch blog.

A soaring career

Writer, artist, playwright and theater company founder Vanessa Garcia leads a busy, culturally eclectic life.  That she is a rising star in Miami's arts world and beyond is confirmed by some happy news:  Garcia has been named one of four finalists in the literature division of the Geneva-based Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Initiative.

What that means is that Garcia, 28, may have the chance to spend a year being mentored by Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian poet, playwright, novelist and humanitarian.  Each finalist will spend a week working with Soyinka in May, then the Nobel Prize winner will choose the young artist who will become his protege from June 2008 'til June 2009.

Garcia is in prestigious company.  She is one of just 19 finalists chosen from 124 nominees in 38 countries.  The other mentors for the program's next cycle are Rebecca Horn in visual arts, Jiri Kylian in dance, Youssou N'Dour in music, Martin Scorsese in film and Kate Valk in theater.

For more info on Garcia or her theater company The Krane, visit her web site. Congrats! 

Welcome back, Groucho

Remember that mid-'70s television show, Welcome Back, Kotter?  The one that starred Gabe Kaplan as Brooklyn high school teacher Gabe Kotter and a pre-Saturday Night Fever John Travolta as his mouthiest student?  Kaplan has come south to Coral Springs to performed a revamped version of a piece he first did in as an HBO special in 1982, then as a play.  Audiences at the Stage Door Theatre may be coming to see Gabe Kaplan.  But they'll be spending time with a very different guy:  Groucho Marx.

Written by Marx's son Arthur and Robert Fisher, Groucho (previously titled Groucho: A Life in Revue) played the Coconut Grove Playhouse in 1987, with Lewis J. Stadlen (who knew the late comedian) starring as Groucho.  The version Kaplan is doing at Stage Door looks more deeply into Marx's life, showbiz in the 20th century and what makes comedians tick.

The play will run at least through May 11 -- longer, if the crowds keep coming.  Performances are 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.  Tickets are $38.  Stage Door is at 8036 W. Sample Rd., Coral Springs. Call 954-344-7765 or visit the theater's web site for information.

South Florida theater goes glam

Hey, theater people. Get the tux cleaned, find a dress that not every store in the shopping universe is carrying, and get ready to put your game face on:  On Monday at 7:30 p.m., the 32nd annual Carbonell Awards will be bestowed at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.

Christine Andreas, that fabulous Broadway diva who played the Southern mom in The Light in the Piazza then returned to the Arsht Center's Carnival Studio Theater with her terrific cabaret show, will host and perform.  University of Miami grad Gina Kreiezmar, who's currently spoofing such divas (though not Andreas) in Forbidden Broadway at the Arsht), is also going to do her hilarious thing.  And, of course, some of the best work in South Florida theater in 2007 is going to be honored.  (That qualifier, "some of," is necessary because nobody in this vast, sometimes contentious theater community would admit that the Carbonell voters get everything right.)

The good news, if you're a slacker when it comes to ticket buying, is that you can still watch the Carbonell drama unfold live.  And you don't have to be someone who works in theater to come.

Tickets are $50 and $75.  If you want to be entertained and see South Florida's, um, strong theater personalities dressed to kill (though hopefully not each other), call 954-462-0222 or visit the Broward Center web site.

(Thanks to George Schiavone for the photo illustration.)

Four readings

   Play readings are a quick way to get to know a company, actors, works both new and vintage.  Four readings over the next few weeks offer that opportunity – all at the bargain-basement price of low or no admission, though two are fund-raisers, so don’t flinch if you’re asked to donate something.

   * First up is Vanessa Garcia’s Parked, an original work which will be done in Amsterdam next month after its reading on Saturday, April 5, in Coconut Grove.  Produced by her company The Krane and the New Light Foundation, the staged reading presents a tragicomedy about architect friends hired to design a park in the middle of a slum.  The free reading happens at 8 p.m. at Tesori d’Arte Gallery, 3015 Grand Ave.  Call 305-528-4971 or visit the Krane's web site.

   * Garcia and New Light playwright Wendy White will get readings of Parked and White’s 7 Generations at 8 p.m. April 19 at ArtServe, 1350 E. Sunrise Blvd., Fort Lauderdale.  Both plays will be performed at the Theatre de Cameleon in Amsterdam May 3.  White’s time-traveling piece is about the attempt to heal generations of a family. Tickets to the fund-raising performance are $12. Call 954-786-1080 for reservations.

   * Andie Arthur, executive director of the Theatre League of South Florida, is also a playwright with a new work – the enticingly titled A Girl’s Guide to Saving the Universe – to share.  It’s about a college girl who has to find her missing boyfriend, a guy who is supposed to save a magical country which happens to occupy the space beneath a Chicago elevated train station. The Naked Stage is presenting the free reading of Girl’s Guide at 7:30 p.m. April 21 in the Pelican Theatre at Barry University, 11300 NE Second Ave., Miami Shores.  Call 954-261-1785 or visit Naked Stage's web site.

   * Also on April 21, the three-year-old Ghost Light Series is doing a reading of Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey.   The British play, about a sexually indiscriminate mother and her teen daughter, gets its free reading at 7:30 p.m. at Collins Community Center, 3900 NE Third Ave., Oakland Park.  For information, call 954-270-0998.

Something stinks, but not the Skunk Ape Project

Here's a wee tale about how hard it can be to get a play done in Miami.  Even if you're talking "just" a staged reading. Even if one of the artists you're talking about happens to be one of the hottest young playwrights in the United States.

Tarell McCraney, Marco Ramirez and Lucas Leyva are all Miami-connected playwrights, all friends.  The three proposed something called the Skunk Ape Project (the name, McCraney says, was Leyva's idea) to the previous management regime at Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.  Nothing elaborate, just the three getting staged readings of their work in the Arsht's 200-seat Carnival Studio Theater in early March.

McCraney, who got his master's in play-writing from Yale University last spring, has spent this season flying all over the country (and to London) to watch productions of his plays at numerous top-tier theaters -- Seattle Repertory Theatre, Atlanta's Alliance Theatre, London's Young Vic, Manhattan's Public Theater, to name just four. He planned to do The Brothers Size as his Skunk Ape contribution, bringing in a couple of the actors who had appeared in the Public Theater production that helped ignite such buzz about McCraney's talent.  Then, stuff happened.  Or didn't happen.

Top administrators at the Arsht changed.  There was talk of folding the Skunk Ape Project into Miami Light Project's annual Here & Now Festival -- not as one of the fully produced works in the Carnival Studio Theater, but as readings presented in a classroom or a lobby.  McCraney's schedule got complicated:  He had to be at the Tony Award-winning McCarter Theatre at Princeton for a workshop of his Brother/Sister Plays (In the Red and Brown Water, The Brothers Size and Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet), which the McCarter will world premiere as a trilogy from mid-April to mid-June of 2009.  And he also went to the Olivier Awards ceremony, where The Brothers Size was up for an award. (It lost -- but still.)

Ramirez, who says the three agreed to "...postpone the Arsht/Skunk Ape collaboration indefinitely, which probably means it will never happen," is as frustrated as McCraney and Leyva.  He said that once word of the project got out, 90 people asked about coming to the event in the 200-seat Studio Theater.

"If we've learned anything from this, it's that new play readings happen at regional theaters -- GableStage, New Theatre, Mad Cat -- and not at gigantic performing arts venues," Ramirez wrote in an E-mail.

McCraney, who has been back in Miami lately teaching a spring play-writing course at the New World School of the Arts (his high school alma mater), is plenty frustrated too:  "We had to let go of this dream to begin a new works showcase for playwrights in Miami. For now."

Finally, a couple of questions.  Why is it that audiences in large theaters all over the country are getting to savor the early work of a thrilling writer who seems destined for a major career, yet he can't get a play read in his hometown?  Why aren't Miami theaters fighting to produce his work?  If the Coconut Grove Playhouse was open and operating like a major regional theater should, McCraney should be its hottest "find."

Instead, he'll get the trilogy done at the McCarter, another new play (Wig/Out) done at London's Royal Court Theatre and a New York theater, two of the Brother/Sister Plays done at the Young Vic.  He also may become international writer in residence at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and have a fellowship at Princeton.  Ramirez and Leyva are both looking at grad schools.  And the Skunk Ape Project has become as mythical as, well, a skunk ape.

That, folks, is really theater of the absurd.

An honor and a mystery

Deborah Zoe Laufer had a wonderful weekend. After all, it isn't every Saturday night that a playwright gets to stand on the biggest stage at Actors Theatre of Louisville, in front of a Humana Festival crowd full of producers, artistic directors, critics and theater lovers from all over the world, and get both an award citation and a check for $7,500.  But that's what happened to Laufer on March 29.

Laufer and fellow playwright Sarah Ruhl were honored for, in essence, having written two of the three best plays of 2007, in the estimation of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) and the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.  An ATCA committee read 28 new plays submitted by its members, chosing Moises Kauffman's 33 Variations (which debuted at Washington's Arena Stage) for the top $25,000 prize, giving citations and $7,500 each to Ruhl for Dead Man's Cell Phone (which premiered at Washington's Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company) and Laufer for End Days.

Though Laufer lives outside New York City, End Days has a major South Florida connection.  Like two earlier Laufer scripts, it premiered at Florida Stage in Manalapan.  Here's the first sentence of the review I wrote after the play opened last October:  "End Days, Deborah Zoe Laufer's rapturously funny play about a family trying to survive in a world hurtling toward Armageddon, proves that the right playwright can inspire healing laughter in even the most sobering subjects." (I might change that last bit to "...through even the most sobering subjects" if I were writing it today, but oh well.)

I share this information not just because the Steinberg/ATCA citation is a much-deserved honor for a talented playwright (it is) but because the ATCA committee saw End Days much differently than did those who recommend productions for Carbonell Awards consideration.  The Carbonells, which will take place again on April 7 at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, are South Florida's equivalent of the Joseph Jefferson Awards, the Helen Hayes Awards, whatever awards program you can think of that honors theater in a community.

  But when the nominees are read out at the ceremony on Monday, those in attendance will not hear Laufer's name or End Days on that short list.  That's because the local group that considered End Days last October decided it wasn't nomination-worthy.  The mysteries of the Carbonell recommendation process -- and, debatably, its flaws -- have generated a lot of buzz and some fury in South Florida's theater community of late.  That process is certainly going to be on the agenda at some future Carbonell meeting, after everyone gets glammed up and this year's awards are given out. Though not to Laufer.

I'm guessing, though, that the citation at the Humana Festival and the $7,500 check are some consolation.

A Broadway star comes home

Marc Kudish, who grew up in Plantation and graduated from Florida Atlantic University, has become one of Broaday's go-to stars in recent seasons.  He earned Tony Award nominations for his performances as a comedic bad guy in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the stuffy (but very funny) boss in Thoroughly Modern Millie.

For just one day, South Floridians can experience what Kudisch's fans do whenever he's in a Broadway musical: This is a guy who uses his robust baritone artfully, whether he's singing a big romantic ballad or doing the kind of amusing patter song that helped get him that Tony nomination for Millie.

Kudish, along with fellow Broadway veterans Carter Calvert, Rob Evan, Tamra Hayden and Danny Zolli, will be at the Parker Playhouse on April 12 for performances of Neil Berg's 100 Years of Broadway at 3 and 8 p.m.  Musical director Berg and a band will accompany the performers as they sing show tunes spanning a century.

Tickets are $29-$49, and the Parker is at 707 NE Eighth St. in Fort Lauderdale.  For information, call 954-462-0222 or visit the Parker web site.

Theater old and new

Here's the 411 on two productions set in days gone by, both with Florida connections.

Miami's New World School of the Arts is about to tackle a play that no professional theater here would dare touch -- if only because it has five acts and requires a cast of 25.  (That's the polar opposite of the one-set solo shows that seem to make so much sense to budget-minded artistic directors.)  The play is Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, a comedy from 1614, and faculty director Andrew Noble describes it as  "...multiple stories which are interwoven to create a rich and varied portrait of life in London."

Featuring Ashley Price, David Hemphill and Rachel Clark in its sizable company, Bartholomew Fair runs April 9-13 at New World, 25 NE Second Ave., Miami.  Performances are at 7:30 nightly except Sunday's, which is at 2 p.m.  Tickets are $12 ($5 for students and seniors).  Call 305-237-3541 or visit the New World web site.

Just announced is the Broadway run of the new musical version of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. The show, with a book, music and lyrics by Jill Santoriello, got its start at Sarasota's Asolo Repertory Theatre last fall.  It will begin previews at Broadway's Al Hirschfeld Theatre (currently home to the musical Curtains, which closes June 29) on Aug. 19.  Its official opening is set for Sept. 19.

When the musical set against the backdrop of the French Revolution had its world premiere at the Asolo, Broadway baritone James Barbour (who played the Broward Center last season as Sir Lancelot in Camelot), starred as the heroic Sydney Carton.  In January, Barbour pled guilty to two misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a minor, stemming from sexual contact he had with a then-15-year-old girl when he was starring on Broadway in Jane Eyre.  He was sentenced to 60 days in jail and three years' probation -- and, as part of his plea bargain, had to admit that the young woman's account of their past relationship was true, something he had denied.  So: no word on whether Barbour will be Broadway's Sydney Carton.

(Carol Rosegg photo of the Asolo production)

Guys and Dolls and Underpants

Two of South Florida's premiere college theater programs are doing their spring shows in the next few weeks.

First up is Florida International University's production of Steve Martin's The Underpants.

The former wild-and-crazy guy adapted Carl Sternheim's banned 1911 play into a sex farce about a married woman whose undies drop to her ankles while she's watching a parade. Though her husband is scandalized, the men who saw the descending undergarments find themselves in a more lustful frame of mind.

The Underpants runs April 3-6 in the Wertheim Performing Arts Center Studio Theatre on FIU's main University Park campus. From April 10-13, it plays the Mary Ann Wolfe Theatre on the Biscayne Bay campus in North Miami.  Tickets are $10 ($8 for seniors, students and FIU alumni).  For tickets, call 305-348-3789 or visit the FIU theater website.

At the University of Miami, spring brings a big musical:  Guys and Dolls.  The 1950 Frank Loesser-Abe Burrows-Jo Swerling smash is set in Damon Runyon's version of New York, and it features such well-known showtunes as Luck Be a Lady, Adelaide's Lament and Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat. The show runs April 16-18 at the Jerry Herman Ring Theatre, 1312 Miller Dr. in Coral Gables. Tickets are $18-$20 (seniors, faculty, staff and alumni pay $16-$18; students pay $8-$10).  For information, call 305-284-3355 or visit UM's theater web site.

A premiere season at Florida Stage

Florida Stage is now presenting the world premiere of Jessica Goldberg's Ward 57, a thought-provoking play about wounded Iraq War soldiers and making sense of their sacrifice.  But premieres are nothing new at the Manalapan company, which has made the nurturing of new work its mission for the past 21 years.

The just-announced 2008-2009 season brings more of the same;  four plays getting their world premieres, a fifth being one for the first time in the southeast.

Florida Stage's next season begins Oct. 22-Nov. 30 with the world premiere of Willliam Mastrosimone's Dirty Business.  The play, which generated much buzz when it was read at the company's second 1st Stage New Works Festival a few weeks ago, is based on the true story of a party girl caught between a Mafia boss and an American president. 

Next is the southeastern prmiere of Michele Lowe's Mezzulah, 1946.  The play about an aircraft plant worker who refuses to give up her job to a returning warrior runs Dec. 10-Jan. 19.  Cagney!, a musical tribute to actor-hoofer-tough guy Jimmy Cagney, follows Jan. 28-March 8, with Robert Creighton starring as Cagney.

Another play from this year's New Works Festival, Catherine Trieshmann's The Bridegroom of Blowing Rock, has its world premiere March 25-May 3, 2009.  That one is about romance and revenge in the period right after the Civil War.  Steven Dietz's Yankee Tavern, a thriller set after 9/11 (and a script read during the company's first New Works Festival), winds up the regular season from May 13 to June 21.

But...the company will also do another 1st Stage New Works Festival, a summer musical and its annual Young Playwrights and Monologue Festival.  For subscription information, go to the web site or call 1-800-514-3837.

A Miami Wonderland

Alice is going back to Wonderland, but this time with a South Florida twist.  PlayGround Theatre Artistic Director Stephanie Ansin has adapted Lewis Carroll's classic for a new production that will be seen by hundreds of families and, at last count, more than 4,000 elementary and middle school students (and those students will see the show for free).

In crafting her made-in-Miami Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Ansin made Alice (played by Kristen Dawn McCorkell) a Catholic school student from Coral Gables.  The Doormouse (Melissa Almaguer) is a Spanish-speaking Cuban mouse.  The garden Alice explores is a dream version of Fairchild Tropical Gardens.  And so on.  Also in the cast are Jeff Keogh, Linda Bernhard, Edgar Caraballo, Carolina Fonseca, Gonzalo Madurga, Marjorie O'Neill-Butler and Jesus Quintero.

Co-adaptor and set-costume-lighting designer Fernando Calzadilla, a doctoral candidate at New York University; video/photo projections by Maria Teresa Alvarado; and original music/sound design by Luciano Stazzone all contribute to the Alice-goes-tropical feeling of the production.

The PlayGround production has its official premiere Saturday, March 29, at 7 p.m. at the company's theater, 9806 NE Second Ave. in Miami Shores.  It will have both school and public performances there through April 13; from April 18-20, the show will be done at Miami Beach's Colony Theatre, 1040 Lincoln Road.  Tickets are $15, but groups of 20 or more pay $10 per ticket, and students can buy a ticket through Miami-Dade County's Culture Shock program for just $5.  Call 305-751-9550, ext. 223, visit the PlayGround web site or get Colony tickets via Ticketmaster.

A company begins with a bench

Max Pearl, Darrell Calvin and Aaron Morris -- experienced theater guys all -- are getting ready for the launch of their new company, the Pinecrest Repertory Theatre.

The adventure begins at 4 p.m. Saturday, March 29, when Pinecrest Rep unveils its inaugural production, a double bill of early one-acts by David Mamet (right) and Edward Albee (below).  The common thread, beyond the fact that Mamet's Duck Variations and Albee's Zoo Story are the young works of great dramatists? Both plays take place on a park bench.

In Duck Variations, two elderly men talk about ducks, yes, but their conversation ranges over friendship, life and death.  In Zoo Story, a middle class man and a volatile younger one meet on a bench in Central Park, with disturbing results.

Pinecrest Rep will perform in the 550-seat Banyan Bowl at Pinecrest Gardens, the former home of Parrot Jungle, at 11000 Red Rd. in Pinecrest.  Tickets are just $10 -- for for students, seniors and members of the military, $8.  Though the opening performance is at 4 p.m., subsequent ones are at 2 p.m.  Performance dates are March 29-30, April 12-13, April 20, April 27 and May 3.  Pearl directs an acting company that includes Mitchell Carrey, Brian McCormack, Steve Schlam, Gary Solomon and Skye Whitcomb.

For information, call 305-720-0811 or go to the Pinecrest Rep web site.

Special theater awards

Each year South Florida's theater community -- well, a great deal of it, from Miami-Dade to Palm Beach County -- gathers at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts to recognize some of the best work done at the region's many theaters during the previous year.  The annual Carbonell Awards, which will take place on Monday, April 7, at 7:30 p.m. in the Broward Center's Amaturo Theater, also give out several special honors, including the George Abbott Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts. It goes this year to Jack Zink, longtime Sun-Sentinel theater critic, for his many contributions to theater, to the evolution of the Carbonells themselves and to the work he did as president of the American Theatre Critics Association foundation. The hard-working, multi-tasking Zink becomes the first person to win the Abbott Award twice.

The recipients of three other special awards were announced today. 

The Bill Hindman Award -- an honor very close to my heart, as it is named for my late father -- goes to New Theatre founder Rafael de Acha.  The award recognizes significant long-term contributions to the region's cultural life.  As artistic director of a theater where a multicultural company performed classics and new work, De Acha was responsible for helping get the commission that led to Nilo Cruz's Anna in the Tropics, a play that made Cruz the first Latino winner of the Pulitzer Prize for drama after its world premiere at New Theatre.  De Acha also directed my dad in many productions, giving him a real working "home" toward the end of his life and becoming his dear friend.

Also being honored at this year's Carbonells is Michael Hall, founder and artistic director of Boca Raton's 33-year-old Caldwell Theatre Company.  Hall is being given the Ruth Foreman Award, named in honor of the late producer-director who was long known as Florida's "First Lady of Theater."  The Foreman recognizes contributions to South Florida theater development, and Hall is getting it for his achievement in guiding his company's new $10 million Count de Hoernle Theatre from dream to reality.

The third honor, the Howard Kleinberg Award, goes to the Theatre League of South Florida.  Named for former Miami News editor Howard Kleinberg, it recognizes contributions to the health and development of the arts in South Florida.  Meredith Lasher, the League's current president, will accept the award at the Carbonell ceremony.

Congratulations to all!

Summertime dreamin'

Florida Stage traditionally does a musical revue in the summer, usually something full of show tunes that appeal to its loyal and undeniably (how to say this?) vintage group of theatergoers.

The Manalapan company has just announced this summer's show and -- surprise! -- it's actually full of songs that were popular after the 1940s and '50s, and in a different genre.

Dream a Little Dream, subtitled "The Nearly True Story of the Mamas and The Papas," is a bio-musical put together by Paul Ledoux and the late Denny Doherty, one of the members of the powerhouse '60s folk-rock group (that's Doherty waving in the photo at left, in back of Cass Elliot, who's beside Michelle and John Phillips).

An evolved version of a show which had an Off-Broadway run in 2003 as a vehicle for Doherty, Dream a Little Dream tells the story of the group and runs through its biggest hits: California Dreamin', Monday Monday, Dedicated to the One I Love, Creeque Alley and, of course, Dream a Little Dream.

It will play Florida Stage from June 25 through Aug. 31; right now, only subscribers and groups can buy tickets, but anyone can starting May 1.  For info, call 1-800-514-3837.

And yes, I do realize that to people in their 20s, 30s, maybe 40s, a Mamas and Papas revue might feel as old school as a Rodgers and Hart show feels to Baby Boomers.  But hey -- it's progress!

Lifting the curtain on Caldwell's summer lineup

Boca Raton's Caldwell Theatre Company, which will wind up its first regular season in the spiffy new $10 million Count de Hoernle Theatre with a production of Tuesdays With Morrie, doesn't plan to let that expensive real estate stay dormant over the summer.

Its three-show summer lineup begins June 20-July 6 with Pete 'n' Keely, a musical about singing sweethearts who reunite for a live television show in 1968 after not speaking for five years.  Carbonell Award winner Connie SaLoutos plays Keely in the musical by James Hindman.

John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize-winning Doubt, the play that inaugurated the Caldwell's new home in December, returns Aug. 1-17 with the same cast:  Amy Montminy, Pat Nesbit, Terry Hardcastle (pictured at left) and Pat Bowie, nominated for a Carbonell Award for her performance in the play.

Last is David C. Hyer's Lying in State, a crazy comedy that skewers politicians.  Though probably no moreso than they manage to skewer themselves. It runs Sept. 5-21.  The Caldwell is offering tickets to a single play or the option of two- or three-show subscriptions. One play costs $34 or $38; two are $60 or $70; three are $84 or $93, depending on seat location.  For information, call 561-241-7432, 1-877-245-7432 or visit the Caldwell web site. 

An original work takes flight

Artist and playwright Vanessa Garcia is a Miami-born Cuban-American who is making art in her hometown after graduating (summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa) from Barnard College in 2001.  Her Miami company, The Krane, is home to a group of versatile artists who do both visual arts and theater projects, one of which is debuting now in Coconut Grove.

Garcia's  Cloudcuckooland, subtitled "A Play About Life, Love and Miami," is inspired by Aristophanes' The Birds.  Set in present-day Miami, it follows a mid-20s Cuban-American woman named Bobby as she decides to enter a competition to build a flying machine.  In her dreams, she encounters lost aviatrix Amelia Earhart (that's Cristina Morrison as Earhart and Nicole Garcia as Bobby in Stefan Pinto's photo at left) and another woman who's good at flying, Mary Poppins.  The play explores love, faith, determination and the bonds of family, in a city where hope and danger coexist.

Cloudcuckooland, an adventurous young artist's reaction to a classic, is definitely not the same old thing in South Florida theater.  It runs this weekend at Abanico Theatre, 3138 Commodore Plaza, Coconut Grove.  Performances are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday.  Tickets are $25 ($15 for students, $7 for children).  For info, call 305-450-9931.

Let them entertain (and enlighten) you

For the third year running, South Florida's sprawling theater community -- which stretches from Key West in the south to Jupiter in the north -- is celebrating the richness and sheer number of its offerings with the annual South Florida Theatre Festival.

The region's producers and artistic directors (some pictured in Michael Murphy's photo: in front row, left to right, Joseph Adler of GableStage, Barbara Stein of Actors' Playhouse, Stephanie Norman of City Theatre, Richard Jay Simon of MosaicTheatre; back row, left to right, Avi Hoffman of New Vista Theatre, Nan Barnett of Florida Stage, Meredith Lasher of the Women's Theatre Project and Antonio Amadeo of the Naked Stage) are trying to introduce theater fans to their companies with discounted tickets, play readings and three special forums during the festival, which runs through May 12.

The forums begin March 25 with a session on gay and lesbian theater, to be held at the ArtServe Auditorium, 1350 E. Sunrise Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, with critic/editor Mary Damiano moderating.  A forum on ethnic theater takes place April 22 at New Theatre, 4120 Laguna St. in Coral Gables, with Channel 10 anchor Charles Perez moderating.  A Yiddish theater forum is set for May 5 at New Vista Theatre, 12811 Glades Rd., Boca Raton, with Gail Garrisan moderating a panel that will include Hoffman and Tony-nominated actor Bruce Adler.  All sessions are free and begin at 7 p.m.

Theatre League board president Meredith Lasher points out that the festival encompasses 40 shows at 37 theaters in four counties, adding, "Theaters are producing free events that are open to the public, like play readings and workshops.  They are holding talk-backs after their shows to invite audiences to have a peek behind the curtain and learn more about the inner workings of theater...there is certainly something for everyone to enjoy."

As the winning festival poster, which was designed by playwright-actor-set designer-graphic artist Michael McKeever, conveys, there's a lot that's festive about this festival.  Theatremania is sponsoring an audience favorite contest, taking votes at each theater and at the South Florida Theatre website, with the winning theater in each county receiving $1,000 and marketing support.  An audience member will win too:   One person whose name is drawn from those entries will receive subscriptions to GableStage, the Broward Center and Florida Stage for next season.  There will also be an online Celebrity Cruise auction.

The closing party on May 12, to be held at Stork's Cafe, 1109 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, will be an awards bash, with the presentation of the Theatre League's Lifetime Achievement Award, the REMY Award for service to the League and the Silver Palm Awards, citations for excellence during the festival. The party is free to League members, $25 for anyone else who'd like to join in the celebration.

But meanwhile, check out what the hoopla is all about, and see a show.

A chilling play, a call for entries and an honor

It has been a Martin McDonagh-rich season in South Florida so far, beginning with GableStage's bloody wonderful Carbonell Award-nominated The Lieutenant of Inishmore, followed by Naked Stage's beautifully acted study of spiteful brothers in The Lonesome West.  GableStage won several Carbonells last year for its terrific production of McDonagh's The Pillowman, and if you missed that one, you have another chance to see the play.

The theater department at Broward Community College is tackling McDonagh's shocking script about the interrogation of a writer in a totalitarian state, a writer whose chilling stories about children are being replicated in real life.  The Pillowman begins performances Thursday at 8 p.m. at the Fine Arts Theatre in Bldg. 6 of the main campus, 3501 SW Davie Rd. in Davie. It runs through March 22, with shows at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Saturday matinees.  Tickets are $10 ($5 if you attend or work at BCC).  Call 954-201-6884 for info.

***

  The sixth annual Lavender Footlights Festival is happening May 31 and June 1 at Miami's Museum of Science & Planetarium.  But the deadline for submitting scripts for the play-reading event is much sooner: March 24.  Plays (no musicals or screenplays) must have themes of interest to the gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender community.  Submissions need to have a cover letter with return address, contact information and a statement that the play hasn't been produced in Florida; a copy of the script and a one-page synopsis if the play is full length. Mail submissions to festival artistic director Ryan Capiro (that's Ryan at left), Lavendar Footlights Festival, PO Box 942107, Miami, FL 33194-2107.  You can also submit via Email.

***

Good news for Erik Liberman, the Miami-raised actor and New World School of the Arts grad who played Charley in Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along at Virginia's Signature Theatre last season.  All three leads in the show -- Erik (at left), Tracy Lynn Olivera and Will Gartshore -- have been nominated for the Helen Hayes Award, the Washington D.C. area's version of South Florida's Carbonells.  Erik is up for outstanding supporting actor in a resident musical for his performance as Charley Kringas.  He'll find out whether he's the Hayes winner during the ceremony April 28.

New voices in play writing

You have four chances -- two today, two on Sunday -- to hear what the young playwrights at Miami's New World School of the Arts have on their minds.

Ten new student plays are being done at this year's New Playwright Festival, which happens today at 4:30 and 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 1 and 4 p.m. in Studio 5902 and 5903 on the ninth floor at the school, 25 NE Second St.  And you can see it all for free.

The lineup includes Samantha Fraga's Pretend (pictured at left), a play that blurs the line between life and fairy-tale, and I Lost My Mind With the Easter Eggs, a piece about a father trying to persuade his daughter that there is no Easter Bunny; Sasha Vokovic's Cure, a mixed-media work about the thoughts of a serial killer; Chrystie Martinez's Roar, about a rampaging beast; Hannah Benitez's Boom, a post-Apocalyptic play, and When I Fly Around, a piece imagining flight; Ana Heretoiu's Jelly Bean, I stole your heart, which involves a tango and jelly beans; Mark Della Ventura's Bill & Nick, about two boys and a surprising afternoon; and Monica Skoko's Gravity Rides Everything, which looks at the games we all play.

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