Summer Shorts sets its company

City Theatre's popular Summer Shorts festival will unfold June 12-July 6 in the Carnival Studio Theater at Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.  But already, producing artistic director John Manzelli has figured out his acting company and who will be joining him in directing this year's short plays -- Margaret M. Ledford and New Theatre artistic director Ricky J. Martinez.

Returning to the Shorts company are Irene Adjan, Elizabeth Dimon and Todd Allen Durkin.  Joining those experienced Summer Shorts actors are David Perez-Ribada, Niki Fridh and Mcley Lafrance.  Jodi Dellaventura will create the Shorts set, Ellis Tillman the costumes and Matt Corey the sound design.  The play titles are TBA but coming soon.

Performances will be 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday, and tickets will cost $40-$45.  To launch sales, City Theatre is offering a 20 percent early bird discount on tickets purchased by April 30.  Use the promotional code EARLY (valid for Wednesday-Friday shows).  For info, call the Arsht at 305-949-6722 or visit the center's web site.

(Pictured are Irene Adjan, Elizabeth Dimon and Todd Allen Durkin.)

 

 

'Ragtime,' 'Murder Ballad' top 2014-15 Actors' Playhouse lineup

Just as it's getting ready to open this season's big musical -- Monty Python's Spamalot -- Actors' Playhouse in Coral Gables has settled on the six shows for its 2014-2015 season.

First up (Oct. 8-Nov. 2) is the Julia Jordan-Juliana Nash adult rock musical Murder Ballad, a 2013 Off-Broadway hit about a successful New Yorker whose past dangerously resurfaces.  Placing the audience and performers together in a bar setting, the show mixes lust, betrayal and violence.

Tom Dudzick's play Miracle on Division Street is next, running Dec. 3-28.  Set in Buffalo, N.Y., the comedy centers on a matriarch who runs a soup kitchen next to her family's most treasured artifact:  a 20-foot-tall shrine to the Virgin Mary, the subject of a legend that may not be quite accurate.

The company's biggest undertaking of next season, the Terrence McNally-Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens musical Ragtime, runs Jan. 28-Feb. 22.  Based on E.L. Doctorow's sprawling, history-laced novel linking an upper class white family, black characters and Jewish immigrants in the early 20th century, the Tony Award-winning show features a cast of more than 30 actors.

The Austin Winsberg-Alan Zachary musical First Date will run March 18-April 12, 2015. The 2012 Broadway musical centers on a couple whose blind date at a restaurant morphs to involve friends, exes, parents and more.

The Book Club Play by Karen Zacarias, running May 13-June 7, 2015, is a comedy about that omnipresent social and literary gathering, the book club. When members of one club become the subjects of a documentary, the arrival of a new member shakes up the group dynamics.

Next season winds up with a summer run of Paul Slade Smith's Unnecessary Farce July 15-Aug. 9, 2015.  In addition to the requisite number of doors (eight in this case), this farce involves an embezzling mayor, a hit man, an accountant who keeps shedding her clothes and a couple of eavesdropping cops.

Subscriptions to the new season are now on sale.  Prices range from $203 for preview performances to $453 for gala opening night tickets, which include pre- and post-show parties.  Subscriptions to Wednesday or Thursday evening performances and Sunday matinees are $257; Friday and Saturday evening subscriptions are $293.  Special VIP/flexible, student and young professional packages are also available.

Actors' Playhouse performs at the Miracle Theatre, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables. For information, call 305-444-9293 or visit the company's web site.

 (Photos of the New York productions of Murder Ballad and Ragtime by Joan Marcus.)