Theater gets festive

The Theatre League of South Florida -- or TLSF, as the group is now branding itself -- is gearing up for the fourth annual South Florida Theatre Festival, which kicks off with dual events Oct. 12 and runs through Oct. 26.  Performances, parties, a luncheon and the Silver Palm Awards ceremony are on the bill, along with local participation in the national Free Night of Theater event.

First up, both on Oct. 12, are the Naked Stage's annual 24-Hour Theatre Project, this year in the large downstairs theater at Actors' Playhouse, with a public performance of hot-from-the-laptop short plays at 8 p.m; and Florida Stage's reading of The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later at 7 p.m.

On Oct. 15, a number of area theaters -- including Actors' Playhouse, Florida Stage, GableStage, New Theatre, Palm Beach Dramaworks, the Women's Theatre Project, the Fort Lauderdale Children's Theatre and the Miami Children's Theatre -- join with more than 450 theaters around the country to offer some free theater tickets to their shows.  The Free Night of Theater event, sponsored by the Theatre Communications Group, is still getting its full web info up and running, so check back for details. 

Miami ARTzine holds its fourth anniversary party from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Oct. 19 at Museo Vault in Miami's Wynwood Arts District, and TLSF members get $5 off the $20 admission price.  On Oct. 24 at noon at the Miami Shores Country Club, the South Florida International Press Club is honoring TV personality Cristina Saralegui, Barry University president Sister Linda Bevilaqua, philanthropist Candi Casino and a trio of arts leaders: TSLF president Meredith Lasher, Miami-Dade  Department of Cultural Affairs director Michael Spring and Broward Cultural Division director Mary Becht.  The $65 luncheon charge funds scholarships for future journalists; call Andy Alpers at 305-596-4228 for reservations.

The 2009 festival ends with a closing-night party Oct. 26 from 7:30 to 11:30 p.m. at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale.  A $20 admission charge (free for TLSF members) gets you food, drink and a chance to watch as the Silver Palm Awards honoring excellence in South Florida theater are presented.  Call TLSF at 954-557-0778 for more information.

Conundrum gets its talent on

In the tradition of America's Got Talent (well, almost any talent showcase you could name), Conundrum Stages is departing from its usual program of staged readings to offer a free evening spotlighting an array of South Florida talent.

Lights Up!will feature performances by dancers, singers, actors, spoken word artists and a comedian.  On the bill are dancer Afua Hall, the Dancerity Performance Company and hip-hop crew  No Turning Back; spoken word performers Summer Hill Seven, Alexis Caputo and The Chaos Theory; singers John Lariviere, Crystal Renae, Kristen Dawn McCorkell and violinist Erin David; comedian Daleena Segui; actors Don Crinklaw, Elizabeth Perry and Kirsten Upchurch; and a number from the Florida International University production of Reefer Madness.

All that free entertainment unfolds at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 26 at the Collins Community Center, 3900 NE Third Ave., Oakland Park.  For info, call 954-630-4500 or E-mail [email protected].

A new company takes off

Fly Away Balloon Theatre Company -- a group whose name was inspired by a line in The Wizard of Oz -- is a collection of actors, directors and playwrights (some do all three things) who have decided to showcase their original work.  The result is Composition Notebook, an evening of short plays written by the company's members.

The show begins at 8 p.m. Friday and runs through Sept. 20 with performances at 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday and a special Industry Night show at 8 p.m. this Monday.

The artists involved are Susanna Brunner, Troy Davidson, Casey Dressler, Kally Khourshid, Miriam Kulick, Jordan Papriarca, Joe Smith and Wendy White.

See what's in the notebook at the Laboratory Theatre at The Acting School of South Florida, 2640 Hollywood Blvd., #212, Hollywood.  Suggested donation is $15 ($8 students and seniors), $10 for Industry Night.  For information and reservations, call 305-879-7282.

Coming out to Mom

Jeffrey Solomon once had the "talk" with his mom, and he turned it into art. The conversation wasn't about sex, though; think sexual orientation.

Solomon plays both a guy like himself and a gal like his Jewish mother in Mother/SON, a solo show running Thursday through Sunday at the Museum of Art auditorium in Fort Lauderdale.

The actor-writer's funny, moving and award-winning show examines the fear, honesty and eventual acceptance in the mother-son relationship.

Says Solomon:  "After convincing my mother I wasn't joking, she wept, smiled and remarked that maybe it wasn't so bad because Liberace was gay and he let his elderly mother live with him in his mansion.I think the most important thing I learned from my mother is that real gay pride is having the guts to start a conversation even when it's scary or uncomfortable for you."

A co-production of the Broward Center and Inside Out Theatre, Mother/SONwill be performed at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.  Tickets are $30, and the theater is located at 1 E. Las Olas Blvd. in Fort Lauderdale.  For information, call 954-462-0222 or visit the Broward Center's web site.

Divas and drinks

OK, so the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts is actually calling its 2009-10 cabaret series "Cabaret & Cocktails," but you get the picture.  Three Broadway leading ladies -- Sherie Rene Scott, Karen Akers and Christine Andreas (she's pictured here) -- will do their thing in the Carnival Studio Theater this season.  Rechristened the Carnival Studio Cabaret for these performances, the theater will become a club where audiences can order drinks and nibbles created by restaurateur Barton G.

Scott, who has starred on Broadway in Aida, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Little Mermaidand more, makes her cabaret debut Oct. 15-18.  Akers devotes an evening to the songs of Jule Styne Jan. 21-24.  And Andreas, who starred in the first-ever show at the Arsht (The Light in the Piazza), brings her acclaimed cabaret show back to the Carnival April 22-25.

Single tickets are $45; a subscription to all three shows is $123.  Tickets go on sale Sept. 12.  For more information, call 305-949-6722 or visit the Arsht web site.

The vanishing fourth wall

 At the risk of revealing a little too much about my psychological makeup, I have a confession:  I love the fourth wall.

If you're reading a theater blog, you undoubtedly know that the fourth "wall" is that invisible divide between the actors onstage and those of us watching from the audience.  As the performers play out a story while pretending there aren't a few hundred (or a few thousand) people watching them, we might observe them silently or laugh or applaud, but we also respect the wall.

Except lately, not so much.  When you go to see a show by say, the incomparable Dame Edna, you go ready.  You know that if you snag a seat in the first few rows, your fate as "volunteer" (or victim) rests in the megastar's well-manicured hands.  For the great Dame, the fourth wall isn't just invisible:  It doesn't exist.  If you're not willing to be comically violated, it's best to sit with the "paupers" at the back of the theater.

Over the past 10 days at different South Florida theaters, however, that invisible fourth wall has seemed increasingly permeable.

At the Promethean Theater's Cannibal! The Musical Live On Stage, another critic found herself pressured to continue an actor's cowbell solo.  She politely nodded "no," so he dropped the cowbell into her lap.

When my hubby and I went to the Arsht Center to see The Harder They Come on Saturday, we shook hands and exchanged words with the actors playing Pedro the ganja guy and a Jamaican policeman.  The next day, a merry masked member of the Commedia dell'Arte-style Taming of the Shrew cast at New Theatre stopped by my aisle seat for a little interaction, bringing the spotlight and the crowd's attention with her.

OK, so these aren't the worst surprise interaction moments of my theater-going life (those would be when an actor at GableStage tossed a condom-covered banana into my lap and/or when Tony Danza knelt beside me at the Rainbow Room for a brief serenade).  But interactive theater, especially insistently interactive theater, makes me uncomfortable.

To reiterate: I love the fourth wall.  If I wanted to be in a show, I'd audition instead of buying a ticket.  Just sitting there in the dark, listening and reacting and thinking, is fine by me.  As Peter Sellers put it in Being There, "I like to watch."

Area's bilingual season

Area Stage, the pioneering Lincoln Road theater company that has found new life at the Riviera Theater in Coral Gables, is opening its second play in a row by Venezuelan Gustavo Ott this weekend. Ott's Pony, a dark comedy about personal and political fraud, is directed by Area's John Rodaz, and it stars Venezuelan actors Flor Núñez and Franklin Virguez.

As it did with Ott's Tu ternura Molotov (Molotov Kisses), Area will present this co-production of Pony in Spanish with English supertitles (later in the run, Area did an English-language version of the play).  The Spanish-with-supertitles presentation is also the plan for the following two offerings, Enrique Rodriguez Maribal's La ultima cena  (The Last Supper)with Marta Velasco and Zully Montero (in October-November), and Christian Velencia's musical Amante a la antigua (In Love With the Past) with Lena Burke and Felipe Viel (December-January).

For the latter part of Area's season, Rodaz shifts to doing plays in both languages.  Arthur Kopit's Road to Nirvana (February-March) and Terrence McNally's The Lisbon Traviata (April-May) are plays Rodaz staged at the first Area location.  Now, he'll do both shows in Spanish and in English, a choice that makes Area's audience reach even larger.

Pony opens Saturday at 8 p.m. and runs through Sept. 27, with shows at 8 p.m. Saturdays, 5 p.m. Sundays.  Tickets are $25 Saturday, $20 Sunday.  Area performs at 1560 S. Dixie Hwy. in Coral Gables. For information, call 305-666-2078 or visit Area's web site.

(Photo of Flor Núñez and Franklin Virguez by El Nuevo Herald)

'Nanette' hoofs yet again

Broward Stage Door Theatre, one of South Florida's key places where musicals live (Actors' Playhouse in Coral Gables and the Maltz Jupiter Theatre in Jupiter are the others), has just kicked off its new season with a large-cast, tap-happy revival of No, No Nanette.

With music by Vincent Youmans and lyrics by Irving Caesar and Otto Harbach, the 1925 musical seems to have been a prototype for many that came after it, including the zany Drowsy Chaperone.  Nanette features comic confusion, blackmail, sweethearts with obstacles and, of course, loads of great tap numbers.  Not to mention hits like I Want To Be Happy and Tea for Two.

Stage Door's management points out that a ticket to the original production was $3.25, and you could see the 1971 Broadway revival that gave the show a new life for $15.  Tickets to the new production are $32 -- not so bad, all these years later.

No, No Nanette runs through Sept. 27 at the Stage Door, 8036 W. Sample Rd. in Coral Springs.  Performances are 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday, 2 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday and Saturday-Sunday.  Call 954-344-7765 or visit the theater's web site for details.

Sarasota's international arts fest

If you're willing to hit the road in search of artistic thrills, you might want to block out Oct. 7-11 for a trip to Sarasota.  That's when the inaugural Ringling International Arts Festival, a collaborative multidisciplinary event created by New York's Baryshnikov Arts Center and Sarasota's John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, unfolds in the elegant environs of Florida State University's  66-acre cultural campus on Sarasota Bay.

What's on the bill?  The celebration kicks off with an opening night concert by the Florida State University Symphony, conducted by Robert Spano and featuring pianist Pedja Muzijevic (8:30 p.m. Oct. 7). Ella Hickson's play Eight, an Edinburgh Fringe Festival hit, paints a portrait of modern Great Britain through monologues (Oct. 8-11). You can also catch the world premiere of  Elevator Repair Service's take on Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (Oct. 8-11), a piece commissioned by the festival.

Renowned director Peter Brook's production Love is my sin, featuring longtime Brook collaborators Natasha Parry and Bruce Meyers, is woven from Shakespeare's sonnets (Oct. 8-11).  Chamber music performed by pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, violinist Jennifer Frautschi, cellist Edward Arron and horn player Erick Ruske takes place in two programs (Oct. 8-9 and Oct. 10-11).  Meow Meow (pictured here) brings her "post-modern showgirl" allure to Beyond Glamour: The Absinthe Tour (Oct. 8-11).

Deganit Shemy & Company debut Arena, a new dance piece commissioned by the festival.  Spain's Compañia María Pagés brings Flamenco y Poesía to the festival (Oct. 8-11).  Canada's Azure Barton & Artists premiere the festival-commissioned  dance piece Busk,while the American company OtherShore performs The Snow Falls in Winter (Oct. 8-10). 

Tickets for most performances range from $10 to $30, and you can save 15 percent if you go to four performances, 20 percent for six, 25 percent for eight.  Seems like a bargain: See-it-first art just a little over three hours away from South Florida.

For information, phone 941-360-7399 or visit the festival's web site.

Theater types branch out

* Alex Fumero, Lucas Leyva and Marco Ramirez -- the three South Florida playwright/founders of Foryoucansee Theater -- are touting something non-theatrical but plenty literary.  A new book titled Hialeah Haikus with Miami-flavored, Japanese-style poetry will get a reading at 8 p.m. Friday at Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables.  Also featured in the book are poems by Eric Anderson, Ceci Fernandez, Danny Monsalve, Alex Nodarse, Elena Santayana and Jose El Rey, with photographs by Matthew Berkowitz.  The reading is free, but the book is $10, with sales benefiting the not-for-profit company Hispanic Events.

*  Phillip M. Church, an associate professor of theater at Florida International University, is launching a course in collaboration with the Miami World Cinema Center in Wynwood.  "Crossing Over: Between Film-Theater-Television" aims to teach both beginning and experienced actors and directors some of the skills they need to work in all three art forms.  The class costs $450, runs for six weeks (Sept. 7-Oct. 14)  and is limited to 18 students.  To register, phone 305-348-0496 or E-mail [email protected]; for questions, E-mail [email protected].