2 Pianos 4 Hands/A Few Good Men (Curtain Up Preview #3/4)

Hey everyone,

Today’s post is about two very different shows (two in one because I’m running out of time – Curtain Up! is less than 24 hours away and I wanted to hit at least four theatres before the start)

2 Pianos 4 Hands, MusicalFare’s CU! offering, is a comedic tale of two brothers dreaming of being concert pianists. MusicalFare describes it as follows:

2 PIANOS 4 HANDS is the riotous tale of two boys sharing the same goal: concert pianist stardom.  Two actors, two grand pianos, and many, many comic characters grace the stage as fifteen years of learning the art of piano playing unfolds.  With music from classical to pops to jazz, 2 PIANOS 4 HANDS features a show of piano wizardry from Beethoven to Jerry Lee Lewis.

This particular cast of two features Randy Kramer, founder and artistic/executive director of MusicalFare, and Jeffrey Rockwell (playing this role for a second time). Tom Frey directs. Definitely worth checking out for the piano action alone!

Be sure to check out Artvoice’s preview video too.

2 Pianos 4 Hands is already running, and continues to run through October 11th.

On the flip side is A Few Good Men at the Kavinoky Theatre. This is a WNY premiere, and it looks like an exciting one. The Aaron Sorkin drama (famously adapted for film) tells the story of two Marines on trial:

This Broadway hit about the trial of two Marines for complicity in the death of a fellow Marine at Guantanamo Bay sizzles on stage. The Navy lawyer, a callow young man more interested in softball games than the case, expects a plea bargain and a cover up of what really happened.  Prodded by a female member of his defense team, the lawyer eventually makes a valiant effort to defend his clients and, in so doing, puts the military mentality and the Marine code of honor on trial.

Peter Palmisano directs this production, with Terrence Anderson, Patrick Cameron, Nicholas Cocchetto, Kevin Craig, Casey Denton, Kurt Erb, Paschal Frisina III, Steve Jakiel, Peter Johnson, Kate LoConti, Tim Newell, Robert Rutland, Andrew Starr, Dan Walker, Joe Wiens, Tom Zindle in the cast. That’s an exciting list of actors, and I’m personally looking forward to seeing this one!

A Few Good Men opens September 11th (tonight!) and runs through October 11th. You can get tickets online at the Kavinoky Theatre website.

P.S. If anyone is interested in meeting up or saying hello at the Curtain Up party, get in touch! Email me, chris [at] backstagebuffalo [dot] com. I’d love to meet readers!

Blood Brothers (Curtain Up Preview #2)

It’s not too often you see a musical in the round, but Blood Brothers at the Irish Classical Theatre Company is an exciting opportunity to not only see that, but see an infrequently performed (in the US) rock musical that has taken London and the UK by storm for over twenty years.

Telling the story of fraternal twins who are separated at birth but fall in love with the same woman, Blood Brothers explores some interesting themes, touching on how the boys upbringing shapes their lives, class differences, etc. It’s an exciting piece no doubt. ICTC describes it as follows:

Now in its 21st year of production on London’s West End, this enormously popular musical tells the deeply moving story of twins separated at birth who, unaware of their true relationship and living at opposite ends of society, declare themselves “blood brothers.”  The ensuing powerful narrative, by the author or Educating Rita, relates their tragic destiny as the brothers fall in love with the same girl.

This production is directed by Fortunato Pezzimenti (ICTC “Producing Director”) with music direction by Allan Paglia and choreography by Michael Walline.

It’s fascinating to see ICTC add a musical to their lineup, and see it be this one no doubt, a modern rock show. Their take is definitely going to be worth seeing – perhaps we’ll have a new producer of musicals in town! It’s also nice to see a more contemporary piece in their line up, perhaps it’s just my memory only stretching back a few years (well, it definitely is) but I’m only familiar with ICTC as a producer of classic works. Seeing them reach up to the last few decades is refreshing!

Blood Brothers opens Friday (September 11th, as do all Curtain Up! shows) and runs until October 11th (as do most Curtain Up! shows). Tickets are available at the ICTC website, IrishClassicalTheatre.com.

The cast list is as follows:

Loraine O’Donnell as Mrs. Johnstone
Brian Riggs as The Narrator
Jenn Stafford as Mrs. Lyons
Doug Crane as Mr. Lyons
David Autovino as Mickey
Steve Copps as Eddie
Nathan Winkelstein as Sammy
Cassie Gorniewicz as Linda
Ensemble – David Bondrow, Christopher Standart, Adrienne Lewis, Jessica Stuber

P.S. If anyone is interested in meeting up or saying hello at the Curtain Up party, get in touch! Email me, chris [at] backstagebuffalo [dot] com. I’d love to meet readers!

Grenadine (Curtain Up Preview #1)

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the prolonged absence. I’ve been getting resettled here in Buffalo and had to hold off on some blogging as a result. I’m back though, and Curtain Up!, the biggest event in the WNY theatre season, is on the horizon. I thought I’d post a series previewing the Curtain Up! shows, now through this Friday.

First up is Grenadine, a world premiere play at Road Less Traveled Productions.

Although it has never been formally produced, Grenadine is already quite accomplished. It won the 2008 Yale Drama Award, hand selected by Edward Albee for the honor. Albee will be in attendance for the production, and will also visit RLTP later this year, when they present his play “The Goat; Or Who Is Sylvia?”.

Grenadine tells the tale of a man in search for love. Separate press notes have described it as follows:

Grenadine follows a man’s quest for love in the company of his three devoted friends. The bonds of friendship are challenged – and ultimately reaffirmed – by the quartet’s journey through an unfamiliar landscape.

and

Four friends embark on a fantastical journey to win the heart of the fabled Grenadine… the bonds of friendship are challenged and ultimately reaffirmed by the quartet’s journey through an unfamiliar landscape.

Fairly similar; you get the idea.

It’s really exciting on many levels to see RLTP continue to premiere such exciting new works, with big names attached. Anthony Chase noted in this week’s Artvoice that RLTP is clearly “continuing its ambitious bid for a national profile” and if they continue to land award-winning plays like this, they’ll get on the national stage in no time.

Scott Behrend, RLTP co-founder and artistic director, will direct.

Grenadine stars Gerry Maher, with David Oliver, Jay Pichardo, Luke Wager, Peter Jaskowiak, Bonnie Jean Taylor, Lisa Vitrano, & Chris Corporandy also in the cast.

The show opens Friday (September 11th, as do all Curtain Up! shows) and runs through October 11th. Tickets are available online at RLTP’s website.

P.S. If anyone is interested in meeting up or saying hello at the Curtain Up party, get in touch! Email me, chris [at] backstagebuffalo [dot] com. I’d love to meet readers!

P.P.S. Embedded below are two YouTube videos previewing Grenadine. They’re also accessible at RLTP’s YouTube channel if you subscribe via RSS or email and don’t see the videos.

Chicago to be sans-Springer at Shea’s

Jerry Springer

Last week a contributor to Buffalo Rising posted an article indicating that Jerry Springer would be coming to Buffalo with the tour of Chicago that is coming to Shea’s next month.

It had only been announced that Springer would be performing in the Atlanta and Philadelphia legs of the tour (after a short Broadway engagement), so I was a little suspicious. It seemed believable though – Buffalo is after the Philadelphia stop, so perhaps he had extended.

I decided to contact a rep from the Chicago tour and get the real answer. Here’s what I was told…

Jerry Springer will only be doing the Philadelphia and Atlanta engagements of the CHICAGO tour.

No word yet as to who will be appearing in the Buffalo engagement.

So there you have it folks, Jerry Springer will not be with Chicago when it rolls into our neck of the woods. Don’t let that discourage you from getting tickets though – Chicago is still worth seeing, especially when it’s the official tour affiliated creatively with the Broadway show.

The dance goes on…

Buffalo’s dance scene is growing and expanding every day, and our connections and ties to the New York scene are evidence.

In fact, starting this week we’ll be getting an awesome dance experience for local dance lovers when Daniel Ulbricht, a principal dancer for the New York City Ballet, comes up to our area to teach (starting today) and premiere a new work.

Mr. Ulbricht will be conducting master classes for students at BAVPA, in addition to a public master class at the UB Center for the Arts. That’s also where he’ll be premiering his own choreography on Sunday September 20th, at 3:00pm in a dance program titled “A Dance Spectacular.” The release talked about it as follows:

Next month Mr. Ulbricht will appear at UB’s Center for the Arts in a world premiere of his choreography on Sunday, September 20, 3 p.m., in a program that includes works by George Balanchine. The program, “A Dance Spectacular”, will also feature principal dancers and soloists from New York City Ballet and Boston Ballet; and two pieces performed by local dance company Configuration Dance Theatre, headed by its Artistic Director and native Buffalonian, Joseph Cipolla.

Our dance scene is slowly becoming one of the most impressive for a city our size, although we clearly have a way to go. Hopefully this leads to more traditional ballet coming up our way, to help balance the modern dance that permeates our community (in UB’s Zodiaque, Configuration Dance, and LehrerDance). It’s a very exciting opportunity, and a show you don’t want to miss!

Remains of the day

We’re in between theatre seasons here in Buffalo. 2008-2009 is winding down, and preparations for 2009-2010 are ramping up with Curtain Up! 2009 less than a month away (I’ll start covering that next week).

In the meantime, there is not a lot of news in upcoming Buffalo theatre (give it a week or so, then the press machines will start humming), but there are a lot of cool links to share regardless.

Without further ado…

1. Buffalo Rising has a cool series on famous Buffalonians, and Harold Arlen showed up this week. Arlen is most famous for his work as a songwriter on The Wizard of Oz, and will be featured in the upcoming Broadway revival of “Finian’s Rainbow.”
2. Theatre Alliance of Buffalo will be hosting an event at the Erie Canal wharf: “Canal Connections.” It’ll be a preview of the upcoming 09-10 season, with presentations by various TAB member theatres.
3. The Buffalo News has a preview of ArtPark’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, one of the only productions going up this time of year.

Hope your summers are fun-filled and sun-filled!

Cincinnati Attitude

A few months ago, I was fortunate enough to attend the 2009 USITT (United States Institute for Theatre Technology) Conference & Stage Expo in Cincinnati, Ohio.

D. Lynn Meyers keynoted the 2009 USITT Conference & Stage Expo in Cincinnati, Ohio

The week-long event was keynoted by D. Lynn Meyers, the producing artistic director of the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati. In her address to the conference (video), Ms. Meyers discussed her tenure at the theatre, telling stories, sharing anecdotes, and offering her opinions on the future of the arts in an economy that can’t easily support them.

Although the speech is thick with references to Cincinnati and theatre tech-related stories, it’s absolutely still worth watching. She discusses not only the difficulty of producing theatre in a rough economy (something we complain about all too often) but producing it in situations that are quite literally life-or-death, in the case of her company’s location in Cincinnati’s Over-The-Rhine district.

Folks in Cincinnati are producing theatre even when their lives are at risk. So really, here in Buffalo we have no excuse. Let’s put on a show!

Happenin’ Times

Hello theatregoers of WNY!

A quick blog today to let you know about a reading happening tonight. Subversive Theatre will be presenting a free (donations appreciated) reading of Tony Kushner’s “Homebody/Kabul” at their space (the Manny Fried Playhouse) tonight at 7:30pm. Kushner is obviously best known for his epic, Pulitzer-winning two-part play “Angels in America”. “Homebody/Kabul” is more recent, first performed in the aftermath of September 11th.

They provided the following synopsis…

Written just before the attacks of 9/11, this drama about oppression in Afghanistan under the Taliban couldn’t be more timely. “I didn’t imagine, when I was working on the play, that by the time we produced it, the United States would be at war with Afghanistan,” author Tony Kushner told interviewer Noah Adams on NPR’s ‘All Things Considered’ on Dec 3, 2001.

As always with this playwright of ideas and commitment, the play compels us to look freshly at tinderbox issues that exist on several intriguing levels. HOMEBODY/KABUL is about lost civilizations and unsolvable paradoxes, furious differences and opposites and disintegrating, rotting pidgin cultures. It’s about desolation and love, in land-mined places, child murderers and fanatics, tranquilized existence and opium highs, travel in the largest sense of the word-travel of the mind and soul. To where? An unknowable mystery, perhaps, where all confusion is banished.

Directed by Subversive Theatre’s Overall Dramaturg Susan Forbes*, our staged reading features the acting talents of Jane Cudmore, Tom Scahill*, Stephanie Dale*, Doug Rogers, Jack Agugliaro*, David Butterfield, Brian Zybala*, Nate Benson, Tamara S. Hopersberger*.

I was able to attend their Infringement production of “The Hairy Ape” this past Saturday (admittedly, my first Subversive production!) and found a lot to love about this scrappy company. Definitely worth checking out if you’re looking for something to do tonight!

There are full details on the Subversive Theatre website, or in your email inbox if you’re subscribed to their mailing list.

This weekend

Want to see some theatre, but not sure what’s playing? This feature is for you. “This weekend” will give you a guide to what’s playing, where, how much, and give you the best guide available.

This weekend’s guide also includes a special section for the Buffalo Infringement Festival.

Email me ( chris { at } backstagebuffalo { dot } com ) if you have listings for future editions of “This weekend”. The more the merrier – I can only collect so many myself, and your help in making this feature comprehensive is appreciated. I’ll accept ANY theatre or dance related listing too (school, community theatre, professional, you name it!) so take advantage of this great resource.

Editor’s note: I’m on a brief vacation this weekend (great timing, right?) but we’ll return to our regularly scheduled content on Monday. There’s bound to be great discussion in the comments (if you make it happen…) so post away!

Theatre

Julius Caesar
Presented by Shakespeare in Delaware Park
Through August 16th, Tuesday through Sundays, 7:30pm
Delaware Park
Free – Watch for cancellations
Website

The Hairy Ape
Presented by Subversive Theatre
Through August 9
July 31, Aug 1, and Aug 2 at 8:00pm, 9:00pm, and 4:30pm, respectively
Manny Fried Playhouse
Donation only
Website

Dance

Buffalo Dance Festival, feat. LehrerDance and Configuration Dance
August 1, Saturday, 8:00pm
UB Center for the Arts, Amherst
$22, $17 for students (and folks with DMA)
Website

Infringement Fest

With Infringement listings, be sure to visit the website for any content advisory details, location information, and other important information.

Incident at Deerlick
Presented by A Skeleton In The Closet
July 31 and Aug 1, 5:30pm and 8:30pm respectively
Donations “at gunpoint” (for admission)
Website

Far Away
Presented by Since the Fire Theatre Company
July 31 and Aug 2, 6:30pm and 2:00pm respectively
$10
Website

You Know This Girl
Presented by C. Frances Fallon
July 31 and Aug 2 at 7:00pm and 6:00pm respectively
Donations
Website

Scar Strangled Banter
July 31 at 8:00pm
Donations
Website

Bitch Bares All
Presented by Just Feels Good Productions
July 31, Aug 1, and Aug 2 at 9:30pm, 5:00pm, and 3:00pm, respectively
$5
Website

Euphraxia & Red Moon: American Tribal Style Bellydance
July 31, Aug 1, and Aug 2 at 8:00pm, 3:30pm, and 7:00pm, respectively
Donations
Website

Nadia Ibrahim Middle Eastern Dance Company
July 31 and Aug 1 at 8:00pm and 5:00pm respectively
Website

Phó Malpica: The last White Elephant
Presented by COLLECTIVE COLLECTIVE
July 31, Aug 1, and Aug 2 at 9:00pm AND 10:30pm each night

Pyromance
July 31, Aug 1, and Aug 2 at 10:30pm, 9:30pm, and 10:30pm, respectively
Website

A welcome is in order

Hello Buffalo!

"Unsave: The Last Dance (Farewell)", dancer Aaron Piepszny at the Alt Theatre, for the 2008 Buffalo Infringement Festival. Oh yeah, we'll talk about dance too.

Welcome to the latest and (inarguably) greatest member of the WNYmedia family, Backstage Buffalo. What the hell does that mean? Who the hell is writing this post? All those answers (and even some answers you didn’t want) follow.

What it is

Put simply, Backstage Buffalo is a blog about theatre in Buffalo, NY. I bet you didn’t even know that Buffalo had a theatre scene! Not only does it have a theatre scene, but it’s pretty darn strong. Sure, we lost our regional theatre, but plenty of smaller companies have stepped up to the proverbial plate. And that’s worth talking about.

Coverage about theatre in Buffalo tends to come from either the big media folks or overly serious alternative sources. That’s not to say that coverage is bad or not worth following, but it just means theatre coverage tends to be a little stale around these parts.

Backstage Buffalo is here to shake things up.

Who’s writing?

Hi there, my name is Chris Van Patten, and I’ll be your tour guide. I’m a rising sophomore at the University at Buffalo, studying for a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre Design and Technology. As a designer, I focus on scenic design and lighting design. I also direct theatre. Did I mention I’m also WNYmedia.net’s resident website designer guy? No? Well I am.

What’s that all mean for you, reader?

Not a heckuva lot – really, this is just another theatre blog written by a theatre insider. But because of my “insider” connections, I have to set some ethical ground rules.

The ethical ground rules

are as follows…

1. No reviews, ever. At least, no reviews as written by me. I know too many great actors, directors, dancers, and designers in Buffalo theatre. And frankly, not every production is good. I don’t want to be the one to tell them in a public forum. If someone without these misgivings is interested in becoming a reviewer for the site, email me (contact info is below) and we can chat.
2. No personal details, ever. I’m in constant contact with great actors, directors, dancers, and designers in Buffalo theatre, but you won’t read about that here (unless they give me permission to post something, or ask me to). These folks are friends and colleagues, and trust is the name of the game. Everything is sacred, until I’m told otherwise.

That’s about it in terms of ethical (or ethical-ish) rules. That said, while I’m in a ruleish mood, let’s continue…

1. This is my blog, I can (and will) run it how I want to. The WNYmedia folks are amazing in the editorial freedom they give their bloggers, and I’m no exception. I’m excited to experiment with covering theatre news in a snappy style, for a city that’s typically only seen theatre news printed in the paper.
2. Rude commenters will not be tolerated. Like I said before, theatre artists in Buffalo are my friends and colleagues, and I won’t accept any rudeness or slander or libel or any other similar bullroar. That said, I am not out to discourage genuine, healthy, reasoned, and smart debate. I might even join in! (All of that said, I doubt this will be an issue. We’re all nice folks, mmk?)
3. I can promote whatever I want. An off-shoot of number one. Guess what kiddies, I work in theatre. We need seats filled. I want you (yes you) to fill those seats. If I promote a show I’m working on, deal with it. Example: you should come see RENT as produced by UB Theatre & Dance, November 18th through 22nd. I’m going to be an assistant scenic designer. Leave your schedule open. (You won’t see paid promotion. And if you do, it’ll be so obvious you’ll laugh.)

Summation (and cakewalk)

I hope that gives you a good idea of the direction this blog is taking. I can’t promise frequency, but I can promise awesome. Subscribe to the RSS feed with the available links (or by email) and get ready for a fun new journey.

Peace.

P.S. This is probably the longest post I’ll ever write. Revel in it.

Those contact details I promised

Chris Van Patten (that’s me!)
http://chrisvanpatten.com/ (my website!)
chris (({at})) backstagebuffalo (({dot})) com (write me hatemail!)