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Eight First Ladies … Live(?) on Stage.
The most famous [deceased] First Ladies are having a hard time accepting the Trump presidency.
Why should they be any different than the rest of us?
But what can they do about it?
After all, they’re dead!
If you think that world affairs stop being important after you shake off this mortal coil, you would be wrong. Janine Sternlieb and Lennie Dean masterfully tell us otherwise with their new play, First Ladies and the Big White Lie.
The disturbing and unprecedented events unfolding in DC, in Charlottesville, and at the border, have reached the great beyond and now the spirits of the powers behind the American “throne” must confront the secrets and deceptions that have hindered America’s march toward a truly democratic society.
This intriguing new play — directed by stage artist and political commentator, Marcello Rollando — will have a special industry presentation, March 7 @ 2:00 p.m. and March 8 @ 6:00 p.m. at one of New York’s arts epicenters, Open Jar Studios, 1601 Broadway 11th floor, New York City. Contact info@jaymichaelsarts.com for reservations or further info.
We had our own “congressional hearing” with the authors of this envelope pushing piece to learn more about them and their work.
Janine Sternlieb has been an assistant director in Bay Area productions at theatres such as San Francisco Playhouse, Main Stage West, and Santa Rosa Jr. College. Previous writing work includes The Four Sisters or Time’s Up!: a Chekhovian Guide to Climate Change. When Covid closed the theatres, she began to imagine what the Founding Families would think of the Trump administration. So here she is! Lennie Dean, after receiving her MFA in Acting from the Temple University Advanced Actor Training Program in Philadelphia, taught, acted, directed, worked as dramaturge and produced for several theater companies and schools in New York, San Francisco and Sonoma County for over forty years. She is authorized by master acting teacher Eric Morris to teach his technique, The Eric Morris System. She is working to form Vintage Voices, a “scripts onstage” acting group with actors 55+ years.
What inspired you to write this play?
Janine: When white supremacists descended on Charlottesville, I wondered what the previous residents of that town (the Hemings and Jefferson families) would think. What might Mary Lincoln, who sacrificed so much for the Union, think about protests over protecting a monument to Robert E. Lee–in 2017! And what has happened to the party of Lincoln?
Do you enjoy using fantastical elements like you have here?
Lennie Dean: Magical realism is my favorite kind of theatre. It isn’t an intellectual experience. It calls upon different parts of our brain to react to what is seemingly untethered from reality. In First Ladies, the characters have a hard time accepting that the God-like Jefferson enslaved his own children. So the cold hard facts, in the form of a biography of the Hemings family, drops from the sky and lights up on the shelf. The old adage that we, who refuse to learn our history are doomed to repeat it, takes physical form.
The theatre has the power to educate and elucidate… Do you agree and if so, what do you hope the audience takes away from seeing your play?
Janine: Theatre is uniquely positioned to illuminate history, create characters that audiences relate to, and create a space for empathy. By creating dialogue for 9 historical women, who continue to “live” on into our own time, we show that our history is a living and breathing phenomenon. It’s not an artifact and it’s not set in stone. Our understanding of history necessarily changes as we see it from a variety of perspectives, wrestle with it, and engage it. There is nothing that can’t be discussed, especially the horrors and injustices of slavery. We hope that the audience will be inspired to take action so that “All men are created equal” is a reality, not just a promise.
What have you learned about yourself from this work?
Janine: I was terribly naive about what it would take to write a full-length play about 9 historical women (one needs to read a LOT of books). I also realized that America is filled with interesting historical characters, so my dance card is full for decades!
What’s next?
Janine: A play about James Henry Hammond, a governor of South Carolina in the 1840s. It’s a play–surprise!– about race and gender. I’m also writing a dystopian play about librarians set in New York City.
“Untitled 1970,” amid powerhouse reviews and sold-out crowds, extends its run.
John Gould Rubin writes:
“Untitled, 1970” blew my mind, The first time I’ve seen a play in Bushwick, but much more than a play; half play, half movie but a movie as an extension and maybe, added dimension to the play. That’s what I mean about it blowing my mind. The acting was great, but then it wasn’t acting entirely, but just living, like we went into the apartment where the show took place and suddenly we were voyeurs observing things we really shouldn’t be seeing; dirty/scary – made me feel like maybe I shouldn’t be watching. Just the kind of theater I love. It makes me wonder who I am and why I’m here.
John Gould Rubin is Artistic Director of The Private Theatre and former co Artistic Director (with Phillip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz) and Executive Director of LAByrinth Theater Company.
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PROFILE on the PROLIFIC: Acclaimed author, Tom Avitabile takes a shot at Kennedy … conspiracy, that is.
“It was a long time ago, nobody cares anymore,” is the last thing that all those who have died so far said when the JFK artifact came into their possession. Airline pilot, Hank Larson’s brother Benjamin said the same thing. Now Hank is out to clear his brother’s name of a double homicide. Up to now, Hank couldn’t give two spits about who killed Kennedy. But the powerful merchants of death who are after the item will stop at nothing; they’ve already blown through multiple murders like a speed bump. Can Hank, and the innocent woman who only wanted to help him, avoid becoming just two more mysterious and untimely deaths, and derail their plans to stage a coup again? The action never stops, and the danger never lessens as Hank realizes, too late, that the best way to stay alive is to Ask Not!
Avitabile’s latest is a tome tearing into what arguably is the most pivotal moment of the 20th century — the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Of course, he would… Tom Avitabile is a renowned writer, director, and producer with numerous film and television credits who seems to specialize in thrilling us. It’s not enough that he wrote a taut adventure about Kennedy but he now travels the podcast-sphere sharing his take on the actual event and the conspiracy around it. His extensive background in computers and engineering led him to work with the House Committee on Science Space and Technology. Tom’s powerful imagination, fed from his experiences in Washington, allowed him to conjure up not only possible security threats, but also real-life scenarios relating to how the government and individuals would respond to the high-tech assaults that are featured prominently in his three book “thrillogy.” These novels chronicle the exploits of Science Advisor to the President, “Wild” Bill Hiccock. The first techno-thriller of this series, The Eighth Day, became a Barnes and Noble #1 bestseller. In his next thriller, The Devil’s Quota, Avitabile departs from the high-tech genre and sheds daylight on an evil international syndicate, a story of sexual deviation, greed, human trafficking, and corruption.
We met with Tom to get a glimpse of the might of a thrill-writer.
What led you to become a writer?
In school, I was classified as functionally illiterate. I didn’t read much. I hated writing. I freaked out over a 200-word composition, I’d break out in a cold sweat. So, naturally, I became an author. Don’t get me wrong, I still hate writing, but I love authoring. So, I am not a writer, I am an author. Lots of people write but only those who know how to author make more publishable manuscripts. How do I know this? I’ve been called the Accidental Author, and rightly so because I’m the last guy on the planet who should ever have a book published, much less 8 and 4 #1 bestsellers. But I sold the first manuscript I ever wrote, pretty much by accident, and it became a number one bestseller. Because I didn’t just write it, I authored it. So, I never became a writer in the traditional sense of being a lover of words, or having taken creative writing courses, being well-read, or even a lover of literature. Instead, I authored to entertain, engage, and then, and only then, Enlighten. I ride and write in the caboose of the literary train, you know, commercial fiction.
What’s your creative process?
Two avenues. One: three of my number-one bestsellers were first screenplays. This is one of the best outlines you can have. I consider a script a skeleton to which I add bones, and sinew and flesh out all the plot points and character nuance. Then two: there’s getting that idea. The one that nags you. Knocks on the door to your brain at all odd hours and never lets you sleep until you commit it to a canvas. Most of the time that’s my inciting instance which I wrap the rest of my story around.
Do you know what’s going to happen all the way through before you sit down to write, or does it happen organically?
If I am not following a screenplay, at first, I am a ‘pantster’ (organic) for around the first half of the manuscript. Then I outline, mostly because I forgot what I wrote but also to make sure the course I lay out goes by all the pretty things and highlights all the human things and goes thrillingly close to the scary stuff. After all that, it is polish time, where I tweak with little dabs of color and brushstrokes to feather out the hard edge or sharpen the blunts.
What is your philosophy on the spoken word vs the written word?
There must be a strong delineation and specific voice(s) differentiating the narrative, in whichever POV the narrator assumes, and each character. “Regular type people just don’t talk right, no how… no ways…ya know what I…” Whereas a well-executed narrative is always correct, fluid, and strives for understandability. It is composed in complete sentences and is a the mortar that holds the story together. In short, characters can be sloppy grammarians and linguistical nightmares, but narration must be beyond reproach – within its tone and voice.
On that note, how much do you take into account the possibility of a stage play or film of your work when you write?
The first novel I ever wrote was the first novel I ever sold and my first #1 Bestseller. When the CEO of the publishing company read it. He called me and asked if I ever thought of making it a movie. He said this because he confessed to me that he could see the movie as he was reading my book. (BTW This review would be a death knell to true literary snobs, but it is a money machine in the commercial fiction world) It wasn’t until we had signed the deal, and I cashed the rather large check that I told him I had written it from a screenplay. (Like 2 of my other #1s.)
I write in a style that lends itself to visualization from having cut my teeth in “long form” writing on screenplays. Screenplays, by the way, are as many million miles away from a literary document as an artist’s rendering of a building is to the blueprints of its steel infrastructure. So, my experience as a film director and screenwriter, and what that taught me about cascading action and the intimate relationship between plot and character, drives me to a writing style that manifests imagery and engagement…just like a movie.
What’s the next project?
I have two just out of the oven. “Wife and Death” is a thriller where one mistake by a 20-year-old, threatens her family 20 years later, puts her grandchildren in harm’s way 40 years later, and her entire world 50 years later. But she finds the strength, tenacity, and wisdom to outsmart the good guys, who are just as bad as the drug cartel bad guys, leaving her alone to protect her family with just her wits…and a gun…and 250 million in diamonds and… Well, you’ll have to read the book.
The other manuscript sitting on the cooling rack is a sci-fi thriller that is really more science ‘faction’ than fiction. It’s about, for lack of a better word, Mermaids. Well, no fins or gills, just super-oxygenated blood. (Try holding your breath for 3 hours.) It’s easy when your blood holds a whopping amount of oxygen due to a genetic anomaly among a certain group of South Pacific people – who are useful, in many ways. Like if you wanted to create a Navy SEAL team that took to the water like… like, mermaids, only with MP5 machine guns, explosive ordinance, and an ability not to have to come up for air for quite a while. I call that one, “Aquasapiens” – The First SEAL Team Zero Adventure.
The one currently in the oven…Mmm can you smell that? Is a sequel to my #1 Bestseller, The Devil’s Quota. Working title, “Stand So Tall.”
FIRST LADIES AND THE BIG WHITE LIE comes to New York
Maybe Broadway has SIX Queens but Off-Broadway has EIGHT First Ladies!
Janine Sternlieb and Lennie Dean’s new play, FIRST LADIES AND THE BIG WHITE LIE, directed by Marcello Rollando comes to New York for a special industry presentation on March 7 @ 2:00 p.m. and March 8 @ 6:00 p.m. at OPEN JAR STUDIOS, 1601 Broadway 11th floor, New York City. Contact Matt at info@jaymichaelsarts.com for further details.
The most famous deceased First Ladies are having a hard time accepting the Trump presidency. But what can they do about it? After all, they’re dead!
Disturbing and unprecedented events are unfolding in DC, in Charlottesville, and at the border, and their predictable “existence” is thrown into chaos. They must confront the secrets and deceptions that have hindered America’s march toward a truly democratic society.
Hell’s Kitchen Roars Again: Jim Catapano is at Fifth Avenue, a Jazz Musical Comedy
A rousing new musical brings the 1920s into the 2020s
The famed Don’t Tell Mama Theater is host to Fifth Avenue, a Jazz Musical Comedy, a tune-filled time portal to a revered chapter of American history.
(PHOTO CREDIT: Dan Lane Williams/DLW PHOTOGRAPHY)
It’s 1928, and the economy is booming (for the moment). With Prohibition still a thing, entrepreneurs are finding ways to be creative, clever, and compensated.
Buddies and business partners Maxwell (Christopher Sutton) and Willy (Joseph Peterson) have a plan to open a nightclub, The Crescent Moon, in the largely overlooked west 40s of Manhattan—essentially bringing the east 50s vibe to Hell’s Kitchen. (It’s important to note that this is their 11th business venture in 10 years.) They get the cash from Tommy Grace (Beau Allen) and the three mark the occasion by singing that they’re “All-In.”
But this being America in 1928, the club must be dry. “Anti-saloon league says enforce laws on the book. Round up all the bootleggers and jail all the crooks,” proclaim the lawmakers of the day, as related by Willy, Grace, and newsboy Neal (James Lynch) in “That’s the News.”
“A saloon-less nation will live longer, they say,” they sing. “But it’s the price of liquor that will kill you today!”
Meanwhile, Maxwell’s 22-year-old daughter Rachel (Adriana Vicinanzo) has returned from Europe. She shows off her new-found woman-of-the-worldness to her friend-zoned childhood pal Neal in “The Grand Tour.” Rachel later meets for lunch with shady suitor Donald P. Brentwood the 4th (Kevin Arnold), a lawyer with lofty real-estate aspirations that he lays out in the bouncy, future-predicting “Fifth Avenue.”
“Corporate heads will be the ruling class,” he says with a smile, threatening to turn “every street into Fifth Avenue.” There won’t be much left that’s fun to do,” warns Rachel. “What about all those who can’t afford Fifth Avenue?”
“Let them move to the Bronx!” snarks Donald.
The club opens on New Year’s Eve, appearing to serve nothing stronger than ginger ale. But Grace has more sinister plans for the “operation”, and despite Willy and Maxwell’s desire to be legit, their grand plan is nearly over before it begins.
As the Crescent Moon rises, nightclub singer Gloria (played by Eurovision finalist Davinia) gives a powerhouse performance of “Life Is Fine”. The mood soon changes for “Shana Madela,” a gorgeous lullaby sung by Rachel and Maxwell after the latter gets into accidental but inevitable booze-related legal trouble. Our “spirited” heroes resolve to rally to keep their respective versions of the American Dream alive.
The music by Daniel Seidman (with lyrics by Seidman and Librettist Susan Crawford)
is a perfect blend of Broadway elegance and 1920s cool. Each number is a catchy and melodic plot-mover that will get you swaying and singing along. (“Shana Madela” is a songwriting contribution from Seidman’s father Murray).
The songs are delivered magnificently by the entire talented cast. Claire Cooper (Music Director), also in period dress, provides deft accompaniment on the piano. The production is expertly directed and choreographed by Andrea Andresakis, and the gorgeous and authentic costumes of the era are designed by Yuka Silvera.
From beginning to end (fittingly as the calendar turns to 1929), Fifth Avenue is a must-see delightful tribute to a halcyon age. The show is so charming, and the actors so engaging, you’ll wish it would never end (and that the current 20s would roar as hard as the previous ones!).
Fifth Avenue, a Jazz Musical Comedy is playing at Don’t Tell Mama on Mondays at 7 pm through February 12, 2024. For more information (and a song medley!) visit fifthavenuemusical.com/.
Industry events at Open Jar Studios
Jay Michaels Global Communications, LLC (JMGC) will be managing several industry events at one of New York’s largest and most sought-after arts venues – Open Jar Studios at 1601 BROADWAY, 11th Floor, NYC, (Broadway & 48th Street – Enter on 48th)
Creating visibility for independent theater, film, music, and literature has been the battle-cry of this boutique production and promotional firm for more than 20 years. Through a diverse internal multi-media platform, this communications organization can supply guaranteed coverage to hundreds of emerging artists and their productions while growing its external network of promotional sites and groups.
This spring, JMGC will present the following industry events:
First Ladies and the Big White Lie, a new play by Janine Sternlieb and Lennie Dean; directed by Marcello Rollando on March 7 & 8
Ocean in a Tea Cup, a musical, by Joel Krantz on April 4
Two Thousand Miles, a musical by Alyssa M. Williams on March 15
Four, a musical, by Clé Holly — April 10 & 12
Finding Helena by Alexandra Conroy and Ray Hoese and produced by Shavonne Conroy on April 11
FIRST LADIES AND THE BIG WHITE LIE
The most famous deceased First Ladies are having a hard time accepting the Trump presidency. But what can they do about it? After all, they’re dead! Disturbing and unprecedented events are unfolding in DC, in Charlottesville, and at the border, and their predictable “existence” is thrown into chaos. They must confront the secrets and deceptions that have hindered America’s march toward a truly democratic society.
TWO THOUSAND MILES
Amid the backdrop of illness, resilience, and life-altering experiences, we follow Davis, a former business student turned playwright courageously battling Lupus, and his devoted boyfriend Nate, an accomplished composer learning the intricacies of caregiving. “Two Thousand Miles” illustrates the profound power of love, acceptance, and the unbreakable bonds of friendship in overcoming personal strife and illness. The musical features a book by Alyssa M. Williams, music & lyrics by Hans Zanger, and direction by Monica Toro Lisciandro. The musical also features additional music & lyrics by Taylor Guttadauro and Jaclyn Nash.
Clé Holly’s FOUR
In this poignant and compelling new work, an ambitious manager – hoping to breathe life into an established string quartet with an uncertain future – introduces the group to a new first violinist. This new addition forces the team to explore more than just the music. Clé Holly — the award-winning playwright of FOUR — is herself a violinist, supplying a healthy dose of verisimilitude to this acutely written drama with live music. Clé draws upon her unique and creative background to write musicals which feature smart, complex female characters.
OCEAN IN A TEACUP
BASED ON A TRUE STORY: Into the tumultuous world of Bengal India in the 1940’s, comes an American pacifist and idealist. Ray Hauserman is a conscientious objector during World War Two. He becomes a Red Cross medic so he can be saving lives and not taking them, but in the horrific jungle war in Burma, Ray betrays his pacifist vow never to kill. Ray cannot bring himself to return home to the woman he loves, his fiancé Julia, waiting anxiously in Ohio. He meets a charismatic Indian doctor and spiritual teacher. Doctor Thakur tries to inspire a reawakening of the compassionate heart that once beat in Ray. He invites Ray to join him in his humanitarian work of caring for the sick and hungry during the “Great Famine of Bengal” in 1943. To follow Doctor Thakur’s path of service, Ray will have to leave behind the world he knew. When Julia shockingly arrives in India to try to bring him back to The States, they are both challenged to learn great lessons of sacrifice and unconditional love.
FINDING HELENA
After sold-out presentations in San Antonio, FINDING HELENA, a new musical by Alexandra Conroy and Ray Hoese will come to New York in 2024. This Romeo & Juliet love story that crosses cultures, beliefs … and enemy lines. Helena, the daughter of a Nazi officer, falls in love with Ari, a Jewish resistance fighter. Her affection for Ari helps break down the wall of hate she was taught, allowing the couple to create the deepest bond of love.
For further information on these projects, please contact Matt at info@jaymichaelsarts.com
Et Alia Theater to present Until Dark by Federica Borlenghi, Off-Broadway
Et Alia Theater is proud to present Until Dark by Federica Borlenghi, a new play that reflects consent and the intricacies of sisterhood, while testing its ties and boundaries.
When Cass is accused of a heinous crime, her sister Jackie – a promising criminal defense attorney – decides to take over the case. But when Lisa, their othersister, shows up in town for solidarity, she realizes there is more to theallegations than what she was told.
Thursday, February 15 · 7:00 pm EST; Friday, February 16 @ 7:00pm; Saturday, February, 17 @ 7:00pm; Sunday, February 18 @ 7:00pm; Thursday, February 22 @ 7:00pm; Friday, February 23 @ 7:00pm; Saturday, February, 24 @ 7:00pm; Sunday, February 25 @ 3:00 pm; Thursday, February 29 · 7:00pm; Friday, March 1 @ 7:00pm; Saturday, March 2 @ 7:00pm; Sunday, February 3 @ 3:00 pm
Out of the Box Theatrics, 154 Christopher Street #1E New York City
Cast features
Maria Müller as Cass; Giorgia Valenti as Jackie; and Luísa Galatti as Lisa (Covi Loveridge Brannan and Ana Moioli, alternates)
Production written and directed by Federica Borlenghi
(winner, Et Alia Theater Lab, 2023)
Produced by Et Alia Theater
Co-Produced by Mo Shah & Kavita Shah
Dramaturg: Covi Loveridge Brannan
Stage Manager: Skye Pallo Ross
Set & Properties Designer: Andrés López-Alicea
Lighting Designer: Adrian Yuen
Costume Designer: Federica Borlenghi
Graphic Designer: Marieli Pereira
Founded by international women in New York, Et Alia Theater champions multicultural, women-centered storytelling in the performing arts and fosters a community of mutual support. By providing performance programs and artistic opportunities that welcome, support, and showcase international women artists in New York, Et Alia offers an empathetic creative space for people adapting to a new social environment.
Men Behaving (Slightly) Badly: Jim Catapano looks at Two Gentlemen of Verona at the ATA
Shakespeare’s Early Romcom Comes to the ATA
Before Romeo and Juliet created havoc in Verona, William Shakespeare used it as the point of origin for a play about boys, girls, romance and duplicity. One of the Bard’s earliest works (written between 1590 and 1594 to be imprecise), The Two Gentleman of Verona is given a fresh coat of 21st-century paint at the American Theatre of Actors. Performed in modern dress but extremely faithful to the text, this re-imagining features a talented cast of dynamic actors who clearly relish every 16th century word.
Verona pals Proteus (Luke Hodgson) and Valentine (Brandon P. Raines) travel to Milan, where they find themselves in a love triangle with Silvia (Cameron Park-Miller), the daughter of the Duke (Martin Riofrio). However, Proteus is already partnered in Verona with Julia (Natasha Sahs). The assertive Silvia falls for Valentine and plans to elope with him, but Proteus betrays them to her objecting father. The Duke banishes Valentine to the forest, where he runs into another group of exiles and charms his way into becoming their leader. With the help of her women-in-waiting Lucetta (Kate Jergensen), Julia disguises herself as a pageboy and comes to Milan to find Proteus. Our heroes reunite and reconcile, but not before amusing shenanigans ensue.
Zachary Fretag steals the show as Launce, Proteus’ servant. He bounces around the stage in extremely loud pants, talks to his converse Chucks, his cane, and his dog Crab (represented by a stuffed toy in a picnic basket). He doesn’t speak Shakespeare’s lines so much as completely embody them. Brandon P. Raines is effervescent as Valentine, providing a “Niles Crane” energy that serves the source material beautifully. Blaize Adler-Ivanbrook is energetic and goofy as Speed, Valentine’s servant whose pants rival Launce’s in their gaudiness. Natasha Sahs is charming in her springtime dress as Julia, and amusing and convincing in her baseball cap and pants in her disguise as Sebastian the Pageboy.
All the actors use movement to great effect, making deft use of the small stage and its surrounding doors, and performing with physical and verbal gusto. Their chemistry with each other is electric, and their love of the material and the joy of performing it together is evident throughout the five acts of the play.
The play is a wonderful depiction of young people finding their way from betrayal and jealousy to love and friendship, and learning these lessons in the colorful way that Shakespeare was so genius at presenting.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona is directed by John Debenedetto. It runs at the American Theatre of Actors through Dec 22.
Jim Catapano is at the ATA with The Buffalo Hero of World War I: The Wayne Miner Story
Deeds Not Words
Kenthedo Robinson’s Stirring The Buffalo Hero of World War I: The Wayne Miner Story returns to the ATA
The “Great” War is a story of heroes—some well-known, but many unsung.
The Buffalo Hero of World War I is the true tale of one of the latter. Private Wayne Miner (played with power and dignity by Alton Ray) is a man dedicated to the cause that has stirred him to take arms with the Buffalo Soldier regiment when the U.S enters World War I in 1918. Except, as a person of color, he finds that in war (as in society), the road for him has deliberately been made much rockier.
Miner vows to defend democracy and be a hero to his wife and family despite the oppressive circumstances. “I’m not fighting for Lincoln,” he declares when it’s suggested his service is in return for his freedom. “I’m fighting for me, my family, and for the America that I want America to be.”
Miner finds comfort in the letters to his beloved Mamma Miner (Ms. D. in a moving performance). The men are also aided by Angelica (a warm and funny Monique Berkley), a Florence Nightingale figure who is not “officially” part of the Red Cross, but trying to help where she can.
Along with his bunkmates, Seymoure (Bilal Walker) and Rucker (Kevin Leonard), Miner finds that there is a battle to fight in the barracks that must be won before they ever see combat in France. The young men are denied the training, supplies, and guidance they need to survive and thrive, due to the blatant racism pervading the Armed Forces (and society as a whole). They don’t even get decent meals, heat, or proper boots. The head of the unit, Captain Quincy Blu (played with super-villain energy by Nicholas Dodge), is a loudmouthed racist—in both words and deeds—who has unveiled contempt for the men under him, and is only concerned with his own reputation and aspirations to glory. Their go-between is the tough but compassionate Lieutenant Clark (Rommell Sermons), who deals with the conundrum of trying to keep his men in line and boost their morale, while their spirits are being crushed by his own superior officer.
The anxious Rucker does what he’s told for the good of his beloved family; Seymoure rages against the situation and against “Blu” (as he refuses to refer to the officer by rank). The two men are harassed and humiliated by Blu in scenes depicted and described to brutal effect. Over the course of the play we truly get to know these people, which makes the denouement ever more poignant as we remember that these were lives that were really lived over 100 years ago.
When the men finally find themselves in France close to the combat, they are severely compromised by the lack of training that was deliberately denied them. Things come to a head between the group and Blu, in harrowing scenes of emotional and physical violence echoed and multiplied by the sound of artillery just outside the window.
The disparate personalities on display are brought to life vividly by the actors, who embody these historic figures with deftness and power. The two-tiered set is used cleverly, and coupled with excellent fight choreography, the music of the era and the disturbing sounds of war, the effect of being in a warzone in 1918 is palpable.
Wayne Miner was killed mere hours before the Armistice ending the war was put into effect, and may have been the very last to die for the Great War. He had volunteered to take artillery to the front when no one else would, knowing all too well what his chances of survival would be. He would often quote the Buffalo Soldier credo, “Deeds Not Words”, and his sacrifice shows he lived and died by this pledge.
The Buffalo Hero of World War 1: The Wayne Miner Story is written and directed by Kenthedo Robinson.
Guest Writer, DAVID SABELLA, reviews Manhattan School of Music’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
They Manhattan School of Music graduate opera theatre program presented the Benjamin Britten’s Opera, a Midsummer Nights Dream this past weekend, November 16-19, with varying degrees of success.
To be sure, Britten’s intricate (and nearly atonal music) is no small feat for the most experienced of singers and orchestras. Here, MSM shined. All of the singers were well prepared by their own personal teachers, (listed in the back of the program) as well as guided by the able hand of conductor George Manahan.
Even at this early stage of their careers, some singers showed great potential with both golden hued voices and silvery stage presence.
Of particular note at this performance, Nov 16 (the opera is double cast), was Haolun Zhang (Oberon) and Sofia Gotch-Caruana (Tytania), whose voices were well suited to their roles, and each other.
Benjamin R. Sokol (Nick Bottom) proved a very entertaining “Bottom“ with both a booming voice, and comical delivery. And Gregory Gropper (Starveling) was a stand out among the merry men of Pyramus and Thisbe, with an agile stage presence, channeling the physical comedy of a young Steve Martin.
Indeed, the entire cast sang well and handled this music with a finesse beyond their years. However, even that finesse could not fully compensate for other problems within the creative environment. The scenic design (Abbey Wiker) was serviceable enough, giving a sense of changes and distance covered within the woodland throughout the evening. And, the lighting design (Paige Seber) managed to set the overall mystical mood of the evening.
Starting at the downbeat, Oberon enters with his chest fully exposed in a costume that can only be described as a cross between something worn for Mardi Gras, and leatherwear one might see at The Eagle. The choice to have the singer’s chest fully exposed was baffling and gratuitous. One could only guess that the purpose here was to assure the audience that the Countertenor singing the role was in fact, a male person. The costume suggested no regality or finery one might associate with the “king of the fairies,” and in fact, only served to distract from this young singer’s remarkable voice.
Equally questionable was the pink cotton candy bomb worn by Tytania, which also proved completely distracting to this reviewer. Tytania’s fairies were then equally burdened with contrasting “brown sacks of wool” that neither moved well or flattered the body.
Scene two proved even more confusing with each character within the opera looking as if they had brought their own costumes from home. Anachronisms persisted! Some singers seemed to be dressed in modern day clothing, and others seem to harken back to the 1950s, giving the opera no sense of time nor place.
It is not this writer’s intention to call out a young costume designer for their shortcomings, (at least I assume that this was a young costume designer, and not someone hired by the school for this purpose) but it must be noted that since the Manhattan school of music promotes itself as a “graduate opera theater” program, then, perhaps, a little bit more attention to the “Theatre“ part of it might be warranted, especially when offering such challenging repertoire as Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Nights Dream.
Whether it is an issue of budget/funding, or artistic resource. This production would have been much better served with greater care to all elements of a scenic and costume design.
Singers, great!
Creative team, not so much.
As in shakespeare’s enchanted forest, one must enter at one’s own risk.
Arts Independent 