If you look at the section of Playhouse 22’s website dedicated to its “On the Edge” production series, you will learn that the theater considers the series, “an opportunity for directors to present lesser known or smaller works,” and to emphasize the play and the acting over more technical theatrical elements. Perhaps no play fits such a mission statement better than William Mastrasimone’s “Extremities,” which opened on Friday, March 16, as the series’ next installment. And perhaps no one is more thankful for that fit than the production’s director. “I didn’t think any theater would ever go …
Christmas is, above all, a time to indulge in time-honored tradition. And Playhouse 22, East Brunswick’s community theater and performing arts group, offers just the thing for those looking to fire up some traditional Christmas spirit. On Friday, Dec. 9, the theater’s annual production of “A Christmas Carol” opens for a limited two-weekend run at the township Cultural Arts Center. It marks the 15th time the theater has mounted a December production of the Charles Dickens classic. Key to any tradition is consistency, which Playhouse 22’s “A Christmas Carol” boasts in spades. Director Tony …
Some of that old time rock ’n’ roll is coming to New Brunswick. The sounds of the ’50s and ’60s will fill the stage of the State Theatre on Nov. 19 with a “Golden Oldies Spectacular” concert featuring The Duprees, Charlie Thomas’ Drifters, The Brooklyn Bridge, Shirley Alston Reeves and the Legendary Teenagers. The show promises a night of vocals and harmonies that defined early rock ’n’ roll, before guitar-based rock that defined music of the late ‘60s and ‘70s. Several groups tour under the Drifters name, but the group coming to the State features Charlie Thomas, who sang lead on the hits…
Kimberly Thomas is no stranger to the State Theatre but things are going to be different when she takes stage at the New Brunswick venue this weekend.Thomas grew up in Edison and performed on the State's stage during her high school dance group's annual shows. But now she's performing as a professional, singing, dancing and acting in the musical "'S Wonderful" on Oct. 30."'S Wonderful" uses the music of George and Ira Gershwin to tell five different "mini musicals." Thomas appears in each section but is one of the main performers in a musical set in New Orleans in the 1950s.She describes the …
The George Street Playhouse has opened their newest feature, "It Shoulda Been You," an original musical comedy that is billed as a show for "Anyone with parents." The premise of the show is simple - it is a wedding day. The mother of the bride is Jewish. The mother of the groom is Catholic. The sister of the bride is outshined by her sister, in their mother's eyes. An ex-boyfriend decides to show up, and from there it's off. Despite being a premise that's been done before, director David Hyde Pierce (best known for his role on TV's "Frasier") has put together a show that contains a lot of …
Steve Martin laughs heartily throughout an interview about the Young@Heart Chorus. He starts off by playfully asking an interviewer, "What’s New Brunswick all about?" When he's told New Brunswick is a great city in New Jersey with terrific theater, restaurants and museums, he chuckles and says, "OK, if you say so."The mention of Rutgers starts to convince him. "Now you’re talking,” he says. “We got a good football player from Rutgers up here in New England, he’s a defensive back.” he says, presumably in reference to Patriots Pro Bowl cornerback Devin McCourty, who was drafted out of Rutgers …
Andre De Shields’ relationship with 'Ain’t Misbehavin' began in 1978 when he appeared in the original Broadway cast of the smash hit musical. He went to appear in tours of the show in the U.S. and overseas and the 1988 Broadway revival. He’s also directed productions featuring the Fifth Dimension and a production at Morehouse College in Atlanta. De Shields is directing 'Ain’t Misbehavin' one more time – at Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick for a run that began Oct. 6 – and this time he’s saying goodbye to the show he’s been living with for more than 30 years. “It is indeed,” De Shields says…
On January 12, 1928, a woman named Ruth Snyder was executed by electric chair at Sing Sing prison in New York. Her death sentence came after she was convicted of murdering her husband, Albert, and her trial became a media sensation, capped by a legendary photo of Snyder in the electric chair on the cover of the New York “Daily News.”Snyder’s case became the basis for Sophie Treadwell’s play, “Machinal,” an expressionist classic that is being performed by Rutgers Theater Company for a run beginning Sept. 30 and continuing through Oct. 8.The production is the senior thesis for director Melissa …
Eliane Elias is proof that music is the international language. Elias is a pianist and singer who blends American jazz, pop and soul with Brazilian-style Bossa Nova music. Sharing these musical styles with audiences in the U.S. has helped her learn something about the power of song.“What’s so interesting is that even if I’m singing a song that is in Portuguese, because I sing in English too, but the ones that are in Portuguese, I tell the people a little bit of what the song is about, so they can understand the general idea of the lyric,” she says.The emotion she puts into those songs has …
Late nights, traveling from club to club, and hecklers are the typical challenges faced by standup comics, but that’s all a piece of cake for Kathleen Madigan, who has recently performed for American troops fighting the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “The shows are great because the troops are so appreciative, they’re a blast,” Madigan says. “But Afghanistan, I don’t understand at all what’s going on there. Iraq, you can at least see, OK, there used to be a city here, there used to be civilization. Afghanistan looks like the moon with a goat on it.” Madigan’s environs will be much more…
You know that old rule about not talking about religion or politics in polite conversation? Well, Vic Losick says forget it. His new documentary, “In God We Teach,” delves into a story that’s all about religion and politics, along with perceptions of freedom of speech and the privacy of a classroom.The movie will be screened on Sept. 10 as part of the New Jersey Film Festival at Rutgers. The festival is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a slate of nearly 50 movies, features, full-length documentaries and short subjects, Sept. 9 through Oct. 27. Many screenings will feature appearances …
In 2003, Eric Zala was working in his office in Orlando, Fla., when he got an e-mail that changed his life. The message was from Eli Roth, a film director who had just gotten a distribution deal for his movie “Cabin Fever.” Zala didn’t know who Roth was, so he was skeptical when he got to the part of the e-mail that said Steven Spielberg wanted to meet him. “I’m thinking, Come on, who’s pulling my leg?” Zala says. “This kind of thing doesn’t happen in real life.” His leg wasn’t being pulled, and the story leading up to that e-mail is incredible. It involves three teenagers embarking on a …
Several talented South Brunswick senior artists were recently recognized with awards for their work at the annual Middlesex County Senior Citizen Art Contest. The first-place winners of the contest, sponsored by the Middlesex County Office of Aging and Disabled Services, will have their art displayed in the state Senior Citizen Art Contest, which will be on display at the Meadow Lakes retirement community in East Windsor. "This is very exciting and it's always wonderful to be awarded for your work," said first-place award winner and chair of the South Brunswick Arts Commission Sandy Behrend…
Travis Nelson wasn’t finished making music when Inspecter 7 decided to cut back on its performance schedule in 2001. He had been a member of the New Brunswick-based ska band since 1994 and still had more to say musically.“I wasn’t done yet, I wanted to keep going,” Nelson says. “I wanted to keep going with ideas I had for Inspecter 7 that didn’t come to fruition because we stopped. I literally went around and hand-picked members to keep going.”That’s how Hub City Stompers, Nelson’s current band, got its start, and the group is still going strong, playing music that is based in two-tone ska, …
You can see sea shells any day at the beach but how often do you get to hear them? The shells Stafford Hunter will bring to his Aug. 17 concert in New Brunswick weren’t collected at the Shore, they’re musical instruments he will play during his performance, which is part of the New Brunswick Jazz Project concert series.The shells, which range in size from around 4 inches to 2 feet, are actual sea shells that Hunter purchases in stores and cuts and sands so that he can make music with them. It’s a long and painful process, he says, “but the end is result is beautiful, so I go through the …
Few shows are more popular among theater groups than “Godspell,” so it’s no surprise that Plays in the Park is closing its summer season with Stephen Schwartz’s New Testament rock musical. What’s unexpected is that Plays in the Park has never performed the show before as part of its main stage series. There was a 1983 co-production with Middlesex County College and a staging at the State Theatre in 1994, but never before have Jesus and company sang and danced their way into the hearts of crowds at Roosevelt Park in Edison. “It’s an interesting piece that is deceptively difficult to do right, …
Comedians don’t usually schedule interviews at 9 a.m. but a few seconds after Craig Shoemaker answers the phone, the reason for the morning interview becomes clear. Shoemaker is getting ready for a day at a water park with his sons and early in the interview he tells one of them to get ready. When the boy says he is ready, Shoemaker replies, “Get more ready.” Observations about family life provide plenty of material for Shoemaker, who will perform at the Stress Factory in New Brunswick on July 28 through 30, but fans will also be treated to his famous Lovemaster character. The Lovemaster …
Performing Beatles albums note-for-note in their entirety has given Glen Burtnik the idea that the Fab Four’s producer was working against him. “I have this theory about George Martin, that every time he contributed a solo on Beatle records, he specifically made it difficult for tribute acts of the future,” Burtnik says. It may not be the most scientific of theories but if anyone’s qualified to come up with such a notion, it’s Burtnik. He’s been playing Beatles music professionally since the late 1970s when he played Paul McCartney in the West Coast production of the Broadway show “…
What would you do if you came across $100,000 that wasn’t rightfully yours? In this struggling economy, there are certainly lots of people who would be tempted to keep all that loot and try to improve their lives. That’s the very dilemma faced by the Carter family in Judi Ann Mason’s ‘Livin’ Fat,’ which is being staged at Crossroads Theatre this weekend. Mason was a writer for the ’70s hit sitcom “Good Times” about a black family living in a Chicago ghetto, and her play, which was first produced in 1974, is often compared to ’70s-era sitcoms. “The play is so well-written,” says Pamela …
Being a standup comic usually means a life on the road, but Rita Rudner has managed to maintain a successful career in comedy while also settling down and raising a family. Rudner is a regular performer at the Venetian hotel and casino in Las Vegas. That allows for days like a recent one, during which she took her 9-year-old daughter to tennis camp, did some work at home, took a post-camp swim with her daughter, enjoyed a family dinner and then headed to work.Of playing the roles of both working comic and mother, she says, “I say I’m Hannah Montana, only I’m much older and I don’t wear a wig…
