Upper WET Side
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4/13: Right Here in River City
April 13, 2012
Brett Colby IS Professor Harold Hill…and Father Alphonse Stephenson IS everyone’s favorite Pentagon-based Broadway conductor/ Catholic priest/ Jersey Shore legend…when THE MUSIC MAN takes over the stage of the Algonquin in Manasquan beginning April 20.
Hide the passed hors d’oeuvres; squirrel away the plastic tumblers of merlot — we’re back in First Nighting mode, for another freewheeling, freeloading round of adventures in local theatah, up and down this thing we called the Upper Wet Side.
We’ve already clued you in on the current engagement of Maureen McGovern and her show Carry It On at Two River Theater — and in days to come we’ll be posting interviews with ace director Mark Shanahan (who’s got not one but TWO fun projects opening imminently in Long Branch and New Brunswick), as well as original RENTmates Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp (coming on April 21 to the Pollak Theatre at Monmouth University). Beginning right NOW, however, we’re kicking things strictly COMMUNITY, where everybody knows your name, and the star of the show probably has to help strike the set…
Simonelli Sez, all over the place. A longtime Monmouth County resident and a prolific playwright whose more than one dozen comedies and dramas are seen regularly on regional stages, Joe Simonelli has been an especially busy guy in recent months, at The First Avenue Playhouse in Atlantic Highlands (where his best known play Men Are Dogs continues a special monthly engagement) , at The Grange Theater in Howell — and at the Traco Theater in Toms River, the newly established downtown movie revival house where his original script Old Ringers begins a two weekend stand on Friday, April 13. A semi-sequel to Dogs, the “adult bawdy comedy” brings back two of that earlier show’s characters for a stand-alone scenario involving a quartet of senior ladies and an entrepreneurial adventure in the phone sex industry. The show continues through April 22 with performances Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 3 p.m. Traco Theater, 16 Washington St., Toms River • April 13 at 8pm (through 4/22)
Simonelli returns to the Traco in May with a fresh production of his With This Ring — but before that he’ll be back home on the Grange with a new staging of Roommates, an odd coupling involving a swinging ladies’ man, his divorced friend who comes to crash (and becomes the Thing That Would Not Leave), various meddling neighbors and still more mirthmaking machinery. Roommates opens at 8pm on Friday, April 27 and continues for four more shows on April 28, May 4 and May 5 (plus a 3pm matinee on April 29); tickets ($15) can be reserved by calling (732)768-2709. The Grange Playhouse, 4860 Route 9 South, Howell • April 27 at 8pm/ $15 (through 5/5)
That’s what’s opening tonight; flip the paperless for more going up tomorrow (April 14) and in weeks to come…
2/20: Phoenix Rises to the Occasion
February 19, 2012
Dan Peterson reprises the PRODUCERS showstopper “I Want to Be a Producer,” when Phoenix Productions celebrates its 25th anniversary this Saturday at the Count Basie.
They come from all walks of life — suits and students; public servants and professionals; homemakers and hobbyists. Some have even made a go at show business as a career — but if the hundreds of actors, singers and dancers who have appeared with Phoenix Productions have one great thing in common, it’s that they get to strut their stuff on the same stage that’s hosted the likes of Tony Bennett, George Carlin, Al Pacino, Cary Grant, and a Boss named Bruce.
That stage is of course the Count Basie Theatre, where for eight weekends out of each year the folks at Red Bank’s resident community theater company offer up an array of musical favorites that have ranged from old favorites (Annie, Fiddler, The King and I) to new phenoms (High School Musical, Hairspray, Rent). It’s an affiliation that has spurred the borough-based Phoenix phalanx to artistic and technical heights undreamed of by church-basement troupers — and here in 2012, it’s a self-set standard that’s expected to be met and exceeded during the company’s milestone 25th season (the company has also done performances of select shows at Lakewood’s Strand for the past few seasons).
This Saturday night, February 25, the Basie building will serve as host venue for 25 Years of Phoenix: An Evening of Music and Memories — an event in which over two dozen veterans of past Phoenix productions perform a set of signature tunes from 20 of the more than 100 shows that Phoenix has mounted since their first summer-stock endeavors in 1988. Scheduled to appear are such returning guest stars as David Weitzer (last year’s Sweeney Todd), former Miss New Jersey Amy Polumbo (Cinderella) and Debby Dutcher (Broadway’s Phantom), along with such Phoenix phaves as Todd Aikens, Jennifer Forziati, Martin Grubman and Michael Kroll.
The 8 pm concert event is preceded by a 6 pm VIP Cocktail Party in the Basie’s Carlton Lounge, and followed by a 10 pm reception with the cast inside the Phoenix Rehearsal Center, the troupe’s HQ (and the one-time “other WaWa” for Red Bank old-timers) located right next door to the Count’s castle at 111 Monmouth Street.
Also on the agenda is the endearingly traditional raffle drawing, conducted by Phoenix founding father, board chairman and Red Bank resident Tom Martini. A silent auction boasts some fairly star-kissed items up on the block; fitting for a troupe of “weekend warriors” whose list of Honorary Trustees includes the likes of Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman and Olympia Dukakis. UpperWETside put in an early bid for an interview with the not-easily-shaken Mr. Martini.
The Blues is a Chair, and We Don’t Care
August 21, 2011
Blues IN a chair: Branded entertainer BB King is the thickening agent in the BBQ sauce, as Ribfest comes to the corporate gazebo of the Pee ‘N See Arts Center this weekend — a weekend that further features some intriguingly affordable options to hear The Blues, whether real or imagined, in all its myriad hues.
Let us tell you ’bout The Blues. Actually, don’t listen to us — as much as we live the blues every hour of every day, we’re in no position to tell you what The Blues IS any more than the legion of po’boy-wearin’ poseurs who purport to purvey the Real Thing, three sets nitely.
All we can tell you with any certainty is what we like (anything by Howlin Wolf, older Fat Possum, newer Slim Harpo, The Stooges, Captain Beefheart…us and Jon Huntsman…plus Shore goodguy Gary Wright, who recently blew us away with a brief but astonishing set of solo folkblues right here at the historic house where we hang our hat). That and the fact that Asbury Blues is Temporarily Closed like Venice is temporarily sinking.
THAT, and the fact that John Lennon said “the blues is a chair.” Can’t argue with that.
This weekend, like so many other weekends up and down the Upper WET Side and all around the calendar, offers a shipload of opportunities to get a handle on this inscrutable commerce we call The Blues — from old-timey victrola back-porch scratch ‘n skronk, to matching jacket/union-card casino showband clam ‘n pomp. From barely-blues classic rock repositioning, to beyond-blues jam culture mixology and everything in between all those things, which, this being blues, ain’t a huge patch of turf.
What makes THIS particular weekend extra relevant is its almost cosmic confluence of events that illustrate the very State of the Blues in 2011: the tightly controlled and vetted museum-piece kind; the thinly veneered showbiz kind by which soulless suburbanites get to live with themselves one more day at premium-seating prices — and the intimate, almost underground vein that points most directly to the amazing past AND hopeful future of the form. It’s a tour that begins with a freebie festival on Saturday morning, and a kid-gloves flip of the vintage 78…
