- April 24, 2024
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Our area’s live theater scene is like a well-stocked ice cream shop. What follows are eight scoops of my favorite theatrical flavors in the season ahead. My selection is based on gut feeling, personal taste and the track records of playwrights, directors and actors and acting troupes. Objectivity has nothing to do with it.
Ringling International Arts Festival and Urbanite Theatre
Nassim Soleimanpour is a brilliant Iranian playwright—a dangerous occupation in his home country. He can’t leave that country, but his plays can. This one did, and it has been performed to critical acclaim around the world. In our area, it will be performed four times at RIAF, and 10 times at the Urbanite. Beyond that, there’s little I can tell you. Just that there’s one script, 14 actors, no director and no rehearsal. It’s a cold reading every time. Each actor gets the script in a sealed envelope before each show. For the first time ever. (They’ve been contractually ordered not to Google, research, or know a damn thing about the play.) This strikes me as a meta-textual commentary on censorship and the control of information. But what do I know? Honoring the play’s spirit, I’ve done no research. I’m only guessing.
IF YOU GO
When and Where: Oct. 19-21 at The Ringling Circus Museum Backyard, 5401 Bay Shore Road, Sarasota; Oct. 25-Nov. 5 at Urbanite Theatre, 1487 Second St., Sarasota
Tickets: $10-$35 at The Ringling; $25-$40 at Urbanite
Info: Call The Ringling at 359-5700; Call Urbanite at 321-1397.
The Manatee Players, Inc.
Stephen Sondheim’s 1974 Broadway hit borrows its title from a Mozart serenade (“Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”) and a premise from an Ingmar Bergman movie (“Smiles of a Summer Night”). The action takes place in a 19 th -century Swedish estate where it’s perpetually summer. A Greek (or Swedish) chorus comments on the happy/unhappy permutations of various sets of lovers. The songs (including “Send in the Clowns”) are all waltzes. All that may seem like unlikely material for a musical. But Sondheim made hits musicals about America’s assassins and the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Bergman’s dream of summer seems relatively easy.
IF YOU GO
When: Oct. 26-Nov. 12
Where: Manatee Performing Arts Center, 502 3rd Ave. West, Bradenton
Tickets: $27-$37
Info: Call 748-5875
Venice Theatre
David Sedaris is one of America’s greatest comic minds. He’s also short. Before Sedaris launched his comic career, he got a part-time job as an elf in Macy’s Santa Land — an ersatz North Pole village offering close encounters with Santa during the hectic holidays. The store dressed him up in an elf suit and put him to work. Sedaris’ wondering eyes beheld the clashing egos of Santa and elf impersonators and the ridiculous demands of parents and kids. He wrote it all down in a snarky essay, an instant hit when he read it on NPR in 1992. Sedaris has been making people laugh (and making a living at it) ever since. Joe Mantello’s theatrical adaptation of his elfin exposé will make you laugh, too.
IF YOU GO
When: Nov. 30-Dec. 23
Where: Venice Theatre, 140 Tampa Ave., Venice
Tickets: $15-$30
Info: Call 488-1115.
Asolo Rep
Eugene Ionesco’s absurdist play holds a funhouse mirror to absurd reality. The story is simple. One by one, the villagers of a provincial French town transform into thuggish, brutal rhinos. They all act like it’s completely natural. The play’s horrified protagonist stubbornly holds onto his humanity and resists the tide of conformity. (Be a rhinoceros too! Everyone is doing it!) Ionesco wrote this classic in the long shadow of World War II. The resemblance to the groupthink of French collaborators with the Nazis wasn’t coincidental. The resemblance to contemporary friends of fascists still applies. This “Rhinoceros” has a very sharp point. And it hasn’t blunted with time.
IF YOU GO
When: Feb. 7-April 14
Where: Mertz Theatre, FSU Center for the Performing Arts, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota
Tickets: $31-$83, subject to change
Info: Call 351-8000.
The Players Centre for Performing Arts
When Woody Allen is good, he’s very, very good. His 1994 film hit it out of the park. Why not? The premise is comedy gold. A crime boss funds a Broadway production in the 1920s. There’s only one condition: the mobster’s no-talent moll gets the lead role. When the show goes on, the lowbrow torpedo assigned to guard the capo’s frail turns out to be a theatrical genius. His notes about the play actually make it better; the idealistic playwright reluctantly takes the hitman’s advice and gets a hit. And then another hit happens. Funny stuff. Somebody should turn it into a musical, you know? Allen did. This is it.
IF YOU GO
When: Feb. 22-March 11
Where: Players Main Stage, 838 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota
Tickets: $24-$35
Info: Call 365-2494.
Asolo Conservatory
Jean Anouilh’s black comedy unfolds in a French chateau in the 1950s. A rehearsal is in progress. The Count and Countess are planning an amateur (but well-funded) performance of Marivaux’ 1723 play, “Double Inconstancy.” Wit and sophistication flow like bright Champagne bubbles. Until the bubbles burst. Anouilh’s play feels like a glittering French farce, at first — but its high style masks a dark view of human nature. (First dark lesson: If absolute power corrupts absolutely, absolute wealth has the same effect.) Wealthy humans are the playwright’s obvious targets, but he has barbs for all income levels. A word of advice? Anouilh makes you like the characters, but it’s a trick. Don’t drop your guard.
IF YOU GO
When: Feb. 20-March 11
Where: Cook Theatre, FSU Center for the Performing Arts, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota
Tickets: $30
Info: Call 351-8000.
Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe
The year is 1959; the place, a small, seedy club in Philadelphia. Blues and jazz legend Billie Holiday takes the stage for one of the last concerts of her tragically short life. She’ll be portrayed by a living legend: Melba Moore, a Tony Award-winning actress and critically acclaimed R&B singer who devoted an entire album to Holiday’s songs. Lanie Robertson’s gritty play honors that musical legacy, interspersing Lady Day’s tales of her shattering life with “God Bless the Child,” “Strange Fruit” and other classics. The songs have lost none of their power. But this is ultimately a character study—and a portrait of a great artist.
IF YOU GO
When: Feb. 28-April 8
Where: Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe, 1646 10th Way, Sarasota
Tickets: $42 adults, $20 students and active military
Info: Call 366-1505.
Florida Studio Theatre
This world premiere of Sarah Bierstock’s play explores an American reporter’s investigation of a young woman’s brutal murder in the name of “honor.” Pakistan blocks the ambitious reporter from entering the country. Stuck in Dubai, she bypasses state censorship with Skype, satellite phones and other high-tech tools—and a few, dangerous, real-life rendezvous. The reporter’s candid interviews reveal the details of a horrific killing—and force her to reexamine her own dark past. She gets the news; the Third World is very close to our world. As Marshall McLuhan predicted, we’re living in a global village. And it’s a dangerous neighborhood.
IF YOU GO
When: April 4-May 25
Where: FST Gompertz Theatre, 1265 First St., Sarasota
Tickets: $36-$39
Info: Call 366-9000.
