Students from Ossining High School’s Performing Arts Club will present the musical “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown� at Ossining High School next weekend.

The event is free and open to the public.

“You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brownâ€? brings the “Peanuts” comic strip  to life, with Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Schroeder and good ol’ Charlie Brown.

The school is at 29 South Highland Ave. in Ossining.

Performances are Nov. 8 at 4 p.m., Nov. 9 at 7 p.m., Nov. 10 at 7 p.m. and Nov. 11 at 7 p.m.

John Guare’s “The House of Blue Leaves� holds a special place in my heart. The wacky show about a zookeeper who dreams of being a songwriter was the first play I ever directed.

Still, I was surprised to hear that a high school drama club was performing it, until I learned that it was Peter Royal’s kids in Bronxville.

These talented students must still be riding a bit of a high, fresh from performing at this summer’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

They’ve got two full casts doing “House of Blue Leaves� this weekend.

Performances are Nov. 1 at 5 p.m., Nov. 2 at 7 p.m., Nov. 3 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Tickets are $10.

Call 914-395-3208.

At Bronxville High School, 177 Pondfield Road, Bronxville.

Sacred Heart High School in Yonkers will present “Twelve Angry Men” on Nov. 16 and 17 at 8 p.m. and Nov. 18 at 5 p.m.

Eight boys and four girls make up the jury pool.

The courtroom drama that takes us inside jury deliberations to examine the impact of one man on the justice system will be performed at Sacred Heart Church Hall Theatre on Convent Avenue, Yonkers.

Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for students and senior citizens.

For information call:  914-965-6953.

Fort Hill Players is about to hold auditions for the Westchester premiere of
Steve Martin’s “The Underpants.â€?

Adapted from Carl Sternheim’s “Die Hose,â€? it’s the story of Louise Maske, a bureaucrat’s pretty but sexually neglected young wife, whose bloomers unaccountably slip to her ankles when she’s watching the king’s parade. When she rents out a room in her apartment, a flighty poet seeking his muse, and a Jewish dentist quickly answer the call. Upstairs neighbor, Gertrude, a voyeuristic busybody, fuels the frenzy, while boorish husband Theo is too consumed by the fear of social rammifications to see what is going on right under his nose.

Auditions are Nov. 27 and 29 at 7 p.m. and Dec. 1 at 10 a.m. at Rochambeau School, 28 Fisher Ave., White Plains. For directions, go to www.FortHillPlayers.com or call  914-946-5143.

Performance dates are March 14, 15, 21, 22.

They worked together a few seasons back, the start of a relationship that won Nyack’s Bill Irwin a Tony Award for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

Now, Irwin and Pulitzer-winning playwright Edward Albee will get together on the stage of Riverspace Arts in Nyack, part of the “Conversations at Riverspace Series.”

The conversation takes place Nov. 17 at 8 p.m.

According to producers, “Conversations at Riverspace Series will give audiences the opportunity to listen in on a conversation with two great artists, both of whom know and understand one another’s work, talking about their respective crafts in conversation with one another.â€?

You can almost hear it now: “So, Ed, explain ‘The Goat’ to me….â€?

Tickets are $25 ($15 students/seniors); $50 premium seating includes post-show dessert reception with Irwin.

For reservations and additional information, call 845-348-0741 or visit www.riverspace.org.

Got word today from the Somers High School Drama Club that they’ll be performing selections from three different works the weekend of Nov. 16. Scenes from “The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds,” “This is a Test” and an actors improv workshop will be presented.

Show dates: Nov. 16 and 17 at 7:30 p.m.; Nov. 18 at 2 p.m.
Tickets are $5.

You can get tickets at the door or call 914-248-6563.

The cast includes:
“The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds�
Beatrice – Lea Bogner
Tillie – Nina Harkavy
Ruth – Kim Sturman
Nanny – Laura Birdsall
Janice Vickory – Kayla Kleinman

“This is a Test�
Alan – Alex Friedman
Lois – Emma Schunk
Mother – Beth Adler
Teacher – Brenda Schoenfeld
Evan – Simon O’Keefe
Chris – Abby Brailey
Pat – Jenn McKenna
Chorus Voices One, Two, and Three – Naomi Siegal, Harrison Sheehan, and Alex Zaleski
Students – Claire Walsh, April Woltersdorf, Julia Walsh, Caroline Horizny, Dana Kaplowitz

Improv Group
Paul Niwinsky, Annmarie Trapani, Katie Walsh, Kelsey Hagenah, Phil Eskeridge, Nick Solazzo, Katelyn Lonergan and Denise Persampieri

Armand Paganelli is a large man who enjoys performing in community theater.

So it might come as a surprise that, despite decades of work on local stages, he has yet to tackle one of the plums in what is considered the “big man” repertory created by Zero Mostel: Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof.”

“I’ve turned it down seven or eight times, waiting to feel ready for it in my life,” he says.

“Most of that was age – I wasn’t ready – but a big part of it was wanting to feel ready to play that father. And after four kids and 18 years of being a father, in the last two years, I’ve been waiting for it to come along.”

That wait is over, as “Fiddler” kicks off Actors Conservatory Theatre’s 33rd season tonight with Paganelli as Tevye. Performances are this weekend and next at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Hall in Yonkers.

Sholem Aleichem’s simple folk stories – including “Tevye and His Daughters,” about Tevye the pious milkman in a house full of women – were published more than 100 years ago, but Paganelli sees parallels to our time, and to his life.

“What’s cool is that the basis of Tevye is where I come from – very traditional. Although mine’s Italian and Christian and his is Jewish, it’s so much the same: It’s all about family, all about faith, all about honor. These were the messages of my parents and grandparents, so strong,” he says.

Paganelli, who grew up in Rye and has lived in Ossining for 21 years, is keeping his family close, even during performances. There are Paganellis all over the place at Bryn Mawr Hall: Daughter, Olivia, 13, and sons Nicholas, 15, and Christopher, 10, are in the cast. His wife, Janice, is choreographer.

And Arlene Wendt, ACT’s founder and “Fiddler” director, is his mother-in-law.

The eldest Paganelli child, Jillian, is in her first semester at Muhlenberg College, studying psychology and dance, hoping to put the two together in a study of dance-therapy.

Having sent one daughter off to college, Paganelli feels he’s ready to pull on Tevye’s boots. And his onstage family is making him feel like the papa he plays.

“The first time I got hit the hardest was a simple moment during the Sabbath prayer,” he says.

“Last night, we were rehearsing it and Tevye has a line ‘May he send you husbands who will care for you.’ And I just turned over my shoulder and caught all five of my daughters’ faces at once, and my eyes just welled. That’s three seconds of music, but all of them were in my face as I turned and looked.”

It’s what Paganelli calls “a theater experience,” a moment onstage that grabbed him and one he won’t ever forget.

“We had never rehearsed it together and sung it through, so it was first-time fresh,” he says.

“But a moment like that, even though it’s only a few seconds, is enough to propel you through the entire piece,” he says. “When you get a feeling like that, that’s it.”

For this Tevye, at this point in his life, it has become a family memory.

“Tevye has so many moments,” Wendt says. ”’Anatevka,’ the song near the end of the show, rips his heart out, the thought of leaving his home. I cry every time.”

Paganelli clearly respects Wendt’s knowledge of the material.

“She has studied it from top to bottom, inside and out and is so prepared and so ready to teach everybody about the finer nuances and the greater meanings of it.

“She has everybody reading Sholem Aleichem’s stories to become more acquainted and romanticized with the characters,” he says.

This is Wendt’s fourth time directing “Fiddler.”

“I did it when it was still on Broadway, with the St. Mary’s Players in Yonkers in 1973,” Wendt says. “We were the first company to do it.” That same year, Wendt directed the show for the IBM Drama Club.

The next year, she founded Actors Conservatory Theater. In 1981, she revisited Tevye and his daughters, this time for ACT.

A few years later, she met Paganelli.

“When I first met Armand 24 years ago,” Wendt recalls, “I asked him what his dream role was. He said ‘Tevye.’ I told him, ‘You’re too young. You’ll play many roles before that.”

Now, here he is, ready, willing and able to breathe life into a Russian milkman in the throes of parenthood.

“My wife and I have four kids and the first one just went off to college and you face the challenge: How much do you let go?” Paganelli says. “How much do you say, ‘You know what? I just gotta let it happen.’?

“Hopefully we’ve taught her well and she’ll make the right decisions.”

Fiddler on the Roof”

Where: Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Hall, 20 Buckingham Road, Yonkers.
When: 8 p.m. Oct. 25, 26, 27, Nov. 1, 2 and 3; 2 p.m. Oct. 28 and Nov. 4.
Tickets: $20, $18 for seniors, $15 for children 12 and under. On Oct 25 and Nov. 1, all seats are $16, general admission.
Call: 914-391-6558.
With: Armand Paganelli, Susan Mondaruli Siegel, Liza Warner, Gina Cantelmo, Rachel Schulte, Maggie Lloyd, Justina Spadafora, Joel Karpoff, Frank Battaglia, Joseph Marciona, Joshua Judin, Mary Ann Penzero, Ellen Katz, Dolores Stilo, Maryann Mallozzi, Linda Fitzgerald, Daniel Basiletti, Robert Mark, Anthony Cuozzo, Aramis Solar, Eric Scanga, Nick Paganelli, Mickey Melillo, Chris Paganelli, Jaime Olaya, Jennifer Gizzo, Rebecca Alfano, Olivia Paganelli, Jennifer Langford, John Coppola, Ray Frye, Dominick Ranieri, Jeff Ellenberger, Tom Kreiser, Bob Lisanti, Nessa Wolf-Baum.

Another ‘Fiddler’
Bedford Community Theatre also is mounting a production of “Fiddler.”
Where: Bedford Hills Community House, 74 Main St., Bedford Hills.
When: Nov. 9, 10, 11, 16, 17 and 18. Fridays at 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; Sundays at 3 p.m.
Tickets: $15, reserved seating.
Call: 914-244-0474, ext. 22.
Web: www.bedfordcommunitytheatre.org

 (Photo by Dave Kennedy)

Matthew Arkin is careful with his words.

Perhaps it’s because, as an actor – son of Oscar-winner Alan Arkin and brother of Emmy-winner Adam Arkin – he knows the value of words, the impact they can have.

Perhaps it’s because he was once a practicing lawyer and learned that words are subject to interpretation.

But sitting in a bustling diner in Scarsdale hours before he was about to begin work on a new role – in Jeffrey Hatcher’s comedy “Murderers,” at Hudson Stage in Briarcliff – Arkin seems to linger over his answers because he isn’t quite sure what to expect, because all of the work is still before him.

At this point, he has read the script exactly once.

“I really never start work on something until rehearsal,” he says. “I may do some research or reading, if it’s a time period or a topic I’m not familiar with.”

“I’ve always felt – and the people we studied with, Uta Hagen, Austin Pendleton and Sheldon Patinkin, felt – that learning lines before rehearsal means you’re making decisions about what you’re saying and what the other person is saying in the absence of the other person. In this case, my piece is a monologue, but I still want to hear what the director has to say.”

“Murderers” is Jeffrey Hatcher’s wickedly funny look at three people in Florida’s Riddle Key Luxury Retirement Living Center and Golf Course – all of whom have, as the title suggests, taken a life. The play opens Friday and runs through Nov. 10 at the Briarcliff Manor campus of Pace University.

“The temple we belong to, there’s plenty of people who go down to Florida every year,” Arkin says.

The characters – Gerald, Lucy and Minka – don’t interact on stage. The play is told in three long monologues that read like short stories. Arkin’s portion, “The Man Who Married His Mother-in-Law,” runs 19 script pages, and is the longest of the three.

Lucy Martin follows Arkin with “Margaret Faydle Comes to Town.” After Martin, it’s “Match Wits with Minka Lupino,” performed by Andrea Gallo. Audiences might remember Gallo from a production of John Patrick Shanley’s “Italian-American Reconciliation” at Mamaroneck’s Emelin Theatre a couple of seasons ago.

Arkin says he decided to tackle a long monologue, in part, because he really didn’t know how to approach it.

“When I have seen this type of theater in the past, one of the places where I feel it often fails is in the lack of a decision about who the person is talking to and why they’re telling the story,” he says.

“When you have a character on stage addressing an audience in this setting, the big question I have is, ‘Why am I telling this story to these people?’ Because the dramatic event to me is not the story that’s being told, but the action that’s taking place right now, which is the telling of the story.”

The answer to that question is one that the audience will never know, Arkin says. It’ll be between him and Hudson Stage director Dan Foster.

“It’s not important that the audience know what’s going on in my head, that they know the reason I’m telling the story,” Arkin says. “But if I’m in a real place and have a real reason for telling this story, the action will be drastically different.”

If, at the outset, he’s not exactly sure how he’ll make it happen, he’s sure of one thing: He’s seen it done wrong before.

“Some of the most disastrous evenings I’ve seen in the theater have been one-person shows where the story is interesting but you’re being lectured at, instead of having a theatrical experience.”

“A theatrical experience involves a person going through a transformation that we’re witnessing,” he says.

Arkin’s theatrical experience includes Broadway runs of “Losing Louie,” “Laughter on the 23rd Floor” and “The Sunshine Boys,” in which he appeared alongside Jack Klugman and Tony Randall.

He has lived in Manhattan, Chappaqua, Los Angeles and, for the last 10 years, Scarsdale.

Arkin’s wife, Pamela, teaches fitness classes in Scarsdale, using a technique designed by a dancer that involves deep, intense muscle work.

“I’ve done it a few times,” says Arkin. “And I leave the room shaking and sobbing.”

“Whenever Matt gets on stage, he always stands up straight, but not in real life,” Pamela Arkin says. “When he was in ‘Losing Louie,’ he took one of my classes and told me ‘When I was on stage, I could feel I was sore in all the right places.’ ”

Having some free time this fall, the actor decided to take the part at Hudson Stage because they asked and “because I thought it would be a good exercise.”

It’s the kind of exercise he used to abhor.

“Early on my career, I hated the thought of standing alone on stage and talking to the audience, but I kept getting cast in roles where I had to do just that.”

He made his Broadway debut playing Louis, the narrator, in Neil Simon’s “Laughter on the 23rd Floor” and took the role onto a national tour for six months.

He also did “Talley’s Folly” at the Bay Street Theater in the Hamptons, opposite Jessica Hecht. That role, too, involved long speeches.

Pamela says Matthew and his brother built up an ability to learn lines from years of helping their father learn his lines.

“You keep learning things in this job,” Arkin says.

Sometimes, the learning process takes place well into the run of a show.

Arkin tells a story about being in “The Sunshine Boys.”

“We had been running about three months and there was one line of Tony’s that didn’t get a laugh and it was such an obvious laugh line,” he says.

“Every night, I’d watch him not get a laugh on this line and I was younger then – and probably a bit of a jerk – and I’m watching him, going ‘How is he not getting a laugh with that line? How is this possible, that Tony Randall can’t get a laugh with this line? He’s really screwing it up somehow.’

“And then one night, I realized, ‘Oh, it’s my fault he’s not getting a laugh.’ I was looking at him when he said the line, instead of not looking at him and then turning to him after the line. Half the time, audiences need to be cued to the jokes and one of the ways they know that was a joke is when the characters on the stage turn and react.

“From then on, he got the laugh.”

Did the young Arkin tell Randall he had fixed it?

“No. I think he thought he finally got the laugh,” Arkin says with a laugh. “The audience finally shaped up.”

The nine-month run of “The Sunshine Boys,” which started 10 years ago this fall, gave the Arkins the nest egg they needed to buy an apartment in Scarsdale.

That was also when their son, Sam, was born. Sam is now 9, with a 3-year-old sister, Abby.

One day they’ll help their father learn his lines. And choose his words carefully.

“Murderers”
Where: Woodward Hall Theatre, Pace University 235 Elm Road, Briarcliff Manor.
When: Oct. 26 through Nov. 10. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sunday matinees at 3 p.m. on Oct. 28 and Nov. 4; Saturday matinee at 3 p.m. Nov. 10.
Tickets: $25, general admission; $20 for students and seniors. Group rates available. Pace discount tickets are $15.
Call: 914-271-2811.
Web: www.hudsonstage.com.

(Photo by Frank Becerra Jr.)

Chazz Palminteri has a question: “Did you ever see somebody get killed in front of you?”

Palminteri has.

“When it happens, it’s surreal,” says the 55-year-old actor. “Everything just goes out of focus and turns into slow-motion almost. Like time just stops.”

And Palminteri never stopped thinking about that moment, a shooting that occurred when he was 8 or 9 years old, in the Little Italy section of the Bronx – 187th Street and Belmont Avenue.

When he was at his lowest point as a struggling Los Angeles actor and decided to write a play – “I thought, ‘If they won’t give me a good part, I’m gonna write one for myself,’ he recalls – his thoughts turned to what he witnessed from his stoop on 187th Street.

His semiautobiographical one-man play, “A Bronx Tale” – in which he portrays 18 different characters over the course of a 90-minute performance – has provided several firsts in his career: It won him his first major stage accolades, gave him a screenwriting credit, won him a leading role in a major motion picture and now it brings him to Broadway.

Yes, Broadway.

On Thursday, “A Bronx Tale” opens at Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre, for a limited run through Feb. 10.

In 1987, “A Bronx Tale” got Palminteri noticed by Hollywood producers, all of whom wanted his story, but none of whom wanted Palminteri to be involved in the movie. He says he turned down offers of $250,000 to $1 million, stipulating that he wanted a role in the film.

“A Bronx Tale” moved to Off-Broadway, where it got the attention of Robert De Niro, who wanted the story, wanted to make his directorial debut with the story, wanted Palminteri to play a crucial role – and wanted Palminteri to write the screenplay. The movie hit theaters in 1993.

Now, Palminteri – who calls Bedford home – is about to make his Broadway debut.

It’s a long way from Belmont Avenue to Broadway, but even longer from the L.A. apartment where Palminteri began his way up from his lowest ebb.

He had just lost a job as a doorman after refusing entry to the ultimate Hollywood insider Swifty Lazar.

Palminteri went home and found something his father had given him.

“My father used to write things on index cards and leave them around for me,” the actor recalls. “One he wrote was ‘The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.’ I had it for years there when I was a kid.”

He took it as a wakeup call, long-distance from his Bronx childhood home.

He went to a drugstore, bought some legal pads, sat down and wondered what to write about.

“I said ‘Maybe I’ll write about the killing I saw,’” he says.

That started a 10-month process of mixing memory and imagination.

(“It’s not a documentary of my life,” Palminteri says.)

“I didn’t write it overnight,” he says. “It took 10 months of doing it and shaping it in front of my theater workshop. Writing 20 minutes and then keeping 10. Writing another half-hour and keeping 15. So in 10 months, I had this incredibly tight, tight piece before I put it in front of anyone.”

When he did finally show it to an audience, people saw 18 fully distinguishable characters. They met Colagero Palminteri (Chazz’s given name) and watched as he tried to negotiate a minefield of difficult choices in the Bronx of the 1960s.

“There were wiseguys and there was my dad, who drove a bus,” he recalls. “There was always the pull to go with the wiseguys.

“But my father always said, ‘They only end up two places: dead or in jail. My life is harder but it’s easier.’ ”

Palminteri listened to some of what the wiseguys said and listened to most of what his father said and made his own way.

And Colagero does the same in “A Bronx Tale.”

On stage at the Kerr, Palminteri bobs and weaves between characters, putting on a limp or a shrug or talking out of the side of his mouth. At times, the conversations have many sides.

“I knew when I created it that – because I have three or four people talking at the same time – that I really have to make sure that people know who the hell is who. So I really took my time and worked on it so you really know. That’s very important,” he says.

The wiseguy, Sonny, is always on the street corner, or in a social club a few doors down.

Colagero’s dad drives by regularly on his route to City Island, keeping an eye on things in the neighborhood through the windshield of his bus.

“I wanted to talk about the working man,” Palminteri says. “Because the Mafia gets all the glory, but I wanted to talk about ‘Hey, the Mafia is just this little aberration in the Italian-American community. The real people that hold the community together are the working people: the bus drivers, cops, people like that.’ That was my homage to them.”

But it’s not entirely cut and dry, the actor says.

“I think that’s what makes the story so universal,” Palminteri says. “It’s not so much about good and evil, it’s ‘almost good’ and ‘not too evil.’

“As bad as Sonny was, he had great things to tell the kids. And as good as my father was, he didn’t want his son dating a black girl.”

The idea of bringing “A Bronx Tale” back to New York – to Broadway, this time – occurred to Palminteri while he was filming his most recent feature, “Yonkers Joe.”

(In “Yonkers Joe,” due next year, Palminteri plays the father of a young man with Down syndrome. It co-stars Christine Lahti and producers are hoping to get it to the Sundance Film Festival in January.)

“I was thinking ‘It’s been 18 years. I’m young enough still to do it. A new generation hasn’t seen it. I should do it again,’” he says.

Finding the money was as easy as mentioning it to his “Yonkers Joe” producer, Trent Othick, who immediately agreed to back it without even seeing a script.

Palminteri called his agent and learned that Tony-winning director Jerry Zaks (“Guys & Dolls,” “Six Degrees of Separation”) was available to direct and the Walter Kerr Theater, most recently the home to “Grey Gardens,” was available.

“This usually takes years to put together,” he says with a hint of disbelief in his voice.

It has been years since Palminteri first breathed life into these characters. When he first performed the piece, he was single – and 20 years younger.

Today, he’s married, and lives in Bedford with his wife, Gianna, son, Dante, and daughter, Gabriella.

The years have changed his perspective.

“When I first did those roles, I would feel me as the young boy and my father as my father. Now, I’m doing it me as a father and the young boy as my son.”

Director Zaks has taken that into consideration.

“He made it better than the original play,” the actor says. “He said ‘You can take your time more. You’re different now. You’re older.’ He pointed out spots where I could take my time and embellish things and tell the story here.

“And the Broadway lights and sound are just better,” he adds.

“I love being on the stage,” says Palminteri. “Plus, I have this incredible rocket ship underneath me, this material that’s proven time and again that it works.

Chazz Palminteri: A Westchester tale
Chazz Palminteri’s son, Dante, turned 12 recently.
What were birthdays like for Palminteri, growing up in the Bronx in the ‘60s?
“A birthday back then was an Entenmann’s cake and candles. One thing about my parents. They always gave me a cake. All of us. We always had a cake.”
How are things different for his son?
“We go to Yankee Stadium and sit in a suite.”
Palminteri’s daughter, Gabriella Rose, was born on Christmas 2001, just months after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
“God’s always been in my life,” the thoughtful Palminteri says, relating the story of how, in 1999, he had a check in his hand and was about to buy an apartment on Murray Street, right across from the twin towers.
“I look at the World Trade Center and I told my wife ‘I got a bad feeling about this. They tried to bomb this thing in ‘93. What happens if they try it again?’
“She said, ‘You know, you’re crazy,’ ” he recalls.
They bought land in Bedford, instead, and built a home. Palminteri’s kids will not grow up with every other storefront a bookie joint, one of the way he describes his old neighborhood.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he says. “I had a great childhood. But it was a different time back then. And my son will have his experiences up here.”
(Photo by Tom Nycz)

Spotlight Theatre presents “Crazy for Youâ€? the all-new Gershwin musical, starting Friday, Nov. 2 through 18, with dinner shows on Nov. 3 and 4, at the Spotlight Theatre, 1949 East Main St., Mohegan Lake.

Cast members include Jim DeBlasi as Bobby Child, Jocelyn Jones as Polly Baker, Dan Allen as Bela Zangler, David Lowell as Lank Hawkins, Patrick Dougherty as Everette Baker, Francine Zeller as Irene Roth, John Leonard as Eugene Fodor, Ellen Reing as Patricia Fodor, Margaret Favila as Lottie Child, Erin Gallante as Tess, Jessica Ford as Patsy and Lindsay Miller as Mitzi.

Songs from the show include: “Shall We Dance?,� “Embraceable You,� “I Got Rhythm,� “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,� “But Not For Me,� and “Nice Work If You Can Get It.�

Show times are Nov. 2, 8 p.m., Nov. 3 at 7 (dinner show); Nov. 4 at 2 P.M. (dinner show); Nov. 9 at 8 p.m.; Nov. 10 at 2 and 8; Nov. 11 at 2 p.m.; Nov. 16 and 17 at 8 and Nov. 18 at 2 p.m.

Tickets are $16, $12 for seniors and children, and $33 for dinner shows.  Group rates are available.  Tickets are available at www.stpny.com or 845-526-3461.

YCP THeaterWorks will hold auditions for their production of Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchardâ€? on Nov. 26 and 29 at 7 p.m. at the Van Cortlandtville School Theater on Route 6 in Mohegan Lake, across from the Cortlandt Town Center.

Director Melinda O’Brien says there are 12 main roles open of various ages ranging from 16 to those in the 40’s, with some walk-on parts as well.

Performances will be in late January and early February.
For information call O’Brien at 914-962-3431 or e-mail her at
mmlibrarytheatre@hotmail.com

Here are the first photos from “Phantom” at Westchester Broadway Theatre, starring Aaron Ramey as the Phantom and Kate Rockwell (from TV’s “Grease: You’re the One That I Want”) as Christine Daae. The show opens to the press on Thursday night. My review will run in Saturday’s editions.

WBT presents “Phantomâ€? through Nov. 25 and then, after “A Christmas Carol,” the run picks up from Dec. 27 through Feb. 9. The book is by Arthur Kopit. The music and lyrics are by Maury Yeston. Basted on the novel by Gaston Leroux.

For tickets, call 914-592-2222.

Above, Kate Rockwell as Christine Daae, and the cast of “Phantom� perform “The Bistro.�

Above, Kate Rockwell, center, and the cast of “Phantom� perform “Melodie de Paris.�

Above, Gary Marachek, as Alain Cholet, and Sandy Rosenberg as La Carlotta.

Above, James Van Treuren, as Gerard Carriere, and Aaron Ramey, as Erik, the Phantom, perform “You Are My Own.�

All Photos by John Vecchiolla

Got the following note from Jean-Paul DeVellard, the president and founder of Blueberry Pond Theatre Ensemble.

“Mr. Kramer,
“It was brought to my attention that in your blog of October 2, 2007—- Play Readings: Part of the Process—- you wrote the following: The Invitation Came from Cynthia Granville, who helped start Blueberry Pond Theatre Ensemble in Ossining…and has moved on to start her own company: The Supporting Characters.
“I must say that it certainly came as news to me that Ms. Granville “helped start Blueberry Pond Theatre Ensemble”. As the original founder and President of Blueberry’s Board of Directors, I am certainly in a better position to correct the record about who helped “start” my own company than anyone else. Ms. Granville joined Blueberry well after it had been “started” or founded. I of course commend Ms. Granville for her efforts while she was with Blueberry and wish her only the best in her future professional pursuits. She did not, however, help found Blueberry.

“Thus, I would respectfully request and appreciate that at your earliest convenience you correct this error in your blog of October 2, 2007. I am sure you can understand how those who actually did assist in the founding of Blueberry might feel about the hard work and creative efforts being ascribed to someone else.
“Thanking you in advance for correcting this error in your blog, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Jean-Paul DeVellard

Consider this a correction. For the record, Cynthia contacted me the next day suggesting the same correction. I told her that as the first artistic director for the company under its Equity contract, she had, indeed, helped start Blueberry on its way. Still, I respected the distinction and only a hectic work schedule has kept me from making the correction, till now.

When you get an email from The President, attention must be paid.

Incidentally, Blueberry Pond presents “Hong Kong,â€? a play by Lloyd Pace—whose play got the reading that was the focus of the now-corrected blog posting—from Nov. 2 through Dec. 2.

I learned minutes ago that Robert Cuccioli — known to Westchester as “The Phantom” and to Broadway audiences as Jekyll & Hyde and as Javert in “Les Miserables” — will help to inaugurate the new White Plains Performing Arts Center, appearing as Don Quixote in “Man of LaMancha” from Nov. 29 through Dec. 16.

This is a huge coup for the WPPAC, a new home for musicals in White Plains, and, I have to think, a lost opportunity for Westchester Broadway Theatre in Elmsford.

Cuccioli put the dinner theater on the map in 1991, with a nine-month-run of “Phantom,” the Arthur Kopit-Maury Yeston musical that is NOT the Andrew Lloyd Webber “Phantom of the Opera,” but is based on the same story.

When the Broadway-bound musical “Lone Star Love” folded in Seattle late last month and the Broadway run was canceled, Cuccioli became available and Jack Batman, who now runs WPPAC, pounced.

Of course, WBT — which opens “Phantom” to the press Thursday night — already has its Phantom: Aaron Ramey.

But I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering how this news will be received up on Broadway Plaza in Elmsford. What might have been.

For tickets to “Man of La Mancha” — running Nov. 29 through Dec. 16 at 11 City Place, White Plains, in the City Center mall — call 914-328-1600.

For tickets to “Phantomâ€? — running now through February 9, with a break for a holiday show, at WBT, Broadway Plaza in Elmsford, call 914-592-2222.

In June 2006, theatrical consultant Jack W. Batman took a call from the board at the White Plains Performing Arts Center.

“They said, ‘Take a look at this and see if this theater’s worth saving,’ because they’d been losing a lot of money,” recalls Batman, whose name is pronounced BAT-min.

“I looked at the books and what had been happening – and the bad press – and I came up with a business plan,” he says.

The plan evaluated performances, budgets, and subscription plans – everything a theater needs to be successful.

He presented the plan to the board and recommended they find an artistic director to put the plan into action.

A couple of weeks later, the board called Batman back.

“They said, ‘This is all great. We’ve digested all this. And would you like to be the artistic director?’ ” Batman recalls with a laugh.

“I thought about it and I said ‘This is an opportunity not to be missed. It’s a half-hour from the city. It’s not a big deal. I can’t get to Brooklyn in the time I can get here.”

Batman’s resumé includes years as a theatrical agent and as a casting director for more than 200 professional shows. He helped develop the successful Chelsea Piers entertainment complex, produced dozens of events there and ran the venue’s publicity campaigns.

“Then I came back to the theater,” he says with a gleam in his eye, “because I was making too much money.”

He was an associate producer of the Tony-nominated Broadway play “Enchanted April,” which ran for five months at the Belasco Theatre, closing Aug. 31, 2003.

He and WPPAC marketing director Bruce Robert Harris are the producers of the monthlong Gayfest NYC, an annual festival of new plays and musicals of new works by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender authors, or plays that spotlight gay-friendly subject matter.

Taking over the job in February, Batman put into motion the plan he had laid out: the performances, the budget and the subscription plans.

The Performing Arts Center would be an Equity house, a home for professional actors.

And it would only do musicals.

Harris, who handles the venue’s advertising and marketing, says the team did a lot of research before they jumped into the venture. That included asking people what they wanted to see.

“Ninety-nine percent said musicals,” Harris recalls.

So the 410-seat White Plains Performing Arts Center – which started life as another venue run by the people who ran the now-defunct Helen Hayes Theater Company in Nyack – will produce big Broadway hits with professional actors.

There will be three mainstage productions – “Man of La Mancha,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” – and one concert version of a musical, “Ragtime.”

Those shows will be produced, cast, directed and acted by people employed by the Performing Arts Center. But Batman will also be a presenter, bringing in road shows, tours or other special events, all with music in them.

The business plan boils down to: If we sing it, they will come.

Changes are well under way at the theater on the third floor of the City Center mall.

New signs will direct theatergoers, there’s new paint and carpet, and a new facade – complete with old-fashioned lights – will make the center look different from its next-door neighbor, the multiplex.

“People have already stopped coming in and asking us what time the next movie starts,” Batman says. “We used to get all kinds of people coming in to ask that.”

Now, if the plan works, people will be coming in and asking for two on the aisle for an impressive lineup of musicals.

The season kicks off Oct. 19 and 20 with a special event, the Broadway-bound national tour of “Irving Berlin’s ‘I Love a Piano,’ ” fresh from Boston’s Colonial Theater.

Directed and choreographed by Ray Roderick and co-written with Michael Berkeley, “I Love a Piano” highlights dozens of Berlin classics, from “God Bless America” and “Easter Parade” to “White Christmas” and “Puttin’ on the Ritz” – a song that gets a different Broadway treatment this fall, in Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein.”

Batman says it’s the first time the Berlin estate has allowed a revue of the songman’s music out of the context of the original shows. And audiences in White Plains will be able to see three performances of the show before it moves on to Broadway.

“This is the type of theater everyone has asked us for,” Harris says.

The Berlin revue is followed, on Nov. 16, by another special event, “Diva Dish! with Luke Yankee,” a musical tribute to Broadway and Hollywood from a man with a unique perspective: Yankee is the son of Oscar-winner Eileen Heckart (“Butterflies Are Free”).

Right after Thanksgiving, the mainstage Broadway Classics Series kicks off with “Man of La Mancha,” Mitch Leigh’s musical retelling of the story of Don Quixote. The show runs twelve performances, from Nov. 29 through Dec. 16.

The new year kicks off with a three-performance concert version of the Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens musical “Ragtime,” based on E.L. Doctorow’s novel. That show runs Feb. 1-3 and is the season’s lone offering in what Batman and Harris hope grows into a whole series of concert performances, similar to “Encores!” at that other City Center, the one in Midtown.

“We’re already two-thirds sold out for the three nights, and it’s not till February,” Batman says.

The mainstage season continues Feb. 28 through March 16 with “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and concludes with “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” from April 24 to May 11.

Batman is familiar with the area, having been a casting director for Westchester Broadway Theatre for years, sending New York actors up to Westchester to put on musicals.

Now, he’s the one they’ll be coming to.

“The interest in musicals in Westchester just astounds me, from the high schools on up,” Batman says. “This is big. Obviously they want musicals.”

The clear competition for the musical-theater dollar in Westchester is Westchester Broadway, the 34-year-old dinner theater down 287 and up Route 9A from White Plains.

Batman says he’s lunched with his former bosses, WBT co-founders Bill Stutler and Bob Funking, and says they take a more-the-merrier approach to the new kids on the block.

“Bill said, ‘We do long runs, 12 weeks, 14 weeks. The truth of the matter is each person in the audience comes once. We don’t want just an audience of people who go to the theater once every 12 weeks. We want people to keep going to theater. We think it’s great that you’re here, too,’ ” Batman says.

“To me, that’s a vote of confidence from the boys eight miles away,” he says with a laugh.

White Plains Performing Arts Center
Where: 11 City Place, White Plains, in the City Center mall
Call: 914-328-1600
Finding it: Take Mamaroneck Avenue to the intersection with Main Street. Turn right and, at the first light, turn right into the City Center parking garage. Go to the top level. Park and take the walkway across to the PAC, which is next to the movie theater.
Broadway Classics Series – “Man of La Mancha,” Nov 29 – Dec 16; – “Ain’t Misbehavin,’” Feb. 28 – March 16; – “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” April 24 – May 11.
Tickets: $35 to $60 for each show; three-play subscriptions from $75 to $150.
Broadway in Concert – “Ragtime,” Feb. 1 – 3.
Tickets: $35, $45.
Special Events – “Irving Berlin’s ‘I Love a Piano,’ ” (National Tour Prior to Broadway), Oct. 19, 20.
Tickets: $50, $60. – “Diva Dish! with Luke Yankee,” (A Personal Memoir of Broadway and Hollywood Stars), Nov. 16.
Tickets: $40, $45. – “Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez” (A Mardi Gras Celebration), Feb. 9.
Tickets: $50, $60.
Family and Kids Series – “The Day It Snowed Tortillas,” Oct. 13 at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.
Tickets: $20, $16 for kids. – “Yarina: Remembrances of Ecuador,” Oct. 27 at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Tickets: $20, $16 for kids. – “Pirates,” Nov. 3 at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.
Tickets: $20, $16 for kids. – “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” Feb. 10 at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.
Tickets: $20, $16 for kids. – “The Wizard of Oz,” March 30 at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.
Tickets: $20, $16 for kids. – “Audra Rox,” April 6 at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.
Tickets: $20, $16 for kids.
International Series – “Hip, Heymish & Hot,” (Yiddish Soul) Nov. 10 at 8 p.m.; Nov. 11 at 2 p.m. Tickets: $30, $35. – “Syren Modern Dance: ‘Abravanel,’ ” Nov. 17 at 8 p.m.
Tickets: $30, $35. – “Ballet Los Pampas,” April 5 at 8 p.m. Tickets: $30, $35. – “MacTalla Mor,” April 12 at 8 p.m. Tickets: $30, $35.