If theater is meant to spark conversation, its mission is accomplished with Penguin Rep’s latest production, Joel Drake Johnson’s “The Fall to Earth.”

The play’s final moment — which Johnson has said was meant to be “deliberately ambiguous” — certainly had people talking after Sunday’s matinee.

“What does it mean?” one woman wondered aloud.

“Do you think…?” one wife asked her husband, who offered a long “Nooooo” in reply.

In the parking lot, one theatergoer turned to the members of her party and said, “We’re going to have to have a long talk about this one.”

You won’t learn about the ending here — no “spoiler alerts” required — but rest assured that, after 95 minutes, it comes as a surprise.

Johnson’s one-act play — on stage at Penguin Rep in Stony Point through July 20 — involves Fay and her daughter, Rachel, who check into “a typical chain motel in a small American town.”

It started in 2005, Anna Becker recalls, at a conference table at Northern Westchester Center for the Arts, which was in its final months.
Becker had been called in to advise Michael Unthank, who had just taken over at NWCA.
“He asked me what the place needed to be more complete as an arts center and I said, ‘You don’t have a professional performance component,’” she recalls in a conversation at her Pound Ridge home.
As she discussed the potential such an addition would bring to the center, a board member noticed how animated she was getting.
Becker went home, thought about it, asked Unthank if she could try to put such a program together and, one PowerPoint presentation later, the job was hers.

“If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die.”
So says Orsino, the lovestruck duke in the opening of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.”
Director John Christian Plummer will have musicians play on when the romantic comedy opens tonight at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Garrison.
Plummer, who lives in Cold Spring, is directing at the festival for the first time, but he’s well-acquainted with the Bard.
When he was fresh out of Tufts University — where he directed a “Twelfth Night” — he created the Albany-based Actors Shakespeare Company, which presented nearly two dozen productions over seven summers.
Plummer’s parents have lived in the area for 15 years or so, and his wife, actress Maia Guest — who plays Feste the clown in “Twelfth Night” — trod the Boscobel lawn in “The Rivals” two summers ago and was Phoebe in “As You Like It” more than a dozen years ago.
Regular HVSF patrons know that music always finds its way into the tent at the Boscobel Restoration, the festival’s home:

Five years ago this month, Michele Pawk clutched her new Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a play as an alcoholic mother in “Hollywood Arms.”
Starting tonight, she plays another mother in “The Fall to Earth” at Stony Point’s Penguin Rep in a production that runs through July 20.
Pawk plays Fay Schorsch, a role created by Rondi Reed, who was this year’s Best Featured Actress in a play for her work in “August: Osage County.” Both plays began life at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.
In Joel Drake Johnson’s “The Fall to Earth,” Fay checks into “a typical chain motel in a small American town” with her daughter, Rachel.It’s not clear why they’re here. It is clear that Fay is a nervous wreck. She speaks constantly in rapid-fire fashion, her daughter offering monosyllabic answers.

When Paul Binder and Michael Christensen met at the San Francisco Mime Troupe in 1972, they clicked right away.

“We had a great time together,” says Christensen. “We made each other laugh. We enjoyed hanging out. Ideas would tumble and we always existed in a spirit of play. We played a lot together, like brothers.”

They are a study in contrasts: Binder, a Brooklynite, is loud and takes the lead; Christensen, who is from Walla Walla, Wash., is quiet and chooses his words carefully.

“And therein lies the tale,” says Christensen.

“Celebrate” starts, appropriately, with a confetti cannon, this 30th anniversary spectacular of the one-ring wonder known as the Big Apple Circus.
The Huesca Brothers tumble their way through a rapid-fire act that involves one brother flipping the other over and over using just his feet. It’s a routine that will make back-pain sufferers wince but they make it look as easy as a walk the park.
The inimitable Barry Lubin is in fine form as Grandma the clown, deconstructing what the audience has just seen in his own particular way.
Fellow clowns Fumagalli and Daris are classic tumblers who blend comedy with their act, eliciting titters from the 3-year-olds in the front row – and their parents.
Two acts take children’s toys to a whole other level.
Yelena Larkina gives hula-hoop lovers something to shoot for – and then some – in a stylized routine titled “Wedding Rings.”
“Jump for Joy” has the Kovgar Troupe doing double-Dutch times three, with six jump ropes going at once.

Another busy week. I filed today’s Antrim review, which you were able to read here, first. Tomorrow, I’ll advance opening night of “The Fall to Earth” at Penguin Rep in Stony Point. Saturday, I’ll advance opening night of “Twelfth Night” at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Garrison and Sunday, I’ve got an interview with Anna Becker the wonderful producer of the “Insights & Revelations Series” at Pleasantville’s Rosenthal JCC.

Saturday, I’ll be at Boscobel to review “Twelfth Night” and Sunday I’ll be at Penguin Rep to review “The Fall to Earth.”

I’m still trying to catch up with the new co-presidents at Mamaroneck’s Emelin Theater to find out why Michael Bush left the artistic director’s post after nine months — and how they plan to move forward with a theater program.

And John Pizzarelli is coming to Caramoor on the 4th of July, so I hope to catch up with the sometimes-Putnam-County resident about that, too.

Then, vacation.

Got an update on Hudson Stage’s annual fund-raiser, Divas 2008, which is set for July 19 at 7 p.m., which coincides, sadly, with the Kramers’ annual jaunt to Cape Cod.

In recent years, this star-studded affair has drawn Broadway’s creme de la creme to Westchester: Past “Divas” have included Liz Callaway, Cady Huffman, Audra McDonald and Shoshanna Bean.

This year’s event — which gets under way at 7 p.m. on the 19th with cocktails and hors d’ouevres — was to be hosted by Matthew Arkin, seen in “Murderers” last season, but he had to withdraw.

Stepping in to host are Alan Campbell (Tony nominee “Sunset Boulevard”) and his wife, Lauren Kennedy, who played Lady of the Lake, “Spamalot,” live in Mount Kisco. (They’re pictured at right, photos courtesy Hudson Stage.)

Producer Denise Bessette confirmed that sisters Liz Callaway and Ann Hampton Callaway will both perform at Divas this year, Liz fresh from Feinstein’s in NYC. As Liz is married to Hudson Stage director Dan Foster, and in keeping with the family theme, Bessette’s sister, Mimi, will lend her talents to the evening, too.

You can never go home.

If you’re best-selling author Eric Weiss in Donald Margulies’ “Brooklyn Boy,” — the final show in the 71st season of Antrim Playhouse, now on stage through Sunday — going home means visiting your ever-critical father in his Room 212 at Maimonides Medical Center, and still not measuring up.

ou present him with your book, which will debut at No. 11 on the bestseller list, and he says he thought the bestseller list only went up to ten. You explain it goes up to 15 now.

“Good thing they made the list longer,” he says. “Lucky for you.”

Summer isn’t just for Shakespeare. The Axial Theatre is planning “Axial Under the Stars,” on Saturday, July 12 from 7 p.m. on. It’ll be at the Martha Guinsberg Pavilion at the Mohegan Colony Schoolhouse, 99 Baron DeHirsch Road in Crompond. Tickets are a manageable $5 per person and reservations can be made at 914-286-7680.

Here’s the invite:
“Come for one, stay for all”

Axial Under the Stars is a casual evening of theatre in Northern Westchester County.

Please visit our website at www.axialtheatre.org”

As someone who loves words, Carlin was always a favorite. In my book, this routine is right up there with “Who’s on First?”

Going back to the charming Antrim Playhouse tonight to see “Brooklyn Boy.” After seeing their wonderful “West Side Story,” I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ll do with a straight play.

Last November, representatives from several local theater groups and institutions gathered around a long table in Valhalla to talk about “inclusive theater,” the idea that taking part in a show isn’t an enterprise only for able-bodied.

At the end of the meeting, the participants were fired up, ready to try to bring the idea into their worlds.

(Read my story here.)

Even before that meeting, Jordan Jankus had experience with “arts-based experiential theater. Jankus and his JessBecause group have run with it. Jankus created a program for teens and adults with disabilities at the Westchester Institute for Human Development.

According to the Jess Because Web site, “We believe that there is great value in the educational experience of just giving a person the chance to try something without the criteria of success or failure. It’s an approach that we’ve used and found to be very empowering for each student.”

Tomorrow night, Jess Because presents Create ABILITY ‘08 at the Valhalla campus, featuring two parts:

STASIS: A Moment of Equilibrium, a juried art exhibit of visionary and outsider art” — This is a juried show by self-taught artists with or without disabilities.
and
SPIRIT — a performing arts show with artists who are disabled or whose work deals with living with disabilities.

The festival is tomorrow night from 6 to 9:30 p.m. in Valhalla.

For more information, call Jankus at 914.526.8245.

Check out Angie Gaul’s video from the High School Theater Awards.

http://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080612/VIDEO/306120025/-1/Frontpage

Another summer, another search for an artistic director at Mamaroneck’s Emelin Theater. It was confirmed today that Michael Bush is out as artistic director nine months after taking over at the venue on Library Lane.

The former Manhattan Theater Club advisor had big plans for the tiny venue—and kicked them off with a Glen Island party last fall to start the drive for a $10 million expansion of the site. He programmed a “Theater in Concert Festival” last fall that he considered a tasting menu of where he wanted to take the theater. There was cabaret, there was theater, there was music.

He staged “Murderers,” a play he helped develop with playwright Jeffrey Hatcher, but then had to postpone a May production of “Pure Heaven: A Party with Kay Thompson,” when its star, Ruth Williamson, developed throat problems in previews. That production was pushed back to the fall and is now in jeopardy.

Carla Sacks of the Emelin’s press firm Sacks & Co. confirmed that Bush is leaving.

“It is true. Michael has resigned,” Sacks said, adding “both parties are working amicably together to resolve it and move forward.”

Sacks had no further details, but said that summer programming will not be affected by the resignation. “Only the theater program is being affected,” she said.

Sara Feldmann Sheehan confirmed earlier that she is stepping down as president of the Emelin board and will be replaced by Mark D. Ettenger and Seth Kaplan. Feldmann Sheehan said she planned to remain on the board.

It’s been a rocky year at the Emelin. In the spring of 2007, shortly after announcing a $10 million capital program to more than double the venue’s usable space – managing director John Raymond left abruptly, followed soon by the theater’s publicity director.Last September, the Emelin’s board of trustees  announced the appointment of  Bush as the theater’s new artistic director, in what was seen as a major step in securing the future of the 250-seat Equity house that is home to legitimate theater, a cabaret series, a bluegrass series and a film club.

In making the announcement, Sara Feldmann Sheehan, said Bush was a good fit.

“Michael Bush has the vision, energy and passion we were looking for to take the Emelin Theatre in an exciting new direction,” Sheehan said at the time. “Most importantly, Michael understands that it is crucial to maintain what is beloved about the Emelin, such as its intimacy and sense of community, while continuing to expand our programming to make it relevant to an even larger audience.”

Bush had a decades-long relationship with Manhattan Theatre Club. He was a key lieutenant to the club’s artistic director, Lynne Meadow, and was involved in the development of “Proof” and “Doubt,” two Tony and Pulitzer Prize winners.

In an interview at the time, Bush told me he was looking forward to taking chances in Mamaroneck.

“It’s a risky thing to say ‘Let’s take chances and actually dare to strive for something larger,’ ” he said then.

He gave audiences a glimpse of his theatrical vistion with a November festival – Theatre in Concert – that included plays about Tennessee Williams, cabaret nights, and a bit of bluegrass.

The news of Bush’s departure has to be unsettling for those watching the ambitious capital plan the theater had laid out before his arrival: A $10 million “Next Stage” project would expand the theater’s stage and seating capacity (from 250 to 399), add a film-only theater (allowing for an expanded film series), and a 60-seat “black box” experimental theater. The complex will go from 9,000 square feet to 36,000 square feet.

Bush had ventured from Manhattan Theatre Club before.

In 2002, he left MTC to lead Charlotte Rep in his native North Carolina. After 18 months, he left Charlotte, having presented Hilary Swank in “The Miracle Worker” and several new works, but finding that the community’s support was insufficient to sustain the professional theater. In February 2005, the theater folded.

When he took the Emelin post, Bush said the Charlotte experience taught him to be humble, and that “transition takes time.”

“The board there had given me a mandate to put Charlotte Rep in a national spotlight, which I did very quickly. But the South is a tricky area. There’s no history or tradition of philanthropy. I had tremendous competition from all of the sports. My second season there, the Panthers went to the Super Bowl and my theater was right across the street from the stadium. I was having a hard time drawing in that audience there, so I was trying to create true events. One of the ones I pulled off was getting Hilary Swank there, and we did sell out every night.”

Bush said the experience made him stronger.

“You can’t know success without tasting failure. I’ve had great success and I’ve fallen on my face. I learned more from falling on my face, but I come to this job with a true yin and yang to what life is about – and what success is about.

“I think it has prepared me for what I call Act 2 of my life. And I see the Emelin as a really strong and kind of glorious Act 2,” he said last September.

With Raymond’s departure, and now Bush’s departure, the Emelin, it appears, is ready for Act 3.

Photo by Mark Vergari/The Journal News: Michael Bush at a Midtown Manhattan rehearsal of “Pure Heaven: A Party with Kay Thompson,” which was planned as the spring production at the Emelin, but which was postponed to the fall after its star, Ruth Williamson, developed vocal problems during previews. Bush is out as artistic director after nine months on the job.