In the Wings

Helen Hayes Youth Theatre presents “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” this weekend and next at Riverspace, 117 Main St., Nyack. Performances are April 30, May 1, 7 and 8 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $15 at the door.

Kathleen Donovan-Warren teaches and directs at Pleasantville High School during the school year, but returns to Briarcliff each summer to head up the Recreation & Parks Department Summercliff Players. This year, the Players present the satirical romp, “URINETOWN,” directed by Donovan-Warren with musical direction by Nadia Rizzo and technical direction by… Read More →

Dobbs Ferry High School’s Film Club hosts its inaugural Student Film Festival tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. in the school’s auditorium on Broadway. Thirty films from across Westchester (and Greenwich) were submitted and will be judged in three categories: outstanding documentary, outstanding comedy and outstanding drama. The entries — from Dobbs’... Read More →

There’s an ambitious program for the Sound Shore Shakespeare Festival, including this event May 7 an 8  in the new theater at New Rochelle High School. Sounds like a lot of fun. Here’s a release.

OK, so maybe you can’t cough up $200,000 to endow a chair at your alma mater (this year), but there are little ways of showing you care. One might be to help out the wonderful Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Garrison, which is starting its 24th season in June. They… Read More →

Pia Haas, a theater lover who does publicity for Westchester Broadway Theatre, is also a key player in the Armonk Players, directing and doing all sorts of creative things. She sent me news about a couple of readings the Players will be doing at Whipporwill Hall, 19 Whippoorwill Road East, Armonk.

Beane doesn’t have much and doesn’t want more. He doesn’t want a sweater for his birthday, doesn’t need a plate when a cup will do just fine and he requires only a spoon for eating, thank you very much. “Sometimes a sweater tells you you’re Visible, when maybe that’s not… Read More →

My friend John Treacy Egan posted this on his Facebook page and I thought I’d share it as the ultimate example of what is meant by the term “upstaging.”

I visited Walter Panas High School yesterday and the gregarious director Jim Filippelli who is readying “42nd Street,” the final high-school musical in the Lower Hudson Valley this spring. Jim’s looking for a wooden wheelchair. Anyone have any leads?

Nine high schools across the Lower Hudson Valley dim the lights and open their spring musicals this weekend, a production weekend that runs the gamut from Harold Hill to Nathan Detroit to a Space Age Prospero. Weeks of work culminate in the call of “Places,” when actors take their spots… Read More →

Sacred Heart High School in Yonkers presents Frank Loesser’s “Guys & Dolls” April 23 and 24 at 8 p.m. and April 25 at 2 p.m. $10, $8 seniors and students at the door. Performances in Sacred Heart Church Hall, Convent Ave., Yonkers. 914-965-6953. Director Rose Ann Di Gennaro sent the following cast… Read More →

There aren’t many musicals that mix tap-dancing, speakeasies, girls in flapper dresses, white slavers and two characters who speak almost entirely in Mandarin. OK, there’s one. It’s “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” the spring musical at Lakeland High School in Shrub Oak. “Millie” won 6 Tonys, including best musical, in 2002 and… Read More →

There will be plenty of fans of musical theater at the spring musical at Archbishop Stepinac’s Major Bowes Theater the next two weekends, and one of them will be in a cozy wing chair on stage. Stepinac senior Douglas Daniels plays the character called “Man in Chair,” a fan of… Read More →

Freedom Weekes and Isaac Assor read Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” last year, when they were juniors at New Rochelle High School. This weekend, they lead a cast of 46 in making Twain’s classic tale sing, in Roger Miller’s stage adaptation, “Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Assor is Huck… Read More →

Daniel Germani remembers his last brush with a spelling bee, in seventh grade. “I got out on a French word related to painting, ‘collage,’” he said. “I forgot the ‘e’ on the end.” Then again, he didn’t have a magic foot to help him out, like William Barfee does. Germani… Read More →

For four years, Eliot Cohen has been a theater kid, part of the Performing Arts Curriculum Exchange (PACE) program at Mamaroneck High School where students can major in things theatrical. He has also done Shakespeare with Dee O’Brien’s Semi-Royal Shakespeare Company, appearing as Macduff in “Macbeth” and as Puck in… Read More →

NOTE from PK (4/22): Got word that tickets are $10 all seats, not the $10 and $8 I had been told earlier. Amid the pre-rehearsal chaos in the auditorium at Pearl River High School, Evans Park Elementary School fourth-grader Brian Flaherty sat diligently doing his math homework: equivalent fractions. If… Read More →

Susi Cummings, Putnam Valley High School’s theater manager extraordinaire, sent along the following details about this weekend’s PVHS production of “Crazy for You,” the all-Gershwin musical. Putnam Valley High School TheatreWorks is proud to present the Broadway musical hit, “Crazy For You.” Performances will be  Friday, April 23rd and Saturday,... Read More →

Samia Bahn and Mary Petro don’t mind sharing. They share a love of opera, they share the stage at Taconic Opera productions and, on occasion, they share clothes. At a recent rehearsal, Bahn wore one of Petro’s skirts. Mary, a Realtor by day, found Samia her new home in Fairfield… Read More →

For Horace Greeley senior Alex Djaha, spring has always meant lacrosse, three hours of practice right after school that requires him to run, check and score. This season, though, he has added at least three hours of blocking to his daily spring routine. This weekend, Djaha and 152 fellow members… Read More →

When the cast of Ossining High School’s production of “Beauty and the Beast” sings “Be Our Guest,” they’re not kidding. Ossining has a tradition of not charging an admission price to its theatrical productions and that is case again this year. But don’t let the price fool you: There are… Read More →

Everyone has a story. In the Eastchester High School musical, “Footloose” this weekend, everyone has a back story, too. That’s not just a girl in the ensemble sitting in Rev. Moore’s congregation. That’s the woman who runs the town’s only convenience store, a power broker. That girl over there isn’t… Read More →

OK, I realize there are still a few shows left to go before we close the book on the 2010 high-school-musical marathon, but one of those remaining shows may prove a windfall for next year, for an eagle-eyed director or designer. I was up at Lakeland High School the other… Read More →