City Theatre’s “Summer Shorts”
55 Performances in 5 Weeks!
By Marla E. Schwartz
This year marks the 16th Summer Shorts season for City Theatre in Miami and this summer’s line-up of events by this extraordinary company billed as “America’s Short Play Festival” is hot … hot … hot! It’s offering 55 Performances in 5 Weeks!
City Theatre will be presenting its annual Summer Shorts production with an all-star line-up of plays featuring the multi-talented acting chops of veteran favorites Stephen Trovillion, Gregg Weiner, Finnerty Steeves and Ceci Fernandez and headlining the show will be Jai Rodriguez whose name is familiar to most of us from his days on Bravo network’s ground-breaking and Emmy® Award winning American reality television show QUEER EYE FOR THE STRAIGHT. He also co-authored a book “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy: The Fab 5’s Guide to Looking Better, Cooking Better, Dressing Better, Behaving Better, and Living Better”, with the other hosts from this program. He will also be performing in a separate musical revue called DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS. And coming back for another exciting year is CAMP KAPPAWANNA, book by Marco Ramirez and Music & Lyrics by Lisa Loeb, Michelle Lewis and Dan Petty, a heart-warming children’s musical (which brings City Theatre to Palm Beach County for the first time) as well as launching its new CITYWRIGHTS Industry Conference.
On her way home from a long day of rehearsals and a taping with DECO DRIVE, only days after finding out that the company is a finalist for the Knight Arts Challenge, Producing Artistic Director of City Theatre, Stephanie Norman, graciously spoke about the current season.
“We feel very fortunate to be in that group,” Stephanie said in responding to being a Knight Arts Challenge Finalist.
“This summer there are seven plays in Summer Shorts, we’re doing a wonderful, wonderful collection of plays and we have an opening number,” Stephanie explained. “We’re doing a play by Israel Horovitz which is a play about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict so it’s timely. We’re doing a bi-lingual play by Richard Hellesen that takes places in a maternity ward where both women have just given birth and one woman speaks English and the other only speaks Spanish yet they understand everything that they’ve each gone through. We’re doing a short rock musical by Marco Ramirez and we’re got a little bit of everything, we’ve got comedy, we’ve got drama, we’ve got singing and we’ve really got a great company with our actors headlined by Jai Rodriguez.”
“In terms of matching the directors with the various plays everybody has their own style and their own sensibilities in terms of what kind of material they gravitate to and what their strengths are; and I think in
general, Summer Shorts has always been like to me a big Rubix Cube when it comes to the combination of the playwrights, actors and directors,” Stephanie said. “I believe the plays fit the actors and the actors fit the plays and the same thing is true with the directors. We keep twisting and turning and twisting and turning until we feel like we’ve nailed it. It’s very subjective and very intuitive. We listen to the plays, we listen to the actors and we really try to give each actor an opportunity to do many different roles that will show off all their ranges and talent. In terms of the writing we try to look for differences in subject matter, style and frames of reference. Our directors; we have a wonderful community in South Florida of artists so we really love to bring a lot of people together each summer to come and play with us. There’s something really cool about putting together a festival like this because there’s a lot of people involved and that brings a lot of energy together. I think that’s very exciting for our artists and our audiences to see.”
· SUMMER SHORTS: one fast and furiously fun program of the nation’s hottest “short” plays; new in featuring a star headliner, Jai Rodriguez, stage of stage, television and film, performing alongside City Theatre’s award winning ensemble.
The short play line-up this season includes:
Aboard the Guy V. Molinari by Bara Swain (World Premiere)
Two passengers on their way overboard unexpectedly find their port in the storm.
Chronicle Simpkins Will Cut Your Ass by Rolin Jones (Summer Shorts Revival)
It’s gang warfare on the playground where Chronicles don’t play by the rules defending her hardcore tetherball crown.
Dos Corazones by Richard Hellesen (Summer Shorts Revival)
Two new mothers from very different backgrounds discover they speak the same language after all.
WHAT STRONG FENCES MAKE by Israel Horovitz (World Premiere)
Horovitz’s hard-hitting, emotionally charged and timely drama sets two friends against each other at an Israeli checkpoint.
quiet, please by Garth Wingfield (World Premiere)
Two patients waiting for therapy find the courage to say hello.
Hate the Loser Inside by Jon Kern (Heideman Finalist/World Premiere)
The championship coach faces humiliating defeat unless he can talk his tangled tongue into making the perfect pitch.
Mickey Herman Saves the Universe by Marco Ramirez (World Premiere)
Aliens bet the world against a gamer with a bitter broken heart, and loud music.
ARSHT CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, Miami
SUMMER SHORTS JUNE 2 – 26
FRIDAY JUNE 3, 2011
City Theatre’s festive kick-off featuring Jai Rodriguez & the Summer Shorts cast.
DETAILS:
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6 PM |
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Cocktail Reception at John S. and James L. Knight Concert Hall Lobby |
$100 per Person
RESERVE NOW! Limited Availability.
City Theatre Opening Night Reservations:
(305) 755-9401, ext. 15 or danielle@citytheatre.com
ARSHT CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, Miami
SUMMER SHORTS JUNE 2 – 26
Single Tickets $45.00 (305) 949-6722 www.arshtcenter.org
Groups of 10 or more (786) 468-2326 groupsales@arshtcenter.org
Thursdays 7 PM June 2, 9, 16, 23
Fridays 7 PM June 3, 10, 17, 24
Saturdays 7 PM & 10 PM June 4, 11, 18, 25
Sundays 4 PM. June 5, 12, 19, 26
BROWARD CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, Ft. Lauderdale
SUMMER SHORTS JUNE 30 – JULY 3
Single Tickets $45.00 (954) 462-0222 or www.browardcenter.org
Groups of 10 or more (866) 900-7469 or groupsales@browardcenter.org
Thursday 7 PM June 30
Friday 7 PM July 1
Saturday 7 PM July 2
Sunday 5 PM July 3
· DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS: Jai Rodriguez’s hilarious, provocative and irreverent musical revue, full of “dish and tell, dirty little secrets” that will be sure to make you blush!
“A year ago we knew that we wanted to shake things up a little bit and we saw last year when we brought in Lisa Loeb and the group of writers and composers that she works with in LA it really brought our game up. We got to do new things and try new things and collaborate and it opened us up to a larger and wider audience. Summer Shorts has always been about putting great talent on stage and letting them show their stuff so we decided last year that we wanted to mix it up a little bit and bring somebody in from out of town,” Stephanie pointed out. “You don’t just want to bring somebody in to bring somebody in but you really want to bring somebody who has the chops because Summer Shorts – I don’t think people realize how incredibly demanding it is because you can’t just be a strong actor in one genre you have to be able to have a very broad range. You have to be a bit of a chameleon, you have to have an incredible work ethic because it’s very hard to be in a festival like this where you’re literally rehearsing four or five plays at the same time with different writers, different directors; so, that automatically limited the playing field.”
“We started looking at talent and Jai really, really rose to the top.
Here’s an actor who got his start when he was eighteen-years-old on Broadway, the youngest actor to play Angel in RENT, he did THE PRODUCERS,” Stephanie said. “He has been doing wonderful dramas such as shows at Lincoln Center, SPINNING INTO BUTTER, and he certainly had the acting chops and the theater chops but then he was also one of the wonderful charismatic fabulous five who was on QUEER EYE FOR THE STRAIGHT GUY, so there was this great familiarity because so many of us know Jai because we watched him as the Culture guy (aka: the Culture Vulture) on this show and he has been on other shows and won an Emmy® Award for the work he does. And when we started talking to Jai we had already decided we wanted him to do Summer Shorts and he told us that while he’s down here he’d love to do a revue that he has created. We thought, oh my God, not only is this guy going to do Summer Shorts, but he is bringing us DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS which is the icing on the cake.”
ARSHT CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, Miami
DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS JUNE 10, 17, 19, 24
Single Tickets, Reserved Seating: $35.00 Standard Price/$17.50 Senior/Student Price
(305) 949-6722 www.arshtcenter.org
Groups of 10 or more (786) 468-2326 groupsales@arshtcenter.org
Fridays 10 PM June 10, 17, 24
Sundays 7:30 PM June 19
BROWARD CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, Ft. Lauderdale
DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS JULY 2 (ONE PERFORMANCE ONLY)
Single Tickets $45.00 (954) 462-0222 or www.browardcenter.org
Groups of 10 or more (866) 900-7469 or groupsales@browardcenter.org
Saturday 10 PM
· CAMP KAPPAWANNA: Appropriate for ages five and up and back by popular demand is the hit family rock musical CAMP KAPPAWANNA, with hip, cool music penned by Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Lisa Loeb. Camp Kappawanna creates an interactive environment that, from start to finish, makes everyone in the audience feel as if they are joining in the fun of summer camp!
“We brought Camp Kappawanna back this year for a couple of reasons,” Stephanie said.” We haven’t done this in the past, but it was our first full-length musical and it’s the first time we’ve ever done a full-length much less a full-length musical and what we discovered was there was so much more work we wanted to do on the piece. We also discovered that our audiences really loved the piece. And at the end of last summer I did two things, one was that I talked to our audiences and camps and groups that came and they said they had a good time and I asked them if they’d want to see it again and interestingly enough everybody said yes,” Stephanie explained. “I knew we had something there so I went out to Los Angeles and spent some time working with Lisa Loeb, Marco Ramirez, Michelle Lewis and Dan Petty and we really looked at the show. We started Camp Kappawanna from the idea of the show to mounting it at the Arsht Center in maybe ten months tops. It was really put together really quickly and as we were rehearsing the show we were still recording musical tracks out in LA.”
“Now that we’ve had the luxury of some perspective and we can go back and look and see what worked and what didn’t work and along with feedback we were able to see the changes we wanted to make and we really wanted to add more music,” Stephanie said. “I suggested for example to Lisa that they musicalize a scene with all the kids in canoes and make it a pirate song. I have three kids and my son was eight-years-old at the time and he and everybody loves good pirate songs so they wrote this hilarious pirate song that my son has been listening to non-stop. They wrote three new songs altogether, re-worked some of the music they had, re-worked the book, and I think what we have in bringing back Camp Kappawanna is an opportunity to re-work and re-mount it. In fact, we’re doing two weeks at the Arsht Center, we’re bringing it to the Broward Center for a week and then we’re doing something we’ve never done before, we’re going to the Kravis Center for a week and we’re going up to Orlando and doing Camp Kappawanna up there; so, we’re doing all these shows in four counties in a matter of six weeks and I think that’s really great. It shows City Theatre that there’s a life for Camp Kappawanna in the larger theater continuum and I think that’s really great when you create something like that …”
“I love the entire company and Melanie Leibner Perkins (who portrays Jenny Jenkins, the lead character in the show) is amazing; and that’s another thing, there’s so much amazing talent down here in South Florida. We’ve always had terrific acting talent in Summer Shorts and now with Camp Kappawanna we’re tapping into some fantastic musical theater talent. A lot of these kids come out of programs like the New World School of the Arts and Barry University and the University of Miami and they’re incredibly talented and so Camp Kappawanna is and rightly should be a great showcase for them.”
“I knew when Melanie first read in the audition for us last year I knew she was the right person for the role,” Stephanie pointed out. “She did a fantastic job last year and I knew we wanted to bring her back. She sings, she acts, she dances and she also plays the guitar which is very unusual. We had this idea that Lisa plays the guitar and she created this character Jenny who is loosely based on Lisa Loeb, and the fact that Melanie plays the guitar – we thought we’d never find an actress who can sing and do all the things this character can do and play the guitar. And when Melanie walked into the audition with her guitar I got chills. I thought oh my God, we found her.”
Melanie Leibner Perkins, a Coral Springs native, has been kind enough to answer some questions about her experience in portraying Jenny Jenkins:
AW: When were you asked to return to Camp Kappawanna this summer? How do you feel about reprising the role of Jenny Jenkins, the role that you created?
ML: I am extremely excited to be returning to the show this summer. It’s very rewarding to be a part of the creative process of originating a role in a completely new show. There are no expectations as to how the character is usually played and therefore it gives the actor more freedom to play and explore. Although the core of Jenny’s character is mostly the same, I’m excited about some of the changes being made to the show and how that will affect Jenny.
AW: Will any of other actors be returning to reprise their roles?
ML: Jameson Hammond, the actor who created the role of Chad Banks will also be reprising his role.
AW: What is it that you like best about portraying Jenny?
ML: I think all kids go through the process of finding out who they are as a person, and it’s enjoyable to play someone who is in the early stages of that. She’s very intelligent and spunky, and she’s just learning to find the confidence to show that to the world. Going to Camp Kappawanna gives her that opportunity. I think it’s a great show for kids because so many see themselves in her.
AW: Do you see anything in Jenny that reminds you of yourself at her age?
ML: Definitely. I think everyone can find something in Jenny that reminds them of themselves. Most people aren’t born completely self-confident and I can definitely remember trying to find that during middle school. Also, Jenny really uses music and singing as an outlet to express herself, and I can really identify with that as well.
AW: After you earned a BA from the University of PA and an MA (is this correct, or is it an MFA) in Musical Theatre from Boston Conservatory, when and why did you make your way to Florida?
ML: I earned an MM, a Masters of Music in Musical Theatre from Boston Conservatory. I grew up in South Florida and attended Ramblewood Middle and Taravella High so for me it was just coming back to the place where I grew up and where my family still is.
AW: I understand that you’re a member of the theatre faculty at Nova Southeastern University, if so – what subject(s) do you teach? How long have you been teaching at Nova?
ML: This was my first year at Nova, and I am extremely excited to have the opportunity to be part of a growing musical theatre program. I teach both acting and voice.
AW: Do you still offer private voice lessons? If so, how should someone get in touch with you to take lessons?
ML: I do still offer private acting and voice lessons. People can get in touch with me by emailing me at melanie.leibner@gmail.com or mleibner@hotmail.com.
AW: If you had an opportunity to portray any character created so far in the musical theater world, what role would it be and why?
ML: I would love to play either Elphaba in Wicked or Fanny Brice in Funny Girl. They are both strong, fun, and intelligent female characters that have great songs to sing.
ARSHT CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, Miami
CAMP KAPPAWANNA JUNE 15 – 26
Single Tickets (305) 949-6722 www.arshtcenter.org
Groups of 10 or more (786) 468-2326 groupsales@arshtcenter.org
Tuesdays 10:30 AM June 21
Wednesdays 10:30 AM June 15 & 22
Thursdays 10:30 AM June 16 & 23
Fridays 10:30 AM June 17 & 24
Saturdays 11 AM & 2 PM June 18 & 25
Sundays 11 AM June 19 & 26
BROWARD CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, Ft. Lauderdale
CAMP KAPPAWANNA JULY 1 – 3
Single Tickets $25.00 (954) 462-0222 or www.browardcenter.org
Groups of 10 or more (866) 900-7469 or groupsales@browardcenter.org
Friday 10 AM & 12 PM July 1
Saturday 1 PM July 2
Sunday 1 PM July 3
KRAVIS CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, West Palm Beach
CAMP KAPPAWANNA JUNE 9 – 12
Single tickets $25.00 561-832-7469/1-800-572-8471
Group sales 561-651-4438 or treid@kravis.org
Spanish speaking customer service representatives are available.
Thursday 10:30 AM & 1 PM June 9
Friday 10:30 AM & 1 PM June 10
Saturday 11 AM & 2 PM June 11
Sunday 1 PM June 12
WHEN & WHERE: June 2 – 26: at and in association with the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Carnival Studio Theater in Miami; June 9 – 12 at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, Rinker Theater in West Palm Beach; and June 30 – July 3 at and in association with the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Amaturo Theater in Ft. Lauderdale.
TICKETS:
Miami: Tickets for performances in Miami available through the Adrienne Arsht Center’s Box Office at www.arshtcenter.org or (305) 949-6722
Broward: Tickets for performances in Broward available through the Broward Center’s Box Office at www.browarcenter.org or (954) 462-0222.
Palm Beach: Tickets for performances in Palm Beach available through the Kravis Center’s Box Office at www.kravis.org or (561) 832-7469 or 1 800 572 8471. Groups of 10 or more, please call 561 651 4438 or 561 651 4304/treid@kravis.org or garlisch@kravis.org.
· CITYWRIGHTS: NEW PLAY LAB: City Theatre will be launching the CITYWRIGHTS: NEW PLAY LAB June 23 – 26, bringing playwrights from South Florida and nationwide to Miami for a productive weekend of master classes, workshops, mentoring, public readings and forums. CityWrights’ goal is the creation of new plays that will flourish on stages in South Florida and beyond. Panelists include playwrights Israel Horovitz and Lisa Kron; Larry Harbison, Senior Editor for Smith & Kraus, the nation’s largest theatrical trade publisher; noted literary agent Susan Schulman and leadership from The Dramatists Guild of America including Director of Business Affairs David Faux and Executive Director for Creative Affairs Gary Garrison. This event will be held in association with The Dramatists Guild of America, the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, the EPIC Hotel and American Airlines.
“We started City Theatre sixteen years ago as company dedicated to doing new work and I have to tell you that in sixteen years we’ve probably received about five to six thousand plays. I don’t think a day goes by that we don’t get a script submission and last year alone we got twelve hundred plays. If you look at the number of plays we produce at Summer Shorts, less than 1% of the plays we receive get produced on our stages, so that leaves a lot of writers who are creating new work, who send it to us, and we don’t really have any opportunity to interact with them, and we also don’t get a chance to take work we may be interested in and developing it further,” Stephanie said. “CITYWRIGHTS is really the next logical step for us. We want to bring playwrights together from all over the country and have a weekend of workshops and consider it like the Sundance for theater, bringing together a lot of artists, doing workshops and master classes and readings; there’s a lot of opportunity to network, we’re doing it in association with The Dramatists Guild of America.”
“They picked us in Miami as one of five cities around the country that they’re working with to do programming of this caliber, so we bring the leadership of the DGA that also gives us playwrights, the Director of Business Affairs from the DGA is going to talk about entertainment law, copyright, playwrights protecting their work; we’re bringing in publishers, literary agents, it’s a little bit of everything and for us we felt it made perfect sense to put on something like CITYWRIGHTS right in the middle of our festival of new works because not only during the day will we be doing classes, workshops and seminars, but in the evening we’re going to be going to the theater and they’ll be seeing the new work that we’re doing and hopefully it will inspire them to create all kinds of great new plays that will be seen on our stages in the coming years,” Stephanie said. “In South Florida we really have come a long way in the last ten to twenty years and who would’ve thought we’d be the home to one of the world’s largest contemporary art fairs in the country and one of the top two in the world with Art Basel, and we’re the largest literary fair in the country with Miami Book Fair International and you look at the Coconut Grove Arts Festival and the South Beach Food & Wine Festival and Miami has really put itself on the map with people like Mitchell Kaplan, Lee Schrager, Dennis Scholl, Craig Robins and more and we said well, we’re here and maybe we can do the same thing as far as creating new work in our genre which is theater.”
CITYWRIGHTS WEEKEND FOR PLAYWRIGHTS CONTACT INFORMATION:
All programming will take place at the EPIC Hotel (270 Biscayne Boulevard Way) and the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts (1300 N. Biscayne Blvd).
Phone: 305-755-9401 ext. 10
Fax: 305-755-9404
Mail: City Theatre
444 Brickell Ave, Suite 299
Miami, FL 33131
PACKAGE OPTIONS:These fees include CityWrights Workshops, two continental breakfasts, Sunday brunch, and three tickets to City Theatre Performances. These fees do NOT include hotel reservations.
Reservations rates AFTER May 20
Playwright – General Rate $440
2010 Heideman Award Finalists $390
Dramatists Guild – current members $390
South Florida Theatre League – current members $300
Student Fee $250
Afternoon Professional Development Panel Day Rate $50
Weekend Getaway rates for the Industry $90
Tickets to Summer Shorts, Dirty Little Secrets and Camp Kappawanna
ADDITIONAL CITY THEATRE PERFORMANCE TICKETS AVAILABLE AT REDUCED RATE OF $30 PER TICKET.
CITY THEATRE INFORMATION- (305) 755-9401 or online at www.citytheatre.com.
City Theatre
City Theatre Administrative Office: (305) 755-9401
City Theatre Administrative Fax: (305) 755-9404
Arsht Center Box Office: (305) 949-6722
Broward Center Box Office: (954) 462-0222
Kravis Center Box Office: (561) 832-7469
Website: www.citytheatre.com
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A Toledo, OH native, a graduate of Kent State, Marla E. Schwartz is a Senior Writer for Miami Living Magazine, a freelance writer for Lighthouse Point Magazine and the a cultural arts columnist for AroundWellington.com Her photographs have appeared in these publications, in many Ohio periodicals, as well as in The Miami Herald, The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel and The Palm Beach Post. She has had numerous plays published and produced around the country. Her short play, America’s Working? was produced in Los Angeles at both the First Stage and the Lone Star Ensemble theater companies, in Florida at Lynn University and at an Off-Broadway playhouse in NYC. Her piece, The Lunch Time Café, was a finalist for the Heideman Award, Actors Theatre of Louisville. Please check out the re-prints of her interviews with authors Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson and Dexter novelist Jeff Lindsay in the October 2010 issue #2 and Chris Bohjalian in the April 2011 issue #3 of Duff Brenna’s ServingHouse: A Journal of Literary Arts at www.servinghousejournal.com. You can contact her at marlaschwartz@att.net.