Kids Fringe proved that anyone can Fringe.

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On the weekend of May 24th and 25th I held a sketch tour at the Orlando International Fringe Festival. Artist Gay Geiger joined me on those two days to sketch as many aspects of the Fringe as we could. We started at the Kids Fringe each morning. At the main stage, Voci Dancers would lead the kids in stretches to start out the day. It was a perfect opportunity to do quick gestural drawings to start out the day. Beth Marshall‘s son Darth was working the tech for the stage.

Dave Rocker’s Barnyard Jam was the first act up after the morning stretches. The cloth fence of course hid the puppeteers.  Before the show, several children were introduced to the puppets and it was charming to see their looks of wide eyed shock, surprise and wonder. The one puppet that is hidden behind a curtain in my sketch was a goat. The songs were light hearted and fun and the kids loved every minute.

Besides doing my own sketch, I also gave Gay as many notes as I could. With just one student I was able to give her tons of tips as we worked. When you sketch you are thinking a thousand thoughts and I just verbalized that inner dialogue. It was fun having a student along to share the experience with and I ended up doing far more sketches than I usually would.

Hoodies opens a much needed discussion about racism in America.

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Penguin Point Productions and Beth Marshall Presented the World Premiere of

Hoodies written
by Paris Crayton III and directed by Beth Marshall at this year’s Orlando Fringe. It is the third in a series of productions addressing racism following the Trayvon Martin shooting. Beth was driving home from a 17 hour long Fringe day setting up for the Hoodies premiere., As she said, “I get pulled over by
O-Town’s finest. Apparently, I was going 7 miles over the speed limit at
one point and swerved a little. (NOTE- I have not had one drink in god
knows how long) When the cop is shining his flashlight in the car, he
sees the Hoodies posters and asks about the show. I proceeded to tell
him about the year-long Trayvon Martin Project and that Hoodies is part 3
and do my pitch. He says” So you want people to come
to a show about “cops doing their jobs” (a line that is said a LOT in
the play by our cop) for the betterment of the community.” To which I
reply, the death of black teens is never to the betterment of our
community, sir. He went off to run my information and then 2 other cop
cars pull up to check on him and come over and to see the Hoodies
flyers. As they take them, I say- I have another show at Fringe that you
might like better- ha! (meaning Cosmolyrical) and handed these two cops
the flyers. Then they all come back over and the cop gives me a warning
for my “speeding and swerving” and makes a joke saying “here’s a
warning for doing a show about bad cops”… I was not amused. Then one
of the others said, begins talking about how he once did South Pacific
in some community theatre in one of the Carolina’s. Again, I was not
amused…. Then they said they were “gonna try to make it to them”. I
asked if I could take a photo of them with the flyers and they said no.
HAPPY FRINGE!”

Hoodies presents the story of  “Hooper” Williams, (Stelson Telfort) a seventeen year old black teen who is energetic, smart, and full of life. He is exceptional at
basketball and a popular student at his high school. The genius of this play is that you learn to love Hooper through a series of scenes with his family and friends. Much of the cast consists of theater students from Lake Howell High School.  This makes perfect sense since the story is about the senseless shooting of a fellow student.

 The scenes don’ t happen in chronological. In one of the funniest scenes, Hooper confides in his mom, Alice (Shonda L Thurman) that he is nervous about asking a girl to the prom. Mom suggests he ask her as if she were the girl in question. Then she starts asking questions about the girl so she can “get in character”. As she explains, she is a method actor. When he confides that the girl is white, she says, “You’re making this difficult on me.” She does play the part however, as a stereo typical Valley girl to hilarious effect. When he finally does ask her out, she replies simply, “No, I have plans.” “Mom!” he shouts, and then she explains what he did wrong.

Students discussed the insane action their school took to ban hoodies. A young black student had been shot by a police man while wearing a hoodie and this was the schools knee jerk reaction to protect the student population. Jenny (Momo Earle) a soft spoken Caucasian girl lamented that changing what students wear isn’t a solution. Only an open discussion and real change could stop the killing. She had been close to the boy shot and was still devastated by his senseless death. In another scene, Hooper and Jenny meet in the school hallway and they struggle to talk in an awkward exchange. Hooper finally builds up the courage to ask Jenny out and her simply “Yes” eases the tension. They both gleefully shake in delight when they walk away. From that moment on however, the audience knows that Hooper will be shot.

“The Talk” parents have with black teen boys is different than the talk Caucasian parents have with their boys. Rather than “the birds and bees” Hooper’s parents explain how he must act when being confronted by a police man. They tell him that he must keep his hands visible at all times and never raise his voice. He should never give the policeman any reason to escalate the situation. “But what if I didn’t do anything wrong!” he shouts. “It doesn’t matter.” he is told that just the color of his skin makes him a suspect in racial profiling..


Frank Stevens (Stephen Lima) is a Caucasian male who is new to the police force. In a conversation with his wife, Katie (Chelsey Panisch) he finds out that she is unhappy with the
way that their marriage is going and can’t handle the new pressure of being so closely
involved with the death of a young teen. “You think I’m guilty” he tells her. “It didn’t have to end the way it did” she replies. “I was doing my job!” he shouts. As an audience member, you can’t help but recall how many Germans after World War II also confided that they “were just following orders”.

Hooper was shot the night before prom and Jenny came on stage in a beautiful purple prom dress to explain that she would never go to prom. Hooper’s mom was so overcome with grief that she couldn’t stop crying. Her husband, Jonathon (Barry White) confided that he couldn’t stand to see her in so much pain. He felt helpless in the wake of so much pain.

What makes this play so powerful is that you see every characters strengths and flaws in each scene. I recently traveled to Turkey and some people felt I should have bean scared. Ironically a Turkish taxi driver confided that America is a far more scary place. No where else in the world are so many unarmed youths killed. Police in America kill citizens at over 70 times the rate of other first world nations. Hoodies addresses this problem in a very human way. It is theater at it’s best because it forces us to took at ourselves and realize that chance will only happen if enough people raise their voice. The cast and crew of Hoodies did an amazing job and I hope the show will find a larger audience. After the show, the theater lobby was crowded full of students holding signs of protest. Don’t miss Hoodies!

Where: Silver Venue (Orlando REP, Bush Theatre) 1001 East Princeton Street (Loch Haven Park) Orlando FL

Tickets: $11 + service charge.

Remaining Shows:
Saturday, 5/23- 8:30pm
Sunday, 5/24- 12:30pm

Doubt, A Parable leaves the audience questioning the truth long after the curtain dropped.

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I went to the final dress rehearsal for “Doubt, A Parable” based on a. book by John Patrick Shanley. The Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning drama follows a Catholic high school priest’s battle for truth and personal integrity.
It is produced by Beth Marshall Presents
and directed by Beth Marshall in the historic Winter Garden Theatre (160 West Plant Street, Winter Garden FL).

When the theater went dark, Father Flynn (Michael Wanzie) began his sermon in the isle at the back of the theater. He spoke about how the country pulled together after John F Kennedy was assassinated.  The moving monologue rallied the audience behind the father. He was clearly a well loved man among his parish. Michael Wanzie seemed perfectly cast for this role. I’ve seen him in past productions and he always seems to be in roles where he must question the faith he grew up with.

Sister James (Chelsey Panisch) is a young and enthusiastic teacher loves to get the children excited about history. Her superior, Sister Aloysius (Ginger Lee McDermott) is a hard edged disciplinarian. She views every situation with suspicion and doubt and advises Sister James to do the same. Eventually a situation arises in which the one black student in the school is called away for a meeting with Father Flynn. The boy returned from the meeting acting strange and he had the scent of liquor on his breath.

Sister Aloysius assumes the worst and begins a personal vendetta to expose Father Flynn as the monster she imagines he is. Her black and white view of right and wrong is greyed by the Fathers compassion and a simple straight forward explanation. He gives another sermon, this time about gossip. In this parable he has a woman cut open a down pillow on a city building roof top. Feathers fly everywhere in the wind. She is told to repair the damage and recover the feathers. That of course is impossible, the damage is done.

The play haunted me on the entire drive home. Without an admission of guilt, there is always doubt. The father was clearly a gifted orator who cared for the children in his charge. Yet sister Aloysius’s steadfast conviction at times swayed my view of the man. He clearly had human weaknesses. The show was just an hour and a half long but the questions still linger.

Mark Your Calendars!

February 6 – 22, 2015
Thursdays – Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 2pm
Industry Night: Monday, February 16 at 8pm

Tickets: $25 ($21 seniors/students)
Industry Nite Feb. 16th -$15 (post show cast meet/greet Pilars Martini) 

Garden Theatre Box Office
160 West Plant Street, Winter Garden
407-877-GRDN (4736)
gardentheatre.org

The Travon Martin Project touches raw nerves.

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On the night of February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, United States, George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old African American high school student. George, a 28-year-old mixed-race Hispanic man, was the neighborhood watch coordinator for the gated community where Martin was temporarily living and where the shooting took place George was told not to follow the youth but he followed anyway.  Responding to an earlier call from Zimmerman, police arrived on the
scene within two minutes of the shooting. He was taken into
custody, treated for head injuries, then questioned for five hours. The
police chief said that Zimmerman was released because there was no
evidence to refute the claim of having acted in self-defense. The police chief also said that Zimmerman had had a right to defend himself with lethal force. An arrest was finally made after the incident became national news and protesters filled Sanford. George was given a trial and found not guilty.

Producer Beth Marshal wanted to create a show that deals with the huge divide that Trayvon Martin‘s death caused in Central Florida and the country. Her son is about the same age as Trayvon and if her son was seen walking through suburban Sanford, quite frankly he would be alive. The show opens with Billy Holiday singing “Strange Fruit” as the audience entered the theater. The song referenced “blood on the leaves” in a sorrowful anguished voice. The show opened with a congressional hearing about the ban on certain items. There were long heated debates about how these items needed to be outlawed for everyone’s protection. One committee member had smuggled the item into the hearing like a knife into a courtroom. The committee erupted in chaos as he showed them the hoodie which is quite functional on a cold evening.

  

John DiDonna acted as the show’s narrator. He talked about Sanford‘s past and how racism has been woven into the fabric of the towns history. Back in 1946, the city of Sanford ran Jackie Robinson out of town while he was playing for the Montreal Royals, the Brooklyn Dodgers AAA team, which trained in Sanford. Then there was the story of schoolteacher Harry Tyson Moore,
who was the founder of the first branch of the NAACP in Florida’s
Seminole County, where Sanford is located. Moore fought tirelessly for
racial equality in Sanford, including voting rights for African
Americans. That made him a dangerous man to many white people in town. On Christmas night of 1951, the home of Moore and his wife
Harriette Vyda Simms Moore was fire bombed. It was the couple’s 25th
wedding anniversary. Moore died on his way to a Sanford hospital and his
wife died 9 days later of her injuries. In Sanford’s more recent past, the 2010 case of Sherman Ware had some troubling similarities to the Trayvon Martin tragedy. On Dec. 4, 2010, 21-year-old Justin Collison, was captured on a YouTube video leaving a Sanford bar, when he walked up behind an
unsuspecting Ware, a homeless African American man, and punched him in
the back of the head, which drove Ware’s face into a utility pole and
then onto the pavement breaking his nose. Sanford police questioned Collison who was not cuffed that night and had
possession of the video but did not arrest him. You see, Collison’s
father is a Sanford police lieutenant and his grandfather is a former
circuit judge and wealthy Florida landowner.

20 years ago when I moved to Orlando, the Ku Klux Klan held a demonstration at the Jewish Community Center in Maitland.  There was a heated debate at the time about if there should be a counter demonstration. Some argued that by counter demonstrating, we would be giving the KKK the attention they wanted. Hundreds of counter demonstrators showed up verses six or so KKK members hiding behind robes. Janine Klein spoke of isms in her monologue in the show. She was a Jewish school teacher and did grow up facing racism. In the talk back after the show she said that she realized that she wants to be more of an activist to help bring about change. Silence isn’t the answer.

The talk back triggered an amazing conversation with the audience. One woman in the audience was of Cuban heritage. One of her cousins had light skin and she was treated differently than all the other children with dark skin. So there was racism even within a family. Sheryl Carbonell, from the cast is inter-racially married to a white police officer. He has been bitten, beaten and shot at on the job. 14 incidents were all caused by black men. None of these incidents were ever covered by the media. The Jordan Davis shooting happened during production of the play. It is clear that these type of shootings continue. Kerry Alce who plays Trayvon said that he is desensitized and frightened by all the shootings of black children. The talk back was every bit as powerful as the production itself. Change only happens when you open a dialogue.This is a daring production that certainly opened that dialogue. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King

There are only 2 shows remaining of The Trayvon Martin Project…

October 4, Saturday at 7:30pm

October 5, Sunday at 2pm

at the Valencia College East Campus Black Box Theatre building 3 (701 North Econolockahatchee Trail Orlando FL).

Tickets are $20 general admission and $15 students. Proceeds from this event benefit The Travyon Martin Foundation.

Beth Marshall Opens Her Next Theatrical Season

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This sketch of Beth Marshall was done in 2010 while she presented a “Yapinar” which basically educated Directors and Producers on how to promote their shows for the Orlando Fringe Festival. At that time Beth and her husband were recovering from a car accident. Thankfully they both made a full recovery. This year Beth has begun a healthy lifestyle and she is sharing her progress on Facebook. I’m fascinated by her progress and updates.

On August 20th, she got
all her measurements from her costume designer and trainer. The Total
inches on my body lost equaled 48″ in 20 weeks. Biggest body area loss is a tie
for 7″ each on her waist and chest. She was pleased with these results so far. She has
have more energy, and feels physically stronger. She is now working out
3-6 times a week. She didn’t even think she would work out at all
until I was under 300 lbs. This summer, she had relatively moderate to light work load which
allowed her time to put extra focus on her health and hang around juice
bars, farmers markets, whole foods and gyms. This week the new theater season starts
and this means that a full work load and chaos will be in full force. Still her health
goals remain her top priority. She has the entire month of Sept. scheduled
with  personal trainings and boot camp. She hopes to maintain her
hardcore training as the work load triples. Sharing her health goals and achievements is inspiring me to try and improve my own health.

Mark Your Calendars! The 7th Beth Marshall Presents season is about to kick off with Play in a Day which will be staged September 6th at Lake Howell High School (4200 Dike Road, Winter Park Florida).  6:30pm will be a silent Auction and the shows followed by a talk back. Play in a Day has 100 artists write and produce 9 plays with the same theme within a 24 hour time frame. This year a musical is in the works and I hope to sketch the production from inception to birth.

On November 7th Beth will be presenting Beatnik Squared. This is a unique, audience interactive speak-easy 60’s theme One-Night ONLY
event. Whether attending for the first time or returning for seconds,
all audience members will get into the groove of enjoying a flashback of
the 60’s. Many of our usual beats, poets, freaks, geeks and artisans of
every kind will be returning along with some new acts and surprises.
This event is once again in partnership with Blue Star and VarieTEASE taking place at The Venue (511 Virginia Dr., Orlando, Fl).

I am intrigued by THE TRAYVON MARTIN PROJECT because I did a number of sketches of demonstrators at the time.  Part 1, A Tribute will be staged (Oct. 3rd-5th 2014).

This year long socio-political theatrical collaboration and exploration in partnership with Penguin Point Productions, and Valencia College East begins with the World Premiere
of 6 short plays and a poem inspired by the tragic loss of
Trayvon Martin. The works carefully explore race relations and equality
issues within our culture and specifically within the Central Florida
community. Playwrights include: Dennis Neal, Rob Winn Anderson, Janine Klein, James Brendlinger, Paris Crayton lll, Steve Schneider, and poet Rob Gee. Directed by Beth Marshall, Paul Castaneda, and John DiDonna. Each performance will hold a post-show talk back with the audience. Performances will take place at Valencia College Black Box Theatre (701 North Econlockhatchee Trail, Orlando, Fl). Partial proceeds from this event benefit The Travyon Martin Foundation. This production will be presented at Valencia College East Campus
as part of their build up to the world premiere of their own original
devised play centering around the inciting incidents of Trayvon Martin
and Jordan Davis, the 17 year old killed in a Jacksonville gas station
parking lot.  Researched and created by a class led by John DiDonna, this event will premier in Valencia College Theater’s February 2015 slot. Part 2 will be staged in February and Part 3 is yet to be determined.

The Lady’s of Eola Heights take the Abby by Storm.

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I went to a dress rehearsal for The Ladies of Eola Heights at The Abbey. I contacted Beth Marshall who plays the part of Pearl. This is the first time in a long time that she wasn’t producing or directing a show. She felt a bit at ease just being an actor rather than worrying about the overall production. Beth introduced me to the director Kenny Howard who thankfully knew of my work and was enthusiastic to have me sketch. He warned me that none of the actresses would be wearing make up. The set wasn’t finished yet as well, still needing a railing near the steps and a blue wall behind the center archway.

This is an original play written by Michael Wanzie. The estranged Locksdale sister reunited at their family home, in the historical Eola Heights neighborhood of Orlando, Florida, to plan their daddy’s funeral. It seems fiery-tongued Ruby (Blue Starr) dressed in a hot red zebra stripe dress, has taken to loose living and hard drinking, while older sister Opal (Peg O’Keef) has become a born again Christian. Matriarch Pearl (Beth Marshall) has gained weight and  had a Home Shopping Club addiction. In the opening scene Beth drove onto the set with one of those motorized scooters with an oxygen tank. It was a hilarious moment as she tried to parallel park it next to the dining table while Ruby waited.

As the sisters interacted for the first time in years, their dark past surfaced and it became clear that they are all dealing with their horrible past in their own ways. Each scene is punctuated by an appearance of their brother (Miss Sammy) who danced down stairs in gorgeous gowns to light hearted show tunes. His way of coping was to live in a beautiful fantasy world as a woman. Although the sisters are all polar opposites, they come together to bury their past.

The show is as funny as it is touching, a comedy with serious themes that take the audience on an emotional roller coaster ride. I was laughing out loud throughout the show and yet identified with themes that affect many estranged families. The abuse that surfaced at the heart of the show happens all too often in Central Florida.  I had a friend who couldn’t cope with that past. Don’t miss this locally grown gem.

The show runs July 10- July 28 at the Abbey (100 S. Eola Drive Orlando, FL) tickets are $30 to $45.

33 Variations

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On March 28th I went to The Winter Garden Theatre to see 33 Variations written by Moises Kaufman and staged by Beth Marshal Presents. I had been to a dress rehearsal and hopefully that write up generated interest for this incredible production. Though it was the second to last performance, I had to see the set and lighting to feel the shows full impact. Aradhana Tiwari directed this stellar cast in this show about Beethoven’s struggle to create late in his career as he went deaf and a modern day researcher obsessed with understanding his motives as her health also fails. The 33 variations were written by Beethoven based on music written by a lesser known composer and music publisher.

I was touched by the idea that the music researcher felt the need to travel to Vienna to see and touch Beethoven’s original sketchbooks. I wrote out every compositional idea, so the sketchbooks were a way to see his every thought. The minimalist set acted as a multi media projection space at times covered in notes and in one scene becoming a bustling subway. At one point a ghostly silhouette of Beethoven was projected walking from stage left to stage right. The sound, lighting and projections became a creative escape into two tortured minds.  Modern day events and historic Viennese events overlapped and intermingled. I was swept away.

Peg O’Keef who played Katherine Brandt, the music researcher, did an astonishing job performing with the advancing stages of sclerosis. After the show, she explained to me that she had found a series of You Tube videos made by a gregarious and vibrant man who recorded himself repeatedly as he succumbed to the muscle debilitating illness.  In one daring scene Peg disrobed for an MRI. In the nude isolation, she and Bethoven were back to back.  The magical moment wag gone in a flash.

After the show, Aradahna hooked her arm in mine and asked me to have a drink with the cast at the bar next door. I only stayed for one drink but the party was just starting. It seems sad that such an amazing show should have such a short run. But, like Beethoven, a creative life can’t last forever. The music and inspiration does last forever. There is a link above to all of the 33 Variations. I suggest you listen to it while your surfing the web or social media. They are inspiring in their entirety.

33 Variations

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On February 25th I went to the Winter Garden Theatre ballroom ( 160 West Plant Street, Winter Garden, Florida) for a Designer Run of the show, 33 Variations, a play written by Moises Kaufman. Stage Manager Jay Ferrence was the first person I met when I entered the ballroom. He informed me that the purple tape marked the front of the stage. Actress Becky Eck entered soon afterwards and introduced herself. She had played Jane in “Alice Lost in Wonderland” and she did an amazing job grounding that production. A designer run is a full run through of the show that gives the set designer an idea of where characters will be blocked during the production. Producer Beth Marshall and director Aradhana Tiwari sat behind a folding table to watch the show. Pianist Julian Bond will be performing Beethoven‘s 33 Variations live on stage in the final production, but for now a recording was used and Julian watched to see how the performers would be moving on the set.

This was a dress rehearsal so some actors were in period outfits from Beethoven’s era and the rest of the cast was wearing modern clothing. Photographer Kristen Wheeler was shooting the show this night and she set up two lights to illuminate the actors. Beth warned her not to shoot the feet of some of the period costumed actors since they didn’t have the right shoes yet.  During the show, Kristen had total access to the stage and she moved around the actors catching every emotional moment while also switching on and off lights to get the shots. It was an impressive ballet that didn’t once phase the actors.

The plot examines the creative process of Beethoven’s obsessive variations build from a rather plane and uninspired composition by Diabelli (Brett P. Carson). At the same time, the play follows musicologist Katherine Brandt (played by Peg O’Keef) who yearns to understand Beethoven’s obsession. Brandt’s relationship with her daughter (Becky Eck) is strained as she succumbs to a disabling Sclerosis and at the same time Beethoven (Chris Gibson) goes deaf. I had watched a number of performers audition for the part of Beethoven and I must say Chris is compelling as the anger driven compulsive composer.

 The musicologist traveled to Vienna to inspect Beethoven’s original sketchbooks. By flipping through the pages she could see his every thought as he composed. She wondered if he might be mocking Diabelli’s composition with his variations or perhaps he just wanted to one-up Bach who had 32 variations. Beethoven’s loss of hearing may have actually helped him break new ground as he reinvented the very process of creation. Though cloaked in anger and bitterness, he found an amazing joy in the process even as the world grew silent. Minor composers like Diabelli could be satisfied and complacent with their insignificant contributions.

One moment in the rehearsal was absolute magic. I stopped sketching and was drawn in to the moment. Katherine Brandt disrobed as if in a doctors office. I imagined she was preparing for an MRI full body scan. She stood in a spotlight facing the audience with her arms out in a Christ like gesture. Beethoven stood behind her and they leaned back to back. His head leaned back on her shoulder and her head leaned back on his shoulder. She closed her eyes and shuddered with quick breaths of ecstasy. I noticed Becky Eck off stage began to cry, and my eyes welled up as well. There is a certain magic that happens when actors are no longer reciting lines, but they are emotionally invested in every moment.

Mark Your Calendars! The show runs from March 14-30, 2014
Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 2pm and 8pm, Sundays at 2pm,
PLUS Monday, March 24 at 8pm- INDUSTRY NITE

 Tickets: $25 ($21 students/seniors) BethMarshallPresents.com or GardenTheatre.org

Winter Garden Heritage Museum

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On October 28th, I went to Winter Garden to drop off several prints with Beth Marshall. Her production of “Alice Lost in Wonderland” was coming to the end of its run at the Winter Garden Theatre (160 West Plant Street, Winter Garden, Fl). The final performance was November 3rd. Since I got to Winter Garden early, I started a sketch of the Winter Garden Heritage Museum while I waited to hear from Beth. Beth sent a text letting me know that I should meet her at the back stage door. The sketch wasn’t finished but I walked down Plant Street to the theater. I waited outside for a few minutes then realized she might have meant to meet me inside the stage door so I went in. A stage manager guided me through the black curtains on stage and then into the theater. Beth was seated in the front row talking to the cast on stage.

The cast was offered the opportunity to purchase any props from the show at below cost. Costumes needed to be clean and hung, ready for collection by costuming. There was some concern that the green room refrigerator had started to smell, but author and Director, Rob Winn Anderson, pointed out that it wasn’t a cast issue. This evening was Industry Night which means reduced ticket prices for people in the industry which means it could be a full house.

The cast began a run through of the fight sequence as Beth walked me back stage. It was rather fun walking through the middle of the brawl as it happened. It is always rewarding to present my work to Beth since she understands the value in what I do. I returned to the Heritage Museum to finish my sketch. Some models were posing for a photographer in front of the caboose as I approached. A husband, wife and their son walked towards downtown holding hands. The ten year old used his parents arms as a swing as they walked. There is a real charm to this downtown street which has history minus the strip mall over development seen in the rest of Central Florida.

Alice Lost in Wonderland Dress Rehearsal

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Alice Lost in Wonderland written and directed by Rob Winn Anderson had its original world premiere at the Garden Theatre (160 West Plant Street, Winter Garden FL.). The show marks Beth Marshall Presents’ 9th production in partnership with The Garden Theatre. The first thing that struck me was the wonderful Steam punk mental asylum set by Tom Mangieri. It was vaguely reminiscent of the set for Wicked.

Actors gathered for a group photo and then ran through a fight sequence choreographed by Bill Warriner. Becky Eck, who played Jane stood on stage alone as other actors got into place.  I assumed from the title that I should look to sketch Alice, but it became quite clear that Jane was the lead character. I had sketched auditions and heard several dozen actresses read for the part of Jane. When I saw the monologue performed by Becky in the context of the play, I was floored, astonished at the meaning and implied emotion in her performance.

  Alice Lost in Wonderland, uses Lewis Carroll’s classic book to inspire
the story of Jane’s frantic search for what she has lost. Years
of falling in and out of mental institutions have broken her and now she
finds herself in a terrifying situation where chances are final and
journeys into dark places are both wonderful and haunting. This
whimsical psychological thriller steps out of reality and into a
shattered mind to create a classically creepy and intriguingly creative
journey through wonderland.

In one compelling moment Jane is stripped of her cheerful childhood clothes by grey institution patients. She stands bare for a moment in her bra and panties and then the patients slip the dingy grey institution uniform over her head. It becomes clear that her Wonderland quest makes her one of them. I was delighted to see Tod Caviness as the Caterpillar. He gave the character a hip 60’s flair that only a poet could perform.

Jane’s search for Alice in Wonderland is actually a way for her to avoid horrible memories from her past. As these memories surface, the play takes a dark sinister turn to face the worst in human nature. This is NOT a kids show. Issues and horrors faced are all too real. The show is quick witted and light when in the Wonderland fantasy then grey and sinister when facing the realities of doctors who consider electroshock therapy an enlightened practical approach to mental health. This show is a perfect addition to the Halloween season.

Mark Your Calendar! This show runs through November 3rd. Show times are Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 2pm and 8pm, and Sundays at 2pm. Tickets are $25 for adults ($21 for seniors/students). There will also be an Industry Night on Monday, October 28 at 8pm. This show is open to the public with $15 tickets for those in the theatre industry. Pilars Bar next door will be open and offering drink specials for patrons on Industry Nite Monday Oct. 28th.

Get your tickets now at BethMarshallPresents.com or GardenTheatre.org!