OUR FAVORITE "BUDDY" RETURNS TO THE WATERBURY PALAC

Not many comets and meteors originate in West Texas but Buddy Holly certainly was one of them.  He burned bright and hot but his light was snuffed out way too soon. Born in Lubbock, Texas in 1936, Buddy Holly was a rock and roll legend who influenced the direction the music world took and even though he has been gone from the galaxy for decades his stirring tunes live on.  His death at only twenty-two was a tragedy but his eighteen months of fame are still felt today.  Everyone from the Beatles to Bruce Springsteen credit Buddy Holly for being a jukebox wonder.

Waterbury's Palace Theater will welcome this songwriting sensation for three performances only, Friday and Saturday, January 23 and 24 in "Buddy:  The Buddy Holly Story."  Todd Meredith will rock around your clock as the energetic performer who believes in himself and in his music and let the world hear his greatness.  This hometown country boy rejected his country western roots to adopt the newfangled, untamed tail of a comet called rock and roll.  He hung on tight, from his first stirrings of success at Harlem's Apollo Theater to his final show at Clear Lake. Iowa when he joined forces with the Big Bopper and Richie Valens, for what was to be his last hurrah.

Alan Janes and Rob Bettinson have penned this enthusiastic tribute to a legend and crammed it with his most popular hits, "Not Fade Away," "Maybe, Baby," "Oh, Boy," "Rave On," "That'll Be the Day" and  "Peggy Sue." It doesn't get much better than this! Believe it or not, it's the 25th anniversary of this show and the Waterbury stop is part of an eleven week national tour.  To date, 22 million music fans from all over the world have been shaken from their toes on up by this sensational show.

Before the Friday, January 23 performance, Riverhouse Catering will prepare a 6 p.m. pre-fixe, four-course dinner at the Palace's Poli Club, located on the mezzanine level of the theater.  Dinner is $62.50 per person, which included tax, fees, coffee and tea.  A cash bar is available.  Make reservations through the box office.

For tickets ($45, 55 and 65), call the Palace Theater, 100 East Main Street, Waterbury at 203-346-2000 or online at www.palacetheaterct.org.  Performances are Friday at 8 p.m., and Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Come witness the birth of rock and roll with the daddy who gets the credit for its contemporary conception,  the one and only, Buddy Holly.  He will "not fade away."

HOPSCOTCH THROUGH THE THEATER WORLD IN 2014

         "PICASSO AT THE LAPIN AGILE" AT LONG WHARF THEATRE

Looking back on the year that just ended, one discovers delightfully that there were many wonderful theatrical events that are well worth remembering.  To savor some of my favorites, take a journey with me through 2014.  Beginning in January, there is no better way to make the winter happy than to attend  Goodspeed's Festival of New Musicals for any or all of the weekend.  This year the dates are January 16-18 and just like last year the festival is stuffed with a trio of new musicals, a pair of cabarets, special talks by theater folk, symposiums and tours.  What better way to thumb your nose at winter's chills and ice.

The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford always has a sensational national touring company waiting in the wings for a spectacular show.  While this week it's the circus world of "Pippin" eager to color your world, this past year the stand out show was "War Horse" with its stirring story of the teenaged boy Albert whose beloved horse Joey is snatched away from him to be part of the World War I calvary effort.  Their reunion, exemplified with life sized puppets, is an epic tale.

March swept in with a festive red carpet celebration of the Oscars at The Kate in Old Saybrook, a gem of a theater dedicated to the memory of Katharine Hepburn.  Gowns and tuxedos were donned to welcome the newest stars to be feted for their acting skills. You even had a chance to have your photo with a real live Oscar, complete from head to toe in gold paint.

Comedian Steve Martin graced Long Wharf Theatre's stage with two gifts this year, with "The Underpants," a collaboration with Hartford Stage that told
the tale of a woman who embarrasses her husband when she loses her undergarments at the King's parade, and later with "Picasso at the Lapin Agile."
The latter is an imagined encounter of the artist Picasso with the scientist Einstein at a bar in Paris at the turn of the twentieth century.  Martin exhibits a grand flair for comedy in both.

Comedy was also saluted at Yale Repertory Theatre at least twice this year, first with the crazy slapstick farce "Accidental Death of an Anarchist" about a serious bombing that actually happened and later with "Those Paper Bullets."  The latter featured a collision of Shakespeare and a musical group like the Beatles in a gloriously funny spoof of song, fashion and romance.

The summer months saw an engagingly different production at Long Wharf by the Split Knuckle Theatre where the adventures of Sir Ernest Shackleton and a mild-mannered insurance company employee overcome great odds in "Endurance."  In a tent, the Summer Theatre of New Canaan put on a smashing version of "Hairspray," that fun musical about a teenage girl in Baltimore taking on the establishment and fighting against prejudice and winning.

West Hartford's Playhouse on Park brought to engaging life a sparkling visit with the awkward misfits who all want to win the spelling contest in "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee."

With the warm breezes also came the opportunity to travel to Waterford to find that hidden jewel, the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, that every year for the past five decades offers conferences on puppetry around the world, brand new plays and never heard before musicals.  If you have never experienced the wonders of the O'Neill, you owe yourself this theatrical treat.

Theatrical treats also abound at Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam where "Fiddler on the Roof" entertained all summer with Adam Heller as the steadfast milkman Tevye.  Plan a full day of theater by going one exit over to Chester to see a new offering at the Norma Terris Theatre, called the Little Goodspeed.

Young people captured the spotlight in two separate but equally wonderful ventures.  Long Wharf's Shake-It-Up-Shakespeare, under the skilled direction of Annie DiMartino, offers teens the opportunity to make Shakespeare a musically vital experience. Their "Much Ado about Nothing" was a virtuoso performance.  Over in Waterbury, Seven Angels Theatre delivered in spades with Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" starring Carey Cannata as the precocious Eugene Morris Jerome.

More serious stuff was spotlighted at Westport Country Playhouse when they presented "Intimate Apparel," about a young African-American seamstress searching for love and a sense of importance.  Hartford Stage's rendering of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" was brilliant, with Zach Appelman as the determined son set to avenge his father's murder.

The relatively new on the scene New Haven Theater Company did itself proud with a stirring production of the Irish play "The Seafarer," where the stakes in a poker game are raised way too high. 

These are but a few of the cream laden shows  that rose to the top of the milk bottle that is Connecticut theater.  Hopefully you saw at least a few and have some favorites of your own.  If not, the slate is now clean and ready to be inscribed for 2015.  See you at the theater.

FRANK WARREN WANTS TO SHARE SECRETS

The old saying goes that if two people want to keep a secret one of them has to be dead.  Frank Warren would put a whole new spin on that secret concept and change it to tell everyone your secret, just don't put your name on it.  Warren created an art project through the mail years ago that has mushroomed into a worldwide community project: PostSecret.

To participate, create a decorative postcard, tell a secret no one else knows and then send it off - anonymously - into the universe.  Since 2005, thousands of people have taken that unique opportunity to confess, reveal and confide a hope, a dream, a desire, a compulsion that is utterly truthful and is unknown to everyone but you, the writer.

Started as an experiment on Blogger and originally updated every Sunday with ten new secrets, the site has had almost 700,000,000 hits and counting.  Go to www.postsecret.com and make it 700,000,001.  Apparently, a lot of people have a lot of private thoughts they can't help themselves from revealing.  Maybe it's cathartic or a pressure release or just plain useful.  Since he has received over 1,000,000 responses to his request for anonymous postcards, enough to fill six books to date, it's clear he has touched a cord in people all over the world.  You too can send a decorated card -without a signature - to:  PostSecret, 13345 Copper Ridge Road, Germantown, Maryland 20874.  Warren even confesses he includes one of his own secrets in each of his publications.

It all began in November 2004 when Frank Warren handed out 3000 postcards randomly in our nation's capitol.  In a recent interview, he explained the act in two ways, "maybe I was stuck in a boring job or maybe I was having my own personal struggle with private secrets."  His original goal was to get 365 postcards.  Warren had no idea he would still be collecting them ten years later.

What makes this idea resonate so intensely?  To Warren, "it's accidentally tapping into mystery and wonder.  It's an invitation into someone's personal life, a revelation, a chance to chronicle transformation." Postcards can be passive or aggressive, good, bad, ugly, silly, sentimental or serious. Cards come to his house, sometimes 100 a day, from every country, America to Australia, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Greenland.  He even received a card in a language he didn't recognize, one that a colleague finally identified as Elfin from "The Lord of the Rings."  They comprise a tower far taller than Warren himself and necessitated that he and his understanding and supportive wife build another room on their house.

In addition to paper notes, he has also received messages on such diverse objects as rocks, flip-flops, bras, purses and seashells.  As Warren explains it, "There are two kinds of secrets, those we keep from others and those we hide from ourselves. Secrets create walls that separate us, but if we have the courage to tell our secrets we create bridges of understanding."

Frank Warren advocates this "currency of intimacy" and you are invited to celebrate its success on Friday, January 16 at 8 p.m. when he speaks at the Lyman Auditorium on the campus of Southern Connecticut State University. He will tell the story of his amazing journey in "Post Secret," speak of his six New York Times Best Selling Books, use music, videos, images of postcards and the secrets that have transformed lives. Microphones on site will allow audience members to share their secrets in public.  For tickets ($20, faculty $10, students $5), call 203-392-6154 or online at www.southernct.edu. His latest book, "The World of Postsecret" was released November 4 and has already made the top of that prestigious list. Some completely honest disclosures are "My family is like a foreign country to me," "I'm one of the bravest, My secret?  I'm just as afraid of dying in a fire as the people I save, " and "My husband packs me the lunch my mom never did."

One unexpected offshoot of this project is a young man who created a blog to reunite lost digital photos with their owners by posting the pictures on a website in the hopes they will be recognized.  Called "I Found Your Camera," it has put these precious photos back in their rightful place.  Another fascinating impact is Post Secret's support of suicide prevention and its support of good mental health.  Many people in anguish have reached out and in confessing their most innermost thoughts helped themselves to a more stable realm.   Over $1,000,000 has been raised for suicide prevention and garnered Warren a 2011 Mental Health Advocacy Lifetime Achievement Award as well as an invitation to visit the Obama White House in 2013 to share his thoughts on mental illness. His blog has been touted as the "Best Blog on the Internet" and his TED Talk is one of the most watched.
.
For Frank Warren, "secrets are universal."  To prove it, he has taken his project around the world and spoken about it from Australia to Ireland, England to Spain, New Zealand to Brazil.  Wherever he goes, he has discovered that secrets release burdens and that "a safe social space inspires revelations."  Maybe one day he will pass on the keys to his non-judgmental empire, just like Willy Wonka, but for now Post Secret is a 50 hour a week, 365 days a year, occupation, one that gives hope, healing and promise to the giver as well as the receiver. 

Grab a postcard and think about what your secret is. Frank Warren and the world are waiting.  As for the Warren's mail carrier, you can be sure he received a of of well-deserved Christmas gifts this holiday season.

ENTER THE STRANGE WORLD OF "THE ELEPHANT MAN"

Being labeled a freak of nature or a side show spectacle has to be a devastating judgment by society.  People are too quick to pronounce opinions and accept prejudices, assuming an air of superiority so they can look down their pointed noses in disdain.

Imagine being born Joseph Merrick and being stricken at birth with a debilitating skin disease that distorts and disfigures.  Is anything close to a normal life possible?  Do you spend years trapped in a workhouse or a mental institution?  Do you allow yourself to be put on display in a circus world of oddities?

Meet "The Elephant Man" by Bernard Pomerance currently playing at the Booth Theatre, 222 west 45th Street, New York City until February 15.  Bradley Cooper has crawled into Joseph Merrick's skin, inhabiting all his problems and phobias, absorbing his personality and patterns of speech, capturing his unique walk, adopting his life qualities.  His performance is remarkable as he becomes his character in 1001 vital and distinguished ways.

When the play opens, Merrick has been "rescued" by Dr. Treves (Alessandro Nivola), who oversees his care and treatment, providing him with a semblance of normalcy for the first time in forever.  He introduces him to a lady of refinement and breeding, an actress, Mrs. Kendal (Patricia Clarkson) who treats Merrick as an equal, as a human being of value, as a man.

With a taste of what life could be, Merrick sees what he might have been if not for his disease.  That reality is both a blessing and a curse, a certainty that is ultimately too much for him to accept.  Scott Ellis directs this glimpse in time, this painful and poignant portrait of a man who has little to no control over his destiny.

For tickets ($158 and up), call 212-239-6200 or online at ElephantManBroadwaycom or Telecharge.com.  Performances are Tuesday at 7 p.m., Wednesday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., Thursday at 7 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.

Let Bradley Cooper assume the persona of Joseph Merrick so brilliantly that you personally feel all his trials and triumphs.

CURIOUS PLAY INTRIGUES VIEWERS IN ITS APPROACH

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" may be the most wildly different, imaginative, remarkable and disturbingly emotional play you will ever experience.  You don't just see the play, you feel it.  You are a witness and a participant in the engaging action that swirls around a 15 year old teen with autism, Christopher Boone.  The Barrymore Theatre, 243 West 47th Street, New York City has been transformed into a mathematical cube of lights and directions to accommodate Christopher's unusual world.

Alex Sharp's Christopher is capable of amazing mind shattering revelations.  Sharp invites you, the audience, into his vastly different views of reality and lets you hang on to his coattails for a bumpy and unbelievable ride.  Based on a book by Mark Haddon, it has crossed the pond from London in the form of a new play by Simon Stephens.

How disturbing is it to discover a neighbor's dog has died...not just died, but murdered?  What if you are then suspected of committing that heinous act?  Christopher Boone determines that he must clear his own name and learn who the real culprit is.

That decision takes him on a disturbing and frightening journey.  In his autistic world, many things are too difficult for him to comprehend.  Anything new is scary, being touched is an anathema, loud noises are disorienting.  With a resilence that is almost beyond his ken, Christopher sets off on an odyssey worthy of Ulysses, a young detective determined to uncover the truth.  With resources he didn't even realize he possessed, he leaves the safety and ordered life he has always known, to go on a grand and dangerous and mysterious adventure.  Along the way, he encounters teachers, subway and train conductors, policemen and an assortment of strangers who aide or abort his mission.  Marianne Elliot direct this theatrical revelation into the mind.

For tickets ($36.45-403.65), call Telecharge at 212-239-6200 or online at Telecharge.com or CuriousOnBroadway.com.  Performances are Tuesday at 7 p.m., Wednesday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., Thursday at 7 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.

Follow Christopher on his journey of discovery, one that is unexpectedly shocking and totally unanticipated.

SOAR WITH "PIPPIN" INTO A WORLD OF CIRCUS AND DISCOVERY

    LUCIE ARNEZ AS BERTHE, PHOTO BY TERRY SHAPIRO

You may feel compelled to take an acrobatics class, try balancing on a giant ball, jumping through a high flying hoop or practicing for a knife-throwing act before heading off to the Bushnell Performing Arts Center in Hartford to see the all-new circus-inspired production of "Pippin."  Now four decades after it was originally composed by Stephen Schwartz, with book by Roger O. Hirson, it has been re-imagined by Diane Paulus and transformed into a three ring circus of spectacular pageantry.

From Tuesday, January 6 to Sunday, January 11, the Bushnell will be afire with color and high flying hi-jinxs as it tells the incredible tale of a young, naive sweet and innocent prince Pippin who desperately wants to follow his destiny.  He is ready and willing to leave the home he knows, as the privileged son of King Charlemagne, to seek adventure and a life of meaning.

Kyle Dean Massey is the vulnerable and impressionable lad who wants to soar like an eagle and fly free, hoping to find his "corner of the sky."
Not content with the small life he feels he is trapped in, he seeks change and experiences.  Sasha Allen, with top hat and cane, plays the Leading Player, the temptress/narrator who has the power to control the directions and misdirections that Pippin pursues.

Along the way, Pippin will encounter the advice and counsel, both good and bad, from his father Charles, a role played by John Rubinstein who was the original Pippin in 1972, Sabrina Harper as his step-mother Fastrada, Kristin Reese as Catherine, a woman who has the power to heal and Lucie Arnez as Berthe, his grandmother.  This production began long, long ago as an after-school project by Stephen Schwartz, whie he attended college.  Called "Pippin, Pippin," it was originally an historical melodrama.  These first seeds have taken root and blossomed into the wildly different and fantastic fable it is today.

Noted for sensational songs like "Magic To Do," "Corner of the Sky," "Glory," "No Time At All," "Morning Glow" and "Love Song," it is sure to astonish and amaze.  For tickets ($21-80), call the Bushnell, 166 Capitol Avenue, Hartford at 860-987-5900 or online at www.bushnell.org. Performances are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

With the Montreal-based circus company Les 7 doigts de la main (7 Fingers), prepare to soar in spirit and spectacle in a colorful creation of music and magic.

“WHITE CHRISTMAS” A DELIGHTFUL HOLIDAY GIFT

Do you have room on your holiday wish list?  If so, be sure to add the Shubert Theatre's delightful present of "Irving Berlin's White Christmas."  Just in time to usher in the New Year, it will play from Tuesday, December 30 to Sunday, January 4 and what better way to begin 2015. In 1954, “White Christmas” was made into a movie of the same name starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen. Now it is coming to the stage in all its sentimental glory, with book by David Ives and Paul Blake.

Irving Berlin, the immigrant son of a Russian cantor, wrote a significant portion of America’s Songbook.  Capable of composing one song, music and lyrics, every day, he would begin writing at 8 p.m. and frequently continue until 4 or 5 in the morning.  Ironically, Berlin, a Jew, is credited with two of the greatest holiday songs, “Easter Parade” and the world favorite “White Christmas,” as well as with the grand patriotic anthem “God Bless America.”

The stirring musical, “Irving Berlin’s White Christmas” is set when the world was struggling with the repercussions of World War II. It tells the tale of two charming and talented soldiers, James Clow as Bob Wallace and Jeremy Benton as his pal Phil Davis, who enjoy entertaining the troops with a holiday variety show.  This song-and-dance team continues their act after the war and meet up with a singing sister duo, Kristen Beth Williams as Betty Haynes and Kaitlyn Davidson as her sister Judy.  About to part company, the guys heading to Florida to work and the girls going north, a swift change of train tickets finds all four at an inn in Vermont for Christmas.

A lack of snowfall, a need for guests, a little romance, an avalanche of singing and dancing and a reunion with General Waverly, played by Conrad John Schuck, from their army days all combine into a whirlwind of fun. Songs like "Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep," "Sisters," "Blue Skies" and "White Christmas" are all guaranteed crowd pleasers.

The show is a big movie musical that will make you feel good and smile throughout.  It was originally written when the country was in bad shape and needed to feel better and be entertained, a situation not so different today.

For tickets ($15-110), call the Shubert Theatre, 247 College Street, New Haven at 203-562-5666 or online at www.shubert.com. Performances are Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, New Year's Eve at 8 p.m., Thursday New Year's Day at 1 p.m. Friday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.,  Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.

End your 2014 on a high note or start 2015 with a bang by making the Shubert Theatre your stepping off point for a joyous holiday celebration with enough music and dance to fill an inn in Vermont to the brim of entertainment.