GET READY TO TAKE OFF FOR COMEDY WITH “BOEING BOEING”

If you’re familiar with the computer or twitter phrase L.O.L., you know it can mean Laugh Out Loud, Lots of Laughs and even Lots of Love.  Happily it means all three in the hilarious comedy written by Marc Camoletti “Boeing Boeing” flying high weekends until Saturday, April 26 at Connecticut Cabaret Theatre in Berlin.

Fasten your seat belts and put your seat in an upright position as the laughing gas starts flowing freely from the gas mask overhead.  Bernard is an architect living the good life in Paris, a bachelor with a great apartment and a brilliant plan to have his cake and eat it too, with no intention of losing his head in the process.

Joe Autuoro’s Bernard is giving “swinging” a new name.  He is a juggler, not of balls or of eggs, but of fiancees. His master plan is simple and ingenious:  date a trio of air hostesses and coordinate their time table flying schedules so they never meet.

His romantic revolving door life style is the envy of an old friend from America Robert, an admiring Chris Pearson, who comes to visit unannounced and stays on to marvel.

Helping Bernard organize his involving plot is his maid Berthe, delightfully droll in the hands of Barbara Horan.  While not approving of his shenanigans, she is willing to be bribed, through her increasing pay check, to help Bernard pull off the ruse.

Meanwhile, offering Bernard “coffee, tea or me” are a bevy of international beauties:  Meagan Bomar’s down-to-earth and devoted Gloria, the American TWA stewardess, Kaite Corda’s passionate and pouty Gabriella with Alitalia and Ashley Ayala’s fiery and flamboyant Gretchen with Luftansa. This worldly harem works wonderfully as long as each lady arrives and departs on schedule.  What would happen, however, if a storm hits, a flight is cancelled, a new plane decreases travel time?  Comic chaos for sure, under the skilled hands of Captain Kris McMurray as chief pilot.  This cast goes over the top to fly high into the comedy clouds.

For tickets ($30), call the CT Cabaret Theatre, 31-33 Webster Square Road, Berlin at 860-829-1248 or online at www.ctcabaret.com.  Performances are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with doors opening at 7:15 p.m. Bring goodies to share at your table or plan to visit the dessert bar on site.

With a  philosophy of no panic/no problem, watch Bernard’s superb juggling skills crash and burn as an unexpected wind blows his super scheduling way off course.

“SHOUT!’ HURRAY FOR THIS MOD MUSICAL OF THE 60’S

Let’s get groovy, put on a psychedelic t-shirt, tease your hair into a football helmet and bop on over to the Ivoryton Playhouse for one heck of a musical good time.  Bring a bunch of coins for the live juke box of a band and prepare to party hearty and dance with joy.

Until Sunday, April 6, the tempo will be lively, bouncy, upbeat and fast as “Shout! The Mod Musical” makes musical magic. Created by Philip George and David Lowenstein, the mood is merry and just right for toe-tapping, glad hand clapping and just plain jane fun.

There’s no real deep story line, just a mod magazine “Shout!” that screams current fashions and foibles of females of the sixties, brought to bubbling life by a quintet of glam gals in a vibrancy of colors.  Jennifer Lorne is blue girl, Tamala Baldwin is yellow girl, Mikah Horn is orange, Monica Bradley is green and Bethany Fitzgerald is red. Each gal, dressed in her signature color, has a unique personality and the particular problems that plague her.

In a variety of clothing short and long, spangles and stripes, with appropriate wigs that capture the hair fashions of the day, these girls serenade with tunes like “Downtown,” “Georgy Girl,” “Don’t Sleep in the Subway,” “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ “ and “To Sir, With Love,” thirty great songs in all.

The women who range in age and sophistication from their twenties to their forties, all have questions about men, love and relationships. They address them to Shout! Magazine’s supposedly savvy advice columnist Gwendolyn Holmes (Beverley Taylor) with varying degrees of success.  Set in London, these females want to be strong and independent, “birds” with colorful feathers who are ready and able to fly free on their own.

The magazine’s hipster voice (Steve Phelan) chronicles their journey through the sixties to the cusp of 1970.  Jacqueline Hubbard directs this rainbow hued song fest that captures the changing attitudes of women of that time and place, with a great cast that makes you want to "kick up your heels and shout."

For tickets ($42, seniors $37, students $20, children $15 ), call the Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main Street, Ivoryton at 860-767-7318 or online at www.ivorytonplayhouse.org.  Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., with matinees Wednesday and Saturday at 2 p.m.

Grab your go-go boots, squeeze into a mini-skirt, practice the frug, the twist and the swim, and bogey to the beautiful beat!

CONCERT TO AID ORPHANS HERE AND ABROAD

The magic of music will be offered on Saturday afternoon, April 5 at 2 p.m. when Hamden's Whitney Center, 200 Leeder Hill Drive, provides a special concert "Notes For Kids" with students from the Yale School of Music.  Sponsored by the Aid for Orphans Relief Foundation, it will feature a String Trio playing Mozart's Divertimento for Spring Trio in E-Flat Major K.563 and Beethoven's String Trio Op.9 No. 3 in C Minor.

The String Trio includes Jia Cao on cello, Zou Yu on violin and Xinyi Xu on viola.  A raffle and reception is included in this free event.  Call 203-606-8857 or email: info@aidorphansrelief.org for more information.

The Aid for Orphans Relief Foundation provides medication and nutrition to children at risk in Connecticut and around the world.  Dr. Margaret Chustecki is the founder and managing director who established the organization after visiting orphanages in her native Poland and witnessing first hand the dire needs to help. Her efforts have since expanded to Africa, Eastern Europe and closer to home in this country.

The Aid for Orphans Relief Foundation, AORF, is dedicated to improving health of children as well as preventing them from dying.  To help one child at a time, send your donation to : AORF, 1952 Whitney Avenue, Hamden, CT 06517.

Come celebrate this worthy cause with a concert on April 5.

"THE OTHER PLACE" A HAUNTING MIND MYSTERY

    

                  KATE LEVY AS JULIANA SMITHTON, PHOTO BY LARRY NAGLER

Did you ever feel that no matter where you were, you needed to be somewhere else, in "the other place"?  New moms often experience it, that when they are with their newborn, there is a pull to be at the office and vice versa.  The struggle can be real, an internal tug that causes conflict and uncertainty.

For Juliana Smithton, the struggle is mental and emotional as well as physical and the result is disturbingly authentic.  Let TheaterWorks of Hartford draw you into the fray and make you a referee for Juliana's fight for stability as it presents the powerful and poignant "The Other Place" by Sharr White until Saturday, April 19.

One moment Juliana, brought to brilliantly conflicted life by Kate Levy, is the self-assured and confidant pharmaceutical researcher introducing her new drug for dementia patients to a seminar of doctors meeting in a St. Maarten resort.  While focused on her detailed presentation, she is distracted by a woman, clad only in a yellow bikini, visible among the sea of physicians, much like an exotic fish coexisting in a flock of crows.

Moments later, she experiences an episode, a frightening medical problem, that convinces her that she, at only 52, has a brain tumor, a malady that has afflicted many family members.  Her husband Ian is an oncologist specializing in brain cancer so her self-diagnosis seems reasonable.

Ian, a supportive and patient R. Ward Duffy, urges her to seek other opinions and undergo tests and arranges for her to see Dr. Teller (Amelia McClain).  With Dr Teller, Juliana confesses Ian is divorcing her and is guilty of unfaithfulness.  The fate of their daughter Laurel rises to the surface.  As a rebellious teenager , Laurel ran away a decade before with Juliana's post doc assistant Richard (Clark Carmichael). Now that she is ill, Juliana seeks her comforting presence.

As the scenes melt into the past, we witness Juliana's disintegration, a complex mental and emotional journey that leaves tiny stepping stones of memory, exposing the puzzle of her perplexing problems.  Rob Ruggiero directs this beautifully tragic mind mystery, with a fine cast of actors making her story all too believable.

For tickets ($50-65, seniors matinees $35), call TheaterWorks, 233 Pearl Street, Hartford at 860-527-7838 or online at www.theaterworkshartford.org.  Performances are Tuesday to Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and weekend matinees at 2:30 p.m.  Come early to visit the art gallery upstairs.

Juliana's beach house in Cape Cod is "the other place" where she desperately hopes Laurel will reappear and give her life the closure she wants and needs for her family.

"THESE PAPER BULLETS!" A HAPPY AND HILARIOUS HAPPENING

Jeanine Serralles as Bea and David Wilson Barnes as Ben in These Paper Bullets! Photo © Joan Marcus, 2014.

Take a Shakespearean comedy with two pair of only slightly star-crossed lovers, a rock band that intentionally resembles the Beatles, add in a mod fashionista clothing queen as well as a real reigning monarch, set the whole kit and kaboodle in London in 1964 and you have a fun, fantastic and fabulous entertainment feast.  It's like having a giant banana split with all your favorite flavors of ice cream, like pistachio, raspberry and coffee, and you savor every bite but you can't wait for the next big spoonful.

Imagine York Street's University Theatre is now Carnaby Street, London and let the extraordinary cast of the Yale Repertory Theatre present for your astonishing pleasure "These Paper Bullets! a Modish Ripoff of William Shakespeare's 'Much Ado About Nothing,' " adapted by Rolin Jones, with songs by Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong and directed by Jackson Gay until Saturday, April 5.

Cunningly clever and creative, it would earn an A++ on the Show Business School's annual report card.  Part rock concert, part work of the Bard, it startles, surprises and amazes at every turn as Cupid's arrows fly hither and yon and plots of revenge boil over.  Does true friendship exist?  Is faithfulness a vanishing trait?  Can you trust your own feelings to be real or must you rely on others to know your own heart?  Let your inhibitions fly free and simply enjoy the fun.

At the musical heart of the action are the rock group The Quartos, who are all the rage of their female fans.  Led by Ben (David Wilson Barnes), they include Claude (Bryan Fenkart), Balth (Lucas Papaelias), Pedro (James Barry) and their manager Anton (James Lloyd Reynolds).  Don Best (Adam O'Byrne) was once part of the group as drummer but he has been replaced and is now a virtual errand boy.  His desire to bring the group down is soon evident.

In the world of mod fashion, Bea (Jeanine Serralles) reigns supreme.  With her girls, as both models and friends, Higgy (Ariana Venturi), Ulcie (Keira Naughton) and Frida (Ceci Fernandez), Bea rules her clothing kingdom.  She has a long standing verbal war of words with Ben and the two protest their mutual and monumental disdain for each other and for love and marriage...until their friends trick them into revealing their true feelings.

Bea and Ben are in extreme contrast to Higgy and Claude who are so smitten with each other they can barely utter a syllable.  Their marriage is quickly arranged by Higgy's dad Leo (Stephen DeRosa), a wondrous affair in his hotel The Messina, until Don Best manipulates the menu.  With his cohorts in crime Boris (Andrew Musselman) and Colin (Brian McManamon), Don Best is anything but a best man.  It takes the sterling but bumbling efforts  of New Scotland Yard to save the day, led by Mr. Barry (Greg Stuhr) and his Three Stooges-like assistants (Brad Heberlee, Anthony Manna and Jabari Brisport).
Recording it all for the public at large, concerned citizens eager to know, is Paulina Noble (Liz Wisan) of the BBC.  Even the Queen (Christopher Geary) pops by for a royal wave.

For tickets ($20-98), call the Yale Rep at 203-432-1234 or online at www.yalerep.org.  Performances are Tuesday to Saturday at 8 p.m., with matinees selected Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2 p.m.  Three 10:30 a.m. shows for high school students are also planned. Shows are at the University Theatre, 222 York Street, New Haven.

Anything can happen and everything does in this over-the-top hilarious tribute to the Bard as he trips the light fantastic down Carnaby Street. Don't miss the opportunity to stroll along with him.

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT!

If you have a Bucket List, maybe one item on it is to be a movie star.  The closest I will ever come occurred on Friday, March 14, 2014 when I was part of Alex's team, a volunteer extra on the movie "Boychoir." Filmed at Fairfield University, Greenwich, New Haven at Yale University and at various sites all over Connecticut, it is the story of a troubled teen who seeks music as solace for his soul.

Written by Ben Ripley, "Boychoir" is based on the American Boychoir School, originally established in 1937 in Columbus, Ohio and, since 1950, in Princeton, New Jersey.  The students, from fourth to eighth grade, are all gifted with superb soprano voices that are angelic in nature. Since they quickly lose that heavenly sound when they reach puberty, capturing their voices in that specific window of time is vital.

Several weeks ago at the Quick Center on the Fairfield University campus, Dustin Hoffman, the star of "Boychoir," and Francois Girard, the director, spoke about the project.  A call went out for "extras," seat fillers if you will: hence, my movie career began and ended that day.  The commitment, unpaid, began at 9:30 a.m. at Woolsey Hall in New Haven, with filming of a crowd walking in to a concert, in 19 degree weather, again and again and again.  I'm the one in the bright red coat freezing.

The next scenes were filmed nearby at Yale's Sprague Memorial Hall on College Street where Mr. Hoffman, with a girl to carry his jacket, comb his hair, hand him Kleenex, provide a water bottle and powder his nose were all available (each with one specific task).  His double stood at the podium as lights and camera angles were adjusted.  When he took his spot, he practiced conducting the choir, getting instruction from Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, the music director from the American Boychoir School and the music director in the movie.

Hand gestures were copied and perfected until the 31 member real boys choir, in red sweater vests, appeared.  The song was pre-recorded and only the principal boys actually sang:  Dante Soriano who plays a student who befriends the angry youth and Garrett Wareing who plays Stet, the eleven year old orphan from Texas whose single mom has just died.

The boys who are in Connecticut for two weeks came with a tutor and school books and were quite enjoying the experience.  Extremely polite, these pre-adolescents, strive to be one of the best choirs in the world.  They have sung on stage with Beyonce and Paul McCartney as well as with Yo Yo Ma, the cellist, to name drop a few.  They serve as American ambassadors of song, having sung for every president since JFK.  From May 24 to June 4, they will perform in France.

The dozens of crew members, dressed informally in shirts and jeans, with ear sets and microphones, relayed orders until a chorus of "rolling" was heard, indicating cameras are ready to record.  As an audience member, we were expected to listen attentively and applaud enthusiastically.  Dressed in a fushia cocktail dress, I hope I will be visible for at least a few seconds of air time.

Lunch was a disappointing hot dog and chips while the union paid cast had fish, roast beef, string beans, clam chowder, ice cream and cake.  A little discrimination between the classes was felt by the unpaid underlings, though Hoffman ordered pizza for everyone.

After conducting, Hoffman wiggled his fingers behind him to encourage our applause to increase it exponentially.  Why not, he was the real deal star of the day.  Others in the cast are Alfred Molina, Debra Winger, and Kathy Bates.  Dustin Hoffman plays a demanding choir master who pushes Stet to develop his voice and his creativity.

Unfortunately the governor's decision to end the 30% tax credits in the state for movie making will discourage big-budget movies from filming here...and just when my movie career was on a roll.

"THE BOOK OF MORMON" HAS YOUR HOUSE NUMBER

When the doorbell rings, you might expect it to be the Avon lady, the Fuller Brush man or a Girl Scout selling Thin Mint cookies.  But don't forget to include that persistent evangelical sect that offers you salvation and a glimpse of paradise.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints actively trains missionaries to travel all over the world, including your neighborhood, to introduce you to the word of God in their unique scripture known as The Book of Mormon.

In 1830 in Palmyra, New York, Joseph Smith, only 21 years of age, was guided by the angel Moroni to discover ancient plates of gold inscribed with an unfamiliar language.  God is said to have given Smith the gift to translate the ancient words and soon 5000 books were published.  This book became the foundation for the Mormon Church and its journey from Smith to Brigham Young to Salt Lake City, Utah.  This voyage is chronicled, with a lot of literary license, bizarre humor and blashemy, in the religiously irreverent and gloriously irreligious musical comedy penned by the creators of South Park, the animated cartoon on television, by Trey Parker (co-director, book, music, lyrics), Robert Lopez (book, music, lyrics) and Matt Stone (book, music, lyrics).  "The Book of Mormon" will reveal all to the uninitiated at Hartford's Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts until Sunday, March 30.

Satire screams through every clever verse as two naive and young believers, missionaries, are sent directly from Utah to Uganda, without passing go and collecting $200 in donations or stopping for a ride at Disney Orlando for a ride on Dumbo.  Elder Price (Mark Evans) and Elder Cunningham (Christopher John O'Neill) after three months of instruction at Missionary Training School are ill-equipped for their virgin assignment.  Although Elder Price is self-assured and convinced of his calling, his co-hort Cunningham suffers from low self-esteem and a perpetual case of lying.  The fact that he hasn't bothered to read "the book" doesn't help his pitch for conversion.

Their arrival in the African village begins with their luggage being stolen and rapidly goes down hill from there.  The villagers they meet are worried about starvation and AIDS and a menacing war lord (Corey Jones) and could care less about religion.  One who does listen, a lovely young innocent girl named Nabulungi (Alexandra Ncube), the daughter of the chief (Stanley Wayne Mathis), pursues the hope of a better life the proselytizers are offering.

While the existing Mormon team, led by Elder McKinley (Grey Henson) have previously had no success with conversions, the most unlikely one finds miraculous results.  Musical number like "Hello," "Turn It Off," "I  Am Here For You," "Man Up" and "I Am Africa" are engagingly clever.  The cast puts themselves joyfully into the fray, becoming fully immersed in the music, comedy and story with gleeful abandon. All blue-haired grandmothers are advised to beware.

For tickets ($43-160), call the Bushnell, 166 Capitol Avenue, Hartford at 860-987-5900 or online at www.bushnell.org.  Performances are Tuesday to 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.

Answer your doorbell when the Mormon missionaries come to call and discover for yourself if silliness and salvation are right for you.