COME SEE WHAT'S COOKING IN NONI'S KITCHEN THANKS TO PANTOCHINO PRODUCTIONS

All the world over, food and family, customs and traditions unite us. Generations of families lived in the same multi-level house, on the same street as aunts and uncles and cousins and gathered together for a feast after church at grandma’s house on Sundays. Tragically many of those sacred days are lost as people spread across the land and only get close on chosen holidays or, worse yet, on family reunions every few years.

Luckily in 1974, the Cimino family has not caught up with the changing times and practically live in each other's apron pockets, especially if it concerns the matriarch of the clan, Noni. Italians have long recognized these important factors and have melded them in every layer of lasagna and morsel of meatball. To learn about the importance of breaking bread and dipping it in gravy, the proper term for tomato sauce, come running to Pantochino Production of “Noni Cimino’s Kitchen” weekends until Sunday, October 27as this not-for-profit theater celebrates its 15th season.

This original production, created and performed seven years ago, was written by Pantochino’s Artistic Director Bert Bernardi for book and lyrics, with music by Justin Rigg, and costumes by Jimmy Johansmeyer and focuses on a wonderful and warm grandmother, affectionately called Noni by her close knit clan. It is played with heart and spirit by Donna Vinci who is at the center of this sweetheart of a tale. Excitement is in high gear when the unsuspecting Noni wins the opportunity to make her famous dish, chicken pizziaola, on national television with the master chef Graham Kerr, better known as the Galloping Gourmet.

Thanks to a letter penned by Noni’s daughter-in-law Lori (Valerie Solli), whose own recipe for gefilte fish was rejected, Noni is now the center of attention, with recognition she doesn’t want. Her daughters (Mary Mannix, Maria Berte and Shelley Marsh Poggio) as well as her granddaughters (Charlotte Thomas and Alice Saunders), nosy neighbor (Tracey Marble), her niece (Marlena Ascher) and son (Jimmy Johansmeyer) are all aflutter at the news.

Noni’s tiny kitchen, created in great detail by Von Del Mar, is soon stuffed like manicotti, with everyone who wants to be part of the excitement. When the television show’s lead man Jerry (Justin Rigg) arrives, the kitchen is in happy chaos as everyone wants to help. Noni even offers Jerry a slice of heaven, her special dessert bianco mangia, affectionately termed “blah,” an all white with cherries marvel of cake and creme.

Will Noni get her moment on the television screen? Will her chicken pizziaola become world famous? Be sure to eat a hearty helping of Italian fare so you won't starve as the daughters give cooking lessons on stage. The show is set up like a cabaret so you can bring food and drink to share at your table. For tickets ($35), go to www.pantochino.com. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., with two Saturday matinees October 19 and 26 at 2 p.m. All shows take place at the Milford Center for the Arts, 40 Railroad Avenue South, Milford, on the east bound side of the Metro-North train station.

Come be Italian for at least a few hours and let Noni embrace you as one of the family as, to her, la familigia is everything. Bon appetito.

PLAYHOUSE ON PARK REVISITS "JAWS" IN THE COMIC "THE SHARK IS BROKEN"

When Steven Spielberg, the Academy Award winning filmmaker, created his 1975 film portraying great white sharks that attacked and killed swimmers in a fictional town like Martha’s Vineyard, he never imagined the impact it would have on the shark population. Not only did “Jaws” terrify beach goers, it inspired many fishermen to hunt sharks for sport, causing their numbers east of North America to be cut in half. For this, Spielberg regretted the effect his blood thirsty movie had on the shark survivors.

You now have the unique opportunity, today until Sunday, October 20, to make the acquaintance of the trio of actors who made the movie, with frustrating experiences every day for nine weeks as they realized “The Shark Is Broken.” “The Shark Is Broken” is written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon and directed by Joe Discher.

Thanks to Playhouse on Park in West Hartford, you will find yourself aboard the ship the Orca where a police chief (Roy Scheider) played by Nicholas Greco, a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss) played by Jake Regensburg and a ship captain (Robert Shaw) played by John D. Alexander while away the hours. They drink whiskey and rye, play card games, and bicker and badger each other about their careers as they wait for the shark, named Bruce, to be repaired.

Ironically, the problem fixing the shark creates more suspense and terror as it is rarely viewed in the film, just introduced by ominous music, and builds anticipation. Spielberg actually called the continued mechanical problems as “good luck because it's a scarier movie without seeing so much of the shark.” Come judge for yourself as you seek a comfortable and comic seat on Johann Fitzpatrick’s realistic ship, awaiting “Bruce’s” arrival. Spoiler alert: he never makes it.

For tickets ($27.50-57.50), call Playhouse on Park, 244 Park Avenue, West Hartford at 860-523-5900, ext. 10 or online at playhouseonpark.org. Performances are Tuesday at 2 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m, Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 pm. and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m., followed by a talkback. Coming soon are "A Man with Standards: An Evening with John O’Hurley” on October 24 at 4 p.m., “An Evening with Rossi, the Punk Rock Queen of the Jews” on October 29 at 7 p.m. and “Mother (And Me) A Daughter’s Story of Love, Loss and Goulash" by Melinda Buckley on November 2 at 7:30 p.m. and November 3 at 2 p.m. Check the website for more theatrical adventures.

Watch these actors portraying actors survive the tedious delays as they question whether this movie, filmed on a real ocean for the first time, is really worth their time and talents.

TERRIS THEATRE SHARES SENSITIVE AND SOUL SEARCHING SCOTTISH "NO LOVE SONGS"

If your life was a playlist of music, what would it feel like if there were “no love songs” to gladden your heart and warm your nights. Come sojourn to Scotland and enter the moment Lana frequents a tavern and sees the singer entertaining there, Jessie, who would soon color her world with sunshine and starlight.

The Terris Theatre in Chester welcomes you to share their days and nights together, in the poignant and often heartbreaking “No Love Songs" from an original idea by Kyle Falconer and Laura Wilde, with songs by Kyle Falconer, book by Laura Wilde and Johnny McKnight, with John McLarnon and Anna Russell-Martin. It will serenade you until Sunday, October 20. Be prepared to tune your ears to catch all the inflections of their lilting Scottish brogue.

When Anna Russell-Martin’s Lana encounters John McLarnon’s Jessie at a gay bar in Dundee, Scotland, the attraction is immediate and dynamic. She is attending college and he is striving to create a successful music career. After a rocket courtship and marriage, they welcome parenthood with open arms. In a series of songs like “Monsters,” “Still Here,” “Listen Lana,” “Don’t Call Me Baby” and “Wait Around,” we follow the exhilaration and excitement of a new son, quickly extinguished by the reality of the spiral of mounting responsibilities, from nappies and feedings, bouts of incessant crying, loneliness and feelings of inadequacy, Lana experiences being broken as Jessie departs on a month long tour to America to perform.

Their separation at this critical moment in their marriage sends Lana into a traumatic spin, what one in five women and one in ten men experience after the birth of a child: post-partum depression. With no one nearby to lean on, no husband, no mother, no friend or neighbor, Lana’s struggle to cope results in her despair when she fails. You cannot help but want to lessen Lana’s burden and encourage her to keep her faith and her love strong. Gavin Whitworth serves as conductor and keyboardist while Andrew Panton and Tashi Gore direct this soul searching and sensitive song fest.

For tickets ($25-59), call the Terris Theatre, 33 North Main Street, Chester at 860-873-8668 or online at goodspeed.org. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Come witness this intensely personal story, inspired and emotionally invested intimate love story of Lana, Jessie and their new little man as they ultimately face the future with hope.

IVORYTON PLAYHOUSE DEFENDS BOOKS AND READING IN "ALABAMA STORY"

Did you know that you can ban a book simply because you think it may be racial or radical to students, even if you’ve never taken the time to read it yourself? Concerns and fears are behind these challenges for censorship and they have been escalating each year at alarming rates, supposedly to promote children’s morality, about race, gender, history and sexual orientation. For example, the Washington Post found in a 2023 analysis that only eleven people were responsible for filing book challenges in over 100 school districts while in a survey by PEN that Republican-led censorship laws in the 2023-2024 academic year resulted in about 10,000 books being banned.

Censorship started early in the Puritan colonies in 1650 and continued with slavery issues in the Civil War, with the publication of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” unfortunately rising each year to being front and center today. In recent years, books from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and Harry Potter, Anne Frank’s Diary and Shakespeare have been in the foreground for challenges. Back in 1959 in Alabama a school librarian faced her own censorship obstacles. Thanks to Ivoryton Playhouse, until October 20, you are invited into the center ring of the debate with Kenneth Jones’s “Alabama Story,” a true account of this issue at a pivotal moment in American history.

Come make the acquaintance of Ivoryton’s Executive Director Jacqueline Hubbard starring as Emily Wheelock Reed, a fierce defender of her beloved books and freedom of speech, and her fiery opponent in bigoted men like Michael Irvin Pollard’s Senator E. W. Higgins. With eloquent and flowery disguised language, he attacks a children’s book “The Rabbits’ Wedding” by Garth Williams, author and illustrator, who dared to have a black bunny wed a white bunny. Higgins viewed it as an attack on whites and segregation, and the sacred principles of the South. For her part, Emily had the protection and dedication of her library assistant Nicholas-Tyler Corbin’s Thomas Franklin for support in her battle against censorship.

In a compelling side story, the long term relationship and termination of that friendship are illustrated by a wealthy socialite teen Allie Seibold’s Lily who develops an unacceptable affection for the African-American son of the family’s cook, Anthony Vaughn Merchant’s Joshua Moore. Their reunion later in life illustrates the long approved division among racial lines clung to by Southerners. Daryll Heysham portrays Garth Williams among other characters and narrator. This is a compelling tale, told with fervor and authenticity by the talented actors, a true story, a love story, an historical story, and one that resonates today in school board conference rooms across our great land. You need to acknowledge the dangers that loom over our library shelves and be educated about the risks that threaten our children, no matter which side of the printed page you stand on.

For tickets ($60, seniors $55, students $25), call the Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main Street, Ivoryton at 860-767-7318 or online at ivorytonplayhouse.org. Performances are Wednesday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 pm, Thursday at 7:30 p.m, Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m, and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Last week was Book Banning Week so this is a timely reminder of the need to protect our freedoms, the importance of books and our libraries, and our need to educate ourselves and be curious about our world all the days of our lives.

"A BEAUTIFUL NOISE" EXPLODES AT THE BUSHNELL THIS WEEK

If you love Neil Diamond, the man and his music, even half as much as I do, as a faithful fan with genuine credentials and long standing admiration, have I got a red, white and blue recommendation for you. This tip has an expiration date of Sunday, October 5 and can be redeemed at only one place, Hartford’s Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, when the life story and musical treasure trove explodes on stage as “A Beautiful Noise.”

Follow the musical trail of this Brooklyn boy, born eighty one years ago, who fought the challenging fight to be judged by his peers and the world as “so good, so good, so good.” He is no imitation, no zirconia, no diamond in the rough but a true “believer,“ worthy of wonderment and fascination. But for a quirk of fate, he might have become a doctor, but lucky for us, his music heals and elevates, and aren’t we the lucky ones.

His first big hit “Solitary Man” was an outgrowth of his despair as a struggling songwriter, one striving for some sign of success and it was the initial validation he needed to keep working. This show that was created with the man himself in command is the work of producer Ken Davenport, Bob Gaudio and NETworks Presentations and stars “American Idol” winner and Broadway star Nick Fradiani as Neil Diamond, a role he played on Broadway since October 2023. Come see this Connecticut favorite son in this stirring role.

Glory in such immortal favorites as “Sweet Caroline,” “Forever in Blue Jeans,” “America,” and “I’m a Believer” and so many others. Learn how he has sold 120 million albums, been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame and took home the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and has sold out more concerts around the world than the King himself, Elvis.

As Diamond himself said, “Some of my most thrilling nights have been while I was on tour, bringing my music to audiences across the world. Having "A Beautiful Noise” go on tour is an honor and I can’t wait for audiences across North America to experience this show. I hope they enjoy it as much as I have.”

For tickets ($48 and up), call the Bushnell, 166 Capitol Avenue, Hartford at 860-987-5900 or online at bushnell.org. Performances are Tuesday to Saturday at 7:30 p.m. with a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Come two hours early to experience a Fall Festival outdoors before the show, with fall-themed food and drinks, games and fun for the family.

Let Nick Fradiani entertain you as the legendary Neil Diamond with story and song, history and legend, to astound and delight.