Sarasota's Tanner takes 'Amish Project' Off-Broadway

Tanner in "The Amish Project" 

   Sarasota actor Katherine Michelle Tanner is heading to New York with seven of her favorite roles ever.
   Tanner portrays all the characters in "The Amish Project," Jessica Dickey's startling fact-based drama about the massacre of Amish children in a Pennsylvania schoolhouse. 
   She first performed the show at American Stage in St. Petersburg a few years back, then brought the same production, directed by Todd Olson, to a theater in Oklahoma and a performing arts festival in Maryland, before she landed back home with a lauded and popular staging for Banyan Theater in July.
   On Tuesday, Tanner announced that in early October she'll be performing "The Amish Project" at the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture, a new performance complex in Greenwich Village.
  Tanner's play will be part of the center's grand-opening festival, which also includes appearances by comedian Jim Gaffigan, the New York premiere of a film that stars David Oyewolo and performances by concert pianist Elaine Kwon, among others
   The Sheen Center is funded by the Catholic Church and named for Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. It was at the center of a controversy earlier this year when it canceled an event that was to benefit the National Coalition Against Censorship. The center canceled the event because one of the four new plays that would have been featured was a Neil LaBute work that had a title that center officials perceived as disrespectful to Islam.
   But aside from that incident, which nobody got overly worked up about, the center's been causing some excitement in the downtown New York performing arts world. It has two theaters and an art gallery and a mission to showcase "the true, the good and the beautiful as they have been expressed throughout the ages."
   Tanner will perform "The Amish Project" at 8 p.m. Oct. 1 and 2. Tickets are $10-$35. There's more information at sheencenter.org.

Sarasota's Banyan Theater Company announces 2015 season

Tanner in "The Amish Project"

   Two years ago, Sarasota actor Katherine Michelle Tanner delivered one of the most amazing performances local theater goers have ever seen. The play was the American Stage production of Jessica Dickey's "The Amish Project," which is based on a mass murder in an Amish school in 2006. Tanner played all seven characters, male and female, from young victims to the killer's wife to townspeople only peripherally involved. No one who saw that performance will forget it.
   Those who missed it will have another chance. "The Amish Project," with Tanner reprising her roles, is part of the recently announced Banyan Theater Company season.
   Banyan produces shows only in the summer. "The Amish Project" is the second show of the Banyan's 14th season.
   All shows in the Banyan season are in the Jane B. Cook Theatre at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts in Sarasota. A three-show subscription costs $70, a two-show package is $52 and single tickets are $28.50. Go to banyantheatercompany.com for information and tickets.
  

    Here's the season schedule:
  

  "Art" by Yasmina Reza, translated by Christopher Hampton, June 25-July 12
   The winner of the 1998 Tony Award for Best Play and the 1996 Olivier Award for Best Comedy revolves around friends who argue over the artistic value of a painting.
   

   "The Amish Project" by Jessica Dickey, July 16-Aug. 2
    A devastating and beautiful play that gives an intriguing glimpse into Amish culture and compels the audience with our own capacity for forgiveness and condemnation.


   "My Old Lady" by Israel Horovitz, Aug. 6-23
   Horovitz (the father of Beastie Boy Ad-Rock) has written more good plays than most people have seen. This one, which was made into a movie starring Kevin Kline and Maggie Smith, is one of his best. It's about a financially struggling middle-aged man who inherits an apartment in Paris and finds that French law says the tenant can stay there until she dies. He has no choice but to move in with her.

Banyan Theater announces its 2014 summer season

  In 2013, Sarasota's Banyan Theater produced a popular staging of Donald Maguilies' "Time Stands Still." The company will end its 2014 season with another Margulies' work, "Collected Stories."
  Banyan, which produces only in the summer months, announced its 2014 season last week. Besides "Collected Stories," scheduled for Aug 7-23, the season includes Arthur Miller's "The Price," (June 26-July 13) and "The Sty of the Blind Pig" by Phillip Hayes Dean (July 17-Aug. 3). 
   All three are acclaimed dramas. This will be Banyan's second time staging "The Price," which the company first offered in 2003.
   The Banyan Theater Company performs in the Jane B. Cook Theatre at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. A three-show subscription costs $70, a two-show package is $52 and single tickets are $28.50. For tickets and information, go to  www.banyantheatercompany.com.

Banyan Theater Company announces 11th season

The Banyan Theater Company returns with its 11th season this summer, producing a trio of acclaimed, contemporary plays from June 28 to Aug. 26.

Here's the Sarasota troupe's schedule (with a description of each play provided by The Banyan):

“A Lesson from Aloes” by Athol Fugard, June 28 - July 15

This contemporary classic is set in 1963 in a white district of Port Elizabeth, South Africa. This important play gives a compelling portrait of a society caught in the grip of a police state and the effect it has on individuals. Fugard shows how a nation’s ideology creates either a nurturing or poisonous atmosphere. “A Lesson from Aloes” won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award in 1981 for Best Play.

8 p.m. June 28, 29, 30; July 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14
2 p.m. June 30; July 1, 7, 8, 14, 15

“The Piano Teacher” by Julia Cho, July 19 - Aug. 5

Mrs. K is an elderly widow who lives by herself in a small suburban town. She whiles away her time reminiscing about her late husband and the children she taught long ago as a piano instructor. One day, she finds herself compelled to call her old students, but is it out of loneliness or some other, darker need? As Mrs. K discovers, it may not be what we cannot know that troubles us the most; it may be what we cannot bear to know.

8 p.m. July 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 27, 28; August 1, 2, 3, 4
2 p.m. July 21, 22, 28, 29; August 4, 5

“Crimes of the Heart” by Beth Henley, Aug. 9 - 26

Warm-hearted, irreverent and brilliantly imaginative, this play teems with humanity and humor as it examines the plight of three young Mississippi sisters betrayed by their passions. Winner of the 1981
Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award.

8 p.m. Aug. 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25
2:00 p.m. Aug. 11, 12, 18, 19, 25, 26

Details: The Banyan Theater Company performs in the Jane B. Cook Theatre at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Tickets: A three-show subscription costs $70, a two-show package is $52 and single tickets are $28.50. Information: 941-351-2808 www.banyantheatercompany.com.

REVIEW: 'Animals Out of Paper' at Banyan delivers with surprising folds

Barbara Sloan/Credit Gary Sweetman

Origami may drive the plot but it’s more a play about memory pain than folding paper.

Thick with metaphors and symbolism, Rajiv Joseph’s poignant romantic comedy “Animals Out of Paper,” which the Banyan Theater Company opened at the Cook Theatre in Sarasota on Thursday, manages to entertain while also exploring the limits of artistic healing and the merits of love. The show largely succeeds thanks to the intelligent, genre-busting script and the graceful acting mounted by director Jim Wise.

World-famous origami artist and author Ilana (Barbara Sloan) can’t bring herself to fold. After being left by her husband and three-legged dog, she has moved into her messy studio (nice work by set designer Jeffrey Dean). Ilana eats takeout and wastes away the days sprawled out on the sofa.

Enter high school math teacher and aspiring origami artist Andy (Christopher Swan). He has a crush on Ilana the size of the enormous origami hawk hanging above her sofa. Andy talks Ilana into tutoring his star student Suresh (Luke Bartholomew), an 18-year-old senior who excels at origami. The pupil also has a penchant for hip-hop, rapper wannabe attire (props to costume designer Dee Richards) and urban lingo, often of the misogynistic bent.

Ilana prefers good, old-fashioned F-bombs.

Andy and Ilana date but the relationship appears doomed from the start. He’s a goofball. And his positive platitudes do Ilana, or the audience, little good.

Christopher Swan, Barbara Sloan and Luke Bartholomew/Credit Gary Sweetman

Suresh offers numerous surprises. Not all are completely believable but still manage to reward. Of all the characters, he’s the only one who walks away from play better off than when it began.

Ilana, easily the most interesting and perplexing character on stage, benefits greatly from Sloan’s superb performance. She’s the one who must sell lines about paper having no memory and how “folds leave scars.”

“Animals Out of Paper” doesn’t offer a neatly folded ending. But it provides a humorous, tender look at the fickle nature of life and love. It’s the familiar given a fresh treatment.


Tickets/info.

Read "Banyan brings acclaimed ‘Animals’ to stage."

Banyan Theater Company.

REVIEW: ‘Becky’s New Car’ is a ticket well worth the ride

Becky (Geraldine Librandi) takes a drive. PHOTO BY GARY SWEETMAN.

Speeding along with just the right amount of humor, conflict and a heartbreaking detour, the Banyan Theater Company’s production of Steven Dietz’s “Becky’s New Car” amounts to a must-see joy ride.
Deftly directed by Gil Lazier, the comedy of manners rests on the shoulders of fourth wall-busting Becky, who is played by the immensely gifted Geraldine Librandi — you might recognize her from several episodes of the “The Sopranos.”

Don Walker, Jesse Dornan and Geraldine Librandi. PHOTO BY GARY SWEETMAN.

The play starts with Becky immediately inviting the audience, which packed the 161-seat capacity Jane B. Cook Theatre on opening night Thursday, into her working-class living room. She’s in the middle of cleaning and within moments of being on stage, hands a front row audience member a roll of toilet paper and says “Could you put this in the bathroom when you go?”

Becky (Geraldine Librandi) at work. PHOTO BY GARY SWEETMAN.

It’s not the first time an actor in “Becky’s New Car” will interact with the crowd. I usually find crossing the fourth wall gimmicky. But aside from when Becky brings three women on stage to help her get dressed for a big night out, I felt each instance worked, adding to the intimacy of the play.

Walter (Peter Thomasson) and Becky (Librandi). PHOTO BY GARY SWEETMAN.

So, Becky’s cleaning house and telling us about her life. We quickly learn her roofer husband Joe (Don Walker) is a good man but not exactly thrilling after nearly three decades of marriage. Their 26-year-old son Chris (Jesse Dornan) studies psychology and lives in the basement. Becky is an overworked office manager at a car dealership. Her life could be better, sure, but it’s not bad.

Becky (Librandi) and Joe (Walker) kissing. PHOTO BY GARY SWEETMAN.

The play kicks into high gear when Becky meets famed billboard mogul Walter Flood (Peter Thomasson) who’s recently widowed and the grieving process has made him a bit daft. He misinterprets Becky’s’ comments about her husband, concluding he’s dead. She allows the rich, handsome prince charming in need of a companion to believe the lie and runs with it.

Steve (Robert Mowry) and Becky (Librandi). PHOTO BY GARY SWEETMAN.

The second act largely consists of a series of hilarious mistaken identity incidents involving the entire, highly talented, seven-person cast. The triple-focus living room/auto dealership office/Flood home on a riser set of designer Richard Cannon proves ideal for the madness.

Walter (Peter Thomasson) and Becky (Librandi). PHOTO BY GARY SWEETMAN.

By the time Dietz cleverly ties up all the loose ends we our left with more than just an evening of laugh-out-loud moments — not that there’s anything wrong with such a comedy. But what makes “Becky’s New Car” really shine is that it also serves as a moving meditation on matrimony, infidelity and coping mechanisms. Yes, it’s a true joy ride.

Details: June 30-July 17, The Jane B. Cook Theatre, FSU Center for the Performing Arts, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Tickets: $28.50/$8 with student I.D. Information: (941) 358-5330 or www.banyantheatercompany.com.

Story ran in Bradenton Herald on July 3.