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.

Bradenton-area actor sparks "The Buffalo Kings"

   When the world premiere of "The Buffalo Kings" opened at freeFall Theatre in St. Petersburg a few weeks back, two well-known Bradenton-area actors were part of the ensemble cast. Now there's only one, Katherine Michelle Tanner. The other, Jenny Aldrich, had to drop out for some personal reasons.
   The play, by Natalie Symons, has been a huge hit for freeFall. I runs through this weekend, and tickets are reportedly scarce.
   The acting's impressive all around. (Aldrich was replaced by long-time Tampa Bay area favorite Mimi Rice, who stepped in at the last minute and performed one show with script in hand.)

Tanner (left) and Aldrich (right)

   The script, about a family on New York state facing several crises, some of the  everyday variety and others life-shattering, has tons of delicious great moments and some good laughs, but it's unfocused. It's packed with inconsequential subplots (one about a bad hairdo takes up a lot of the 80-minute first act and then is simply dropped) and extraneous characters (one houseguest who nobody can stand has to stay because his car is snowed in, while everyone else seems to come and go at will.) Meanwhile, the most compelling relationship, the one between a teenage boy recovering from a hate crime and his grandfather who's in the early stages of dementia, never gets developed -- and then turns out to be the raison d'etre for the entire story.
    Tanner and the rest of the cast (which also includes the always terrific Brian Shea) make it pretty easy to overlook the script flaws. This is a handsomely mounted and wonderfully acted production of a play that's overflowing with promise but seems not quite finished.
   There are two shows Saturday and one Sunday at freeFall. Tickets are $21-$44. FreeFall is at 6099 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. 727-498-5205, freefalltheatre.com.

Sarasota singer releases album, performs Tampa concert

   If you're up toward Tampa this evening, you might want to stop in and see Sarasota songstress Katherine Michelle Tanner in concert at Unity of Tampa. She'll be performing Christmas standards and her own original Christmas songs.
   There are a couple of reasons for the concert. It's a fundraiser for Gorilla Theatre, one of Tampa's oldest and best professional theater companies that is returning after a hiatus of several years.

Tanner

   It's also a chance to buy her new CD, "Dreaming of a White Christmas," which was just released today.
   If you can't make the concert, you can get the album by emailing treefortprodcutions@gmail.com, leave your number and someone will contact you. (A website that will let people order is in the works.)
   Tanner's an accomplished singer and dancer, but she's best known to area audiences as an actor. She was recently in "Time Stands Still" for Banyan Theatre and "The Amish Project" at American Stage.
  Tampa Unity is at 3302 W. Horatio St. Call 813-879-2914. Tickets are $25 at the door.