The Asolo Rep’s education department has scheduled an impressive array of talkbacks and lectures in conjunction with the theater’s current production of Hamlet, Prince of Cuba. The show has been presented in English for the past few weeks. Beginning May 3, the same cast will perform the show in Spanish with English supertitles.

I was highly impressed with this brisk, pared-down production, which is set in Havana in 1898. I was particularly moved by the performance of Frankie Alvarez in the title role. His risky, on-the-edge portrayal is riveting and so fresh that you think you’re hearing Hamlet’s famous monologues for the first time.

The cast will be featured on the Fox 13 Morning Show in Tampa on Thursday from 7-9:30 a.m.  Some cast members will have a talkback with the audience following Sunday’s matinee performance.

At 7 p.m. April 20, cast members and members of Tampa’s Cuban community will discuss the production, and the evolution of American culture in 21st-century Tampa. The discussion will be at Centro Asturiano de Tampa, 1913 N. Nebraska Ave.

On April 28, Hamlet cast member (and Sesame Street veteran)  Emilio Delgado will take part in a bilingual storytelling session for children six and under. It’s in the Asolo rehearsal hall at 10 a.m.

On May 2, a panel that will include playwright Nilo Cruz (who did the Spanish translation of Hamlet) will discuss the Cuban-American identity. The session is in the Asolo’s Cook Theatre at 5 p.m.

The first Spanish performance on May 3 will be preceded by a dinner benefiting the new Hispanic organization Unidos Now.

Congratulations to the Asolo for making such strong efforts to reach out to the Hispanic community during this production, which is the first bilingual production of a Shakespeare play ever mounted by a U.S. theater company.

Sarasota Film In Festival Spotlight


Movies shot in exotic locations in Asia, Europe and South America will be screened at the Sarasota Film Festival, which opens on Friday. But the lush cinematography in The Perfect Wedding showcases the tropical beauty of Sarasota, where it was filmed last year.

The movie, a gay romantic comedy about two men who meet at a wedding, will be screened at 2:15 p.m. Saturday at the Regal Hollywood 20.

The film was written and produced by part-time Sarasota residents Ed Gaffney and Suzanne Brockmann.  This was the first film venture for the two novelists (he earned an Edgar Award nomination for his legal thriller Enemy Combatant, while she is the best-selling author of several suspense series).

The project grew out of a conversation with their  actor son, Jason, who is gay.  “Jason was bemoaning the fact that so many films use gay characters for easy laughs or present being gay as a problem,” Gaffney says. “He mentioned that you never see a just a funny story of a couple of guys who happen to fall in love.”

In The Perfect Wedding, the budding romance between two young men is presented matter-of-factly. The guys’ mutual attraction is handled in the same manner as two other subplots involving straight couples.

“The screenplay was inspired by The Cosby Show, in that the humor in that show didn’t come from the characters’ race, and they never resorted to stereotypes,” Gaffney says. “It was universal.”

Jason Gaffney, who contributed to the script, will attend the Sarasota screening. He plays Gavin, who accompanies his friend to Sarasota to help prepare for his sister’s wedding. The cast also includes veteran Hollywood character actors James Rebhorn (Independence Day, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain) and Kristine Sutherland, perhaps best-known for playing Buffy’s mother on the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Directed by Scott Gabriel, the film was shot at various locations in Sarasota and Osprey. Though it was made on a minuscule budget by Hollywood standards, it has the look and texture of a much more expensive film, which pleases Gaffney enormously.

He and his wife are also thrilled to be invited to screen the film at the festival.“It’s a great honor, and I’m excited that all the people who were so kind in helping get this film made will actually be able to see it,” Gaffney said.

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For more arts and entertainment updates, follow Charlie Huisking on Twitter @CharlieHuisking.

And for even more ways to get Sarasota Magazine, become a fan on Facebook or follow @SarasotaMagazin on Twitter.

I need a spring break!

I’m worn out, but happily so, from attending six jam-packed days of cultural events and parties, many of which involved exciting collaborations between local arts organizations.

For example, the Asolo Rep and the Ringling Museum of Art are partnering to present Red, the crackling, stimulating  drama about painter Mark Rothko that opened Friday in the museum’s Historic Asolo Theater.

At a pre-performance dinner, Michael Edwards, the Asolo’s producing artistic director, noted proudly that this is the first production of the Tony Award-winning play anywhere to involve a collaboration with an art museum.

Edwards said the partnership is “a perfect marriage of our missions,” and he praised Ringling Executive Director Steven High and Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Matthew McLendon for their commitment to the project.  Their expertise has “revealed elements of the play that we otherwise would not have seen,” Edwards said.

As part of the collaboration, by the way, McLendon has curated a complementary exhibition, Luminosity, inspired by Rothko’s obsession with light.

The opening-night dinner and performance attracted an enthusiastic  number of museum and Asolo supporters, all of whom leapt to their feet to give actors Mark Ziesler and JD Taylor a prolonged standing ovation as the thrilling show ended.



Big Week for the Hermitage

Talk about collaboration: the Hermitage Artist Retreat was presenting programs  all over town in a week that culminated with its Greenfield Prize Celebration Dinner  on Sunday.

Last Thursday, Codex, a provocative  exhibition by 2010 Greenfield Prize winner Sanford Biggers, opened at the Ringling Museum. The next day, at the Ringling College of Art and Design, the engaging, charismatic Biggers presented a multi-media lecture about his outside-the-box career.

On Sunday afternoon, the Hermitage and the Greenfield Foundation held a free symposium at Holley Hall that focused on breaking  the boundaries between art and music. The panelists included Joseph Melillo, the executive producer of the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

The Sunday night dinner, at Michael’s on East, attracted leaders of virtually every arts organization in town.  They heard a keynote speech by Robert Spano, the music director of the Atlanta Symphony, and were treated to a performance by pianist and composer Vijay Iyer, who later accepted his 2012 Greenfield Prize.

The prize includes a $30,000 stipend, and will allow Iyer to spend up to six weeks at the Manasota Key artist colony creating new work.  “The award will make a tremendous difference in my life in the coming year,” Iyer said. “It enables me to focus less on career and more on art and community…”

In the past few years, more than 100 visual artists, writers, composers  and playwrights have nurtured their creativity in the handsomely restored old-Florida cottages on the Hermitage’s waterfront campus. At the dinner, Executive Director Bruce Rodgers gave an update about what some Hermitage alumni are doing now. And it turns out their works are being seen and heard everywhere from Broadway and the Metropolitan Opera House to the concert halls of Europe.

It was nice to be reminded what a profound affect the Hermitage is having as an incubator of new and exciting art.

Van Wezel Unveils Broadway Season

If  everybody loved Broadway as much as Seth Rudetsky, the Van Wezel’s 2012-13 Broadway series would sell out in a few hours.

Rudetsky, a pianist, actor, author and host of a popular Broadway-obsessed radio show, was the hyperactive and hilarious host of the Van Wezel’s Broadway Series announcement party on Monday. He shared his encyclopedic knowledge of the most arcane Broadway trivia, introduced film clips and played “Name That Tune” with audience members.  Kudos to the Van Wezel for putting such a creative spin on the boring  announcement press conference.

The season is a blend of recent Broadway shows like The Addams Family,  Catch Me If You Can and Hair, as well as a 25th anniversary production of Les Miserables  and return engagements of A Chorus Line and Chicago.  For the full lineup, go to vanwezel.org.

On Stage Party

I raced from the Van Wezel to the Asolo for the last in the theater’s series of Starry Night’s parties. Most of these intimate events are held in patrons’ homes. But this elegant dinner was served on the Asolo mainstage (a much more cozy space than it appears from the audience).  Before dinner, guests were entertained  by interactive skits performed by FSU/Asolo Conservatory students dressed as characters from this season’s shows.

Katie Cunningham  had me grab a director’s bullhorn as we entered the world of the Hollywood comedy Once in a Lifetime. Portraying elocution teacher Henry Higgins from My Fair Lady,  Brendan Ragan was hilarious as he tried to guess where his guests were from. Luckily, nobody tried to recreate the famous vomiting scene from God of Carnage.

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For more arts and entertainment updates, follow Charlie Huisking on Twitter @CharlieHuisking.

And for even more ways to get Sarasota Magazine, become a fan on Facebook or follow @SarasotaMagazin on Twitter!

“That was great, the partnering is really coming along nicely,” Walsh said. But then he suggested a long list of tweaks, from the way a shoulder was bent to the way a leg should be pointed. He told one dancer she needed to be more alluring in a particularly sensual part of the ballet.

“You can even mouth the words  ‘Are you coming to bed?,’" he told her. “This is your Meryl Streep moment.”

Walsh, however, wasn’t in the rehearsal hall. He was a thousand miles away in Texas, watching the dancers via Skype on a computer.  The dancers huddled around an iPad in Sarasota as they conversed with him.

As a technophobe who has barely learned how to send a picture on my phone,  I was amazed at how smoothly this “virtual” rehearsal unfolded.  As long as the dancers stayed within certain boundaries on the floor, Walsh could see every move they made, with crystal-clear reception.

And what moves they made!  Bello, which will be performed April 13-14 in a program that will also feature Nine Sinatra Songs by Twyla Tharp and George Balanchine’s Serenade, is both elegant and earthy, and it’s sure to get a passionate response.

Though abstract in form,  it is a tribute to a now-deceased dancer friend of Walsh’s. The  main character reflects on his life through his relationship with the influential women in his life.

A former principal with the Houston Ballet, Walsh formed his own company, the Dominic Walsh Dance Theater, and he serves as Sarasota Ballet’s resident choreographer.

The upcoming performances are at the Sarasota Opera House. For ticket information, go to sarasotaballet.org.


Glorious Celebration of DeRenzi ‘s Anniversary

Maybe it was appropriate that a blown fuse briefly interrupted Artistic Director Victor DeRenzi’s 30th anniversary concert on Sunday night at the Sarasota Opera House. Because this was an electrifying,  thrilling performance that left the cheering audience breathless at the end.

DeRenzi conducted a full orchestra on the Opera House stage, as principals and chorus members sang excerpts from several operas, incuding Fidelio, Norma and La Forza del Destino.

I was hoping that DeRenzi might offer a few words of reflection about his remarkable tenure with Sarasota Opera. Maybe he did that at a post-concert reception. More likely, he wanted this glorious music to speak for itself.

Westcoast Black Theatre Expanding its Season

If you’re one of the passionate fans of the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe,  you’ll have a lot more to love next season.

Because of audience demand, the company is adding a week to the run of each of its four productions next year. The company is also opening a month earlier, in November.

The opening production is an original show, Nate Jacobs’ ‘50s Jukebox Revue,  which celebrates such artists as Fats Domino, Little Richard and The Platters.

The troupe will perform its third play by Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson, Jitney.  Set in 1970s Pittsburgh, it’s about a group of cab drivers who search for meaning in their lives.

The musical revue Soul Crooners 2 is a followup to one of the company’s biggest hits.  “People have been asking to bring back Soul Crooners, but I thought it made more sense to do a new version,’’ Artistic Director Nate Jacobs said.

The season ends with It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues, a Tony Award-nominated musical revue that explores the development of blues music from its African roots to the present.