Hello, Norma!

Norma Kaplan, who has served as head of Cultural Affairs for Arlington County, Virginia was appointed to a newly-created joint position as Managing Director of George Street Playhouse and Executive Director of the New Brunswick Cultural Center in August of this year. 

 “I am very excited to welcome Norma Kaplan to George Street Playhouse,” said the theatre’s Chairman of the Board, Steven M. Darien.  “Norma has an exemplary track record of the kind of ground-breaking thinking that can help us cost-effectively build programs and do more to enrich the lives of our community through first-class theatre.” 

George Street Artistic Director David Saint said, “Norma is a visionary thinker.  The chance to work with someone with her ideas in bringing arts to the community will bring and exciting new energy to our theatre. ”

That passion for the arts – and its importance to communities – has its roots in her upbringing in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York.  She auditioned for a children’s theater ensemble begun by legendary impresario Sol Hurok.  “I was taking acting and singing lessons and performing sometimes in concert halls,” Ms. Kaplan said.  “So that sort of started my pathway into the arts.  And I guess it just never went away.”

An alumna of City and Adelphi Universities,  she was named Cultural Affairs Division Chief of Arlington County in 1986.  One of her first major projects was the development of Arlington’s Arts Incubator Program, which focused on maximizing resources – offering, for example, emerging theater companies free access to unused buildings as rehearsal and performance space.  Named three times by the Washingtonian as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in Washington, her crowning achievement in Virginia was the development of the Artisphere, an arts center that encompasses three theaters, three galleries, classroom space, a ballroom, atrium and outdoor terrace.  More importantly, through her visionary leadership, she has provided much-needed support to dozens of arts organizations who might not have survived without the assistance provided by the programs she founded .  

 “By doing what I do,” she says, “I empower a lot of artists to do better what they do.”

God of Carnage Review Round Up

Here's a collection of the fantastic reviews for God of Carnage. See it now through June 5th.
Have an opinion of your own, comment below!

"Outrageous and Enormous Fun" - The New York Times

"Hilarious..A Bang up Production" - The Star-Ledger

"Powerful Production" - The Home News Tribune

"An Unforgettable Night Of Knockout Theatre" - Examiner.com

"Wicked Fun" - The Princeton Packet

"An Outrageously funny Comedy" -NewJerseyStage.com

"four excellent actors" - Us 1

God of Carnage may be an over the top title for the human foibles which are on display, but the literate farce and its George Street production hit the bulls eye. - Talkinbroadway.com

Talking Baseball with Peter Scolari

reposted from Charles Paolino

The coincidence is a conversation piece. For example, I read somewhere that actor Peter Scolari’s ambition to play pro baseball had been derailed by an elbow injury. Baseball is a favorite subject of mine, so when I met Scolari recently I began by saying, “Tell me about you and baseball.” He did. The reference I had read was true: he played high school ball well enough to think that he might turn pro, but he got hurt, had surgery, and after that — well, let him tell it: “I couldn’t get anything on the ball,” although he has played in several theatrical leagues.

But to put that story in context, Scolari told me that his father — attorney Art Scolari — had played baseball at East Side High School in Paterson (this would have been long before Joe Clark got there) and then was an All-American shortstop at Drew University. Paterson? I was born in Paterson. My dad, who was about 13 years older than Art Scolari, went to Central High School where he ran track — particularly relays — and later managed a semi-pro baseball team that played all around the Paterson area.

I haven’t told Peter Scolari this yet, but after our conversation, my web browser stumbled on a story in a 1939 issue of the old Daily Record of Red Bank, N.J., reporting that a teenager named Lawrence Mahoney, who was from Lincroft, had successfully defended his state horseshoe pitching championship for the fifth time in a row. It was no snap, according to the story: breathing down Mahoney’s neck was 15-year-old Art Scolari of Paterson. Mahoney was 9-0 in the tournament; Scolari was 8-1.

I could have talked about baseball all night — it’s one of my many excuses to talk too much — but I was at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick to talk to Peter Scolari about his current project, a production of Ken Ludwig’s new play, “Fox on the Fairway.” This play, with a golf theme, had its world premiere last year in Washington, D.C. It’s a farce, and that’s a word that sends up the skyrockets, because farce done badly — or even done “all right” — is a painful experience for an audience. I’ve been there. Scolari, who knows a lot more about it than I do, made that point: “I don’t like to see a farce in which folks do an okay job. I’ll watch ‘The Sunshine Boys’ or ‘The Odd Couple’ and have a great time if everybody does a ‘good’ job. If I go to a farce and everybody does a ‘good’ job, I think, ‘Why did you do this?’ “

Scolari first drew national attention in 1980 when he co-starred with Tom Hanks in “Bosom Buddies,” a TV sit-com about two young men who dress in drag so they can live in a women-only hotel where the rent is dirt cheap and about what they can afford. The show, which lasted a couple of seasons, was indirectly inspired by the Billy Wilder movie “Some Like it Hot.” Since then, Scolari has put together a long resume of television and stage appearances, mostly in comedies, including 142 episodes of Bob Newhart’s second hit series, “Newhart.”

Talking to Scolari, who is witty, thoughtful, and articulate, was an entertainment in itself. If I weren’t aware that I was keeping him from his train after he had spent a full day of rehearsal, I would have prompted him to talk for another hour, just so I could listen. If I had had unlimited time and he had had unlimited patience, I would have steered him back around to baseball, because no sport lends itself to talk as well as baseball does, and my guess is that Scolari appreciates that as much as I do. I asked him which New York team he roots for now that he is living on the East Coast again after his sojourn in California. He could have simply said that he roots for the Yankees, but this wasn’t a guy answering questions. This was a guy talking baseball:

“I follow the Yankees. I make no apologies about it, but they’re not the Yankees. For me the Yankees who owned my heart ended with the captain, with Thurman Munson. I never got over that, to be honest with you, as a fan. So you come back, and they’re your team, and they’re in the Bronx, and that’s really important — but it’s not quite the same.”

Heartbreak and Humor

by Anthony Stoeckert


Michael Mastro was performing in West Side Story on Broadway last year when he talked about directing with fellow actor Peter Maloney. Mr. Mastro had directed a few one-act plays and was looking to make the jump to a full-length production, and Mr. Maloney asked what play he’d like to direct first.

”I said something where the scenery doesn’t move with a fairly small cast,” Mr. Mastro says. “Something like — I literally said this — something like ‘The Subject Was Roses’ or ‘You Can’t Take it With You.’”

Two hours later, he ran into David Saint — the Artistic Director at George Street Playhouse and the associate director of West Side Story — in the green room of the Palace Theatre. ”David was visiting to watch the show and take notes,” Mr. Mastro says, “And he said, ‘Do you know the play ‘The Subject Was Roses?’” ”I said, ‘Yes.’” ”He said, ‘I have it in my season and I had scheduled myself to direct it but I realized that’s not going be possible and I was wondering if you’d be interested.’ And I said yes right there and then.”

That moment of serendipity led to the run of Frank Gilroy’s 1964 play at George Street through March 6. Mastro is making his full-length directorial debut at the New Brunswick theater, after acting in three plays there. Working at George Street is a bit different from his last directing gig, which involved rehearsals in his living room and buying props himself at Bed, Bath & Beyond.

”Suddenly I’m at a beautiful live performance theater with a staff of people who have fantastic attitudes, fantastic work ethics,” he says. “To sit at a production meeting with 10 people around the table who are all ready to support me in seeing through this vision of Frank Gilroy’s beautiful play is like a dream come true.” He also calls his cast a dream.

Stephanie Zimbalist — best known for playing Laura Holt on Remington Steele in the 1980s — plays Nettie Cleary, who’s in a troubled marriage with John (Lee Sellars). Nettie and John’s son Timmy (Chris Wendelken) has returned home from World War II, and the family’s arguments lead to significant, painful truths being shared. ”My first take on it was that it’s a family dysfunction piece,” says Ms. Zimbalist. “It’s coming home from the war, it’s a coming-of-age piece for the young man coming home from World War II and all the accouterment thereof. And it’s a piece about how families function and don’t function.” Depsite its pedigree (it won the Pulitzer, the Tony and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award), The Subject Was Roses has never had a Broadway revival and has been, in Mr. Mastro’s words, “sitting on the shelf.”

The director adds that it’s the kind of play that offers various points of view for different audience members. ”People who know people in the armed forces are going to see one play,” Mr. Mastro says. “I think people who are feeling that they’re stuck in marriages that are stale and troubled are going to see another play. I think young people who feel caught between their two parents and caught at home, somehow unable to get out, are going to see another play. I think it’s all those plays.” But for all of those interpretations, he keeps coming back to one word. ”I think that ultimately it’s a play about forgiveness and the power of forgiveness and its power to allow people to move forward,” he says. “There are people who need forgiveness in the play, there are people who need to forgive in the play, I think everybody has a bit of both.

But it’s a word that kept coming up for me as I was preparing to direct the play.” As much as the play explores some honest, painful emotions, Mr. Mastro says it has a healthy sense of humor. ”This may be a family that’s troubled, but like any family, they would like things to be good, everybody wants things to be better,” he says. “There’s a wonderful sense of humor and love of humor, love of music, so it will be very rich that way. It’s not a constant harangue of screaming and yelling, not at all.” It’s also a play that is sparking discussion.

George Street has chosen it for its program where subscribers read the play and talk about it (a sort of play book club). ”The conversations about the play go on for hours, they have to shove people out the door because people want to talk about this play,” Mr. Mastro says. “They see something of their family in this play. I think everybody, young and old, will see something of themselves in this play.”
Read the complete article at centraljersey.com

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WBGO interviews playwright RN Sandberg about his play IRL :In Real Life