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The Women’s Theatre Project 2013-2014 Season: ‘THE LYONS’ & ‘RED HOT PATRIOT: THE KICK-ASS WIT OF MOLLY IVINS’

02 Thursday May 2013

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The Women’s Theatre Project TWTP Logo
to present Two South Florida Premieres in 2013-2014

Acerbic comedy and salty satire are in store for The Women’s Theatre Project audiences as the well respected company enters into its 11th season and its second year at the Willow Theatre in Boca Raton’s Sugar Sand Park.  The Lyons will run from December 6th through December 22nd, 2013, and Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins will play February 28th through March 16th, 2014.  It will be the first time either of these plays has been produced in South Florida.

Lyons_PostcardThe Lyons, Nicky Silver’s outrageously funny and stirring play about a family coming to terms with the impending death of its patriarch received glowing reviews when it ran on Broadway in 2012.   The play focuses on Rita Lyons and her grown children, who, as they gather to say goodbye, learn that despite being a family, each of them is totally isolated. Afraid of closeness and solitude, they are pushed into a new arena – the human connection. New York Magazine’s Scott Brown said The Lyons is “simply trying to tell a funny, furious little tale of family annihilation with honesty, savagery, and humanity.”

“The complex and inter-connected relationships in this family remind us how close comedy and tragedy are to each other,” says TWTP artistic director Genie Croft. “I found the dysfunctional family in The Lyons to be darkly funny, smart, and deeply affecting.  It’s an exciting script that roars to life, with characters who behave with complicated emotions, and this makes it an excellent choice for the type of work that The Women’s Theatre Project likes to offer on stage. Although it’s the first play TWTP is producing that was written by a man (our past 32 productions have all been written by women), we feel it is a unique opportunity to continue to expand and evolve our mission, by giving voice to these characters, theme, and plot.”

With Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins audiences will be Red Hottreated to the wit and wisdom of a true original.  Barbara Bradshaw will star as the unsinkable, unstoppable Molly Ivins. The ‘dyed-in-the-wool liberal from deep in the heart of Texas’, famously brassy newspaper columnist and best-selling author was a crusading journalist who broke gender barriers with her sharp-tongued wit, humor, and political savvy to establish herself as one of the nation’s most influential political columnists.  Written by twin sisters Margaret and Allison Engel, the play is a true tribute to Ivin’s wit, sense of humor, and love of irony. The script also delves into Ivins’ life to reveal what drove her from a comfortable upper- class upbringing and education to the good-ole-boy, hard-drinking world of journalism and political warfare.  Red Hot Patriot seamlessly weaves personal anecdotes with a sharp and clever look at one of our favorite national pastimes – politics.

“I love the fact that the Dallas Times Herald let Ivins write what she pleased,” says Croft, “They even endorsed that policy on billboards that read: ‘Molly Ivins, Can’t Say That, Can She?’ The Engels’ script captures the jokes about provoking politicians, and her reminiscences of personal heartbreak inform and offer insight into who she was.”

The Willow Theatre at Sugar Sand Park is located at 300 South Military Trail in Boca Raton, just south of Palmetto Park Road.

The Lyons
By Nicky Silver
December 6 – 22, 2013
Tickets: $25
Previews:  December 6 at 8 pm/December 7 at 2 pm (Tickets $20)
Thu-Sat 8pm, Sat-Sun 2pm
The Willow Theatre at Sugar Sand Park
300 South Military Trail,
Boca Raton, FL 33486
Tickets:  $25
Phone: 561-347-3948
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Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins
By Margaret and Allison Engel
February 28 – March 16, 2014
Tickets:  $25
Previews:  Friday, February 28 at 8 pm/Saturday March 1 at 2 pm (Tickets $20)
Thu-Sat 8pm, Sat-Sun 2pm
The Willow Theatre at Sugar Sand Park
300 South Military Trail,
Boca Raton, FL 33486
Tickets:  $25
Phone: 561-347-3948
www.womenstheatreproject.com
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The Boca Raton Theatre Guild presents Avi Hoffman in ‘Still Jewish After All These Years’

11 Thursday Apr 2013

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pix-0307still-jewish-logojpg“Hoffman offers….a non-stop display of enthusiasm,
a terrific delivery with jokes
and an amusing way with a song…” NJ.com

Award-winning actor, singer, author, raconteur, and South Florida favorite Avi Hoffman will return to the Willow Theatre at Sugar Sand Park with Still Jewish After All These Years: A Life in the Theatre, a celebration of his life in show business.

One of South Florida’s busiest and most popular actors, Hoffman has just Avi-Chai-colorcompleted a triumphant run in the Boca Raton Theatre Guild’s production of Chicago, and is currently garnering rave reviews in Outré Theatre Company’s An Illiad.  Still Jewish After All These Years will run from May 10th -19th.

Accompanied by pianist Caryl Fantel, Hoffman will invite audiences on a casual and intimate tour of his multifaceted career and his extraordinary life in show business. Filled with songs and stories, reminiscences of performances, encounters with greats… and not so greats, Hoffman’s Still Jewish… will, entertain, move, and resonate with everyone.

Avi HoffmanAvi Hoffman has received national and critical recognition for his award-winning one man shows Too Jewish? and Too Jewish, Too! (Performer of the Year/NY Press Magazine; L.A. OVATION Award – Best Actor in a Musical; NY Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations).  Both these shows have been broadcast nationally on PBS.    His extensive resume includes groundbreaking productions of Songs of Paradise with Broadway impresario Joseph Papp and the NY productions of The Golden Land and The Rise of David Levinsky. Hoffman has performed all over the world, and has numerous theatre credits and multiple Carbonell and Curtain Up awards and nominations. He is currently featured as lawyer Sid Raskin in the STARZ TV series Magic City. He also appeared as ‘Ted’ on A&E’s The Glades and as ‘Teddy Wayne’ on NBC’s Law & Order, and was seen in the PBS documentary They Came for Good: A History of the Jews in the US.

The Boca Raton Theatre Guild is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to producing professional productions and advancing the art of theatre in the South Florida community.

All performances of Still Jewish After All These Years will take place in the Willow Theatre in Sugar Sand Park.  The theatre is located at 300 South Military Trail in Boca Raton, just south of Palmetto Park Road.

Tickets for Still Jewish…  are $25, and are available at the Willow Theatre Box office: 561-347-3948.

For more information about Still Jewish After All These Years: A Life in the Theatre and/or the Boca Raton Theatre Guild, please visit www.avihoffman.com/  or  www.brtg.org

Still Jewish After All These Years: A Life in the Theatre
May 10 – 19
Performances:
May 10, 11, 16, 17, 18 at 8:00 PM
May 11, 12, 18, 19 at 2:00 PM
The Willow Theatre at Sugar Sand Park
300 South Military Trail,
Boca Raton, FL 33486
Tickets:  $25
Phone: 561-347-3948

“The precious truth about Avi Hoffman is that his shows rest on a solid foundation of scholarship. Mr. Hoffman is a teacher and a dedicated preservationist of culture. But like so many sages, he disguises his lessons as entertainment.” ~ New York Times

“Avi Hoffman scores in Still Jewish!”  ~ H. Erstein – PB Arts Paper
“Avi Hoffman enthralls!”                  ~ K. Thompson – Palm Beach Post
“Avi Hoffman is a treasure!”                ~ R. Levitt –  Media News

    Avi Tummler shot Avi Press shot

 

The Women’s Theatre Project’s ‘Delval Divas’ opens November 2nd

27 Saturday Oct 2012

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Who said crime doesn’t pay!?

The Women’s Theatre Project will present Barbara Pease Weber’s contemporary comedy, Delval Divas, at the Willow Theatre in Sugar Sand Park from November 2nd through November 18th.  This will be the theatre company’s first production in their new venue.

Sally Bondi, Lisa Braun, Lela Elam, Jacqueline Laggy, Jessica K. Peterson, and Karen Stephens star in the timely comedy about six capable and intelligent women who just happen to be in prison and find themselves facing a series of challenges – including changes in lifestyle, corruption, and murder.

“I began to write Delval Divas in 2000 and, thinking back, it’s almost like I had a crystal ball into the future,” says playwright Barbara Pease Weber. “Since I was, at the time, an actor in my 40s, I decided that I wanted to try to write a comedy involving strong, educated and bright middle aged women.  I considered an office setting then decided it would be boring.  Thought about a gym setting.  Nah, boring!  Then I asked myself, where would a group of well educated, successful and intelligent women find themselves together?  A-ha!  In the slammer for their various and sundry corporate misdeeds.  Hence, Delval Divas was born in my head.”

Weber’s timing couldn’t have been better: “Little did I know at the time I began to write my story that the Enron and Martha Stewart scandals were about to explode,” she says,  “And that later in the decade, scandals involving Bernie Madoff, Country Wide Financial, Fannie Mae and Wall Street in general would keep Delval Divas a timely piece.”

Director Genie Croft is in charge of the Divas:  “Rehearsing Delval Divas is a creative and imaginative journey as we delve through the process of unraveling the upheavals these characters are trying to manipulate to their personal advantage,” she explains. “Working through the fabric of this clever script has been very rewarding. I’m delighted with the nuanced development of these Divas by my very talented cast. So far I have not had to sentence anyone to solitary confinement!”

Delval Divas will run from November 2nd through November 18th, with performances on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 pm, and on Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m.

The Willow Theatre at Sugar Sand Park is located at 300 South Military Trail in Boca Raton, just south of Palmetto Park Road. Tickets for Delval Divas are on sale now, and can be purchased at the Willow Theatre Box office: 561-347-3948. Tickets for all performances are $25.

Delval Divas
By Barbara Pease Weber
November 2-18
Thu-Sat 8pm, Sat-Sun 2pm
The Willow Theatre at Sugar Sand Park
300 South Military Trail,
Boca Raton, FL 33486
Tickets:  $25
Phone: 561-347-3948
www.womenstheatreproject.com
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The Boca Raton Theatre Guild presents A.R. Gurney’s “Sylvia”

16 Thursday Aug 2012

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                            An entirely different take on the ‘eternal triangle’!

“Give a dog a woman’s name and you start to treat her like one,” one of the characters in Sylvia  comments during A.R. Gurney’s clever, funny, and unusual play about a man, a dog, and the chaos their relationship generates.  Gurney (Love Letters, The Cocktail Hour, The Dining Room) taps into the fragility of human relationships, and the joys and frustrations of pet ownership to create what is often cited as his best work – a delicate balance of humor and poignancy.

The Boca Raton Theatre Guild’s production of Sylvia will run from September 28th through October 14th at the Willow Theatre in Sugar Sand Park.

Sylvia was first produced in 1995 at the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York, and starred Sarah Jessica Parker and Blythe Danner. Called ‘delicious and dizzy’ by the New York Times, the play received Drama Desk Award nominations for Outstanding Play, Outstanding Actress in a Play (Parker), and Outstanding Costume Design.

Sylvia focuses on Greg, a middle-aged businessman disenchanted with his job and somewhat adrift in life, who finds a stray in the park—a dog named Sylvia who absolutely adores him, much to the consternation of his wife Kate. Jacqueline Laggy (Other People’s Money, Chapter Two) will play Sylvia, the energetic lab-poodle mix, and Keith Garsson (Other People’s Money, Chapter Two) and Patti Gardner (The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife) will play Greg and Kate.  Mario Betto (The Sisters Rosensweig, playwright – Combing Through Life’s Tangles) will also star.

Genie Croft, who recently helmed the BRTG’s sold out production of Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, will direct: “I’m delighted to be directing A R Gurney’s intelligent, insightful, hilarious script,” Croft says. “Gurney’s variation on the plot of the married, menopausal male falling in love with an exciting, enticing younger woman, who just happens to be an adorable stray dog, offers keen observations into American life.  Yet it is first and foremost a love story, deeply comical and touching, because Sylvia remains a dog with an animal’s instincts and urges.”  Croftwas also responsible for guiding the Guild’s successful productions of Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound and Charles Busch’s The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife.

The Boca Raton Theatre Guild is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to producing professional productions and advancing the art of theatre in the South Florida community.

Sylvia will run from September 28th through October 14th at the Willow Theatre in Sugar Sand Park.  The theatre is located at 300 South Military Trail in Boca Raton, just south of Palmetto Park Road. Performances are Thursday through Saturday at 8 pm, and Saturdays and Sundays at 2 pm. Tickets for Sylvia are $25, and are on sale now. Tickets can be purchased at the Willow Theatre Box office: 561-347-3948.

For more information about the Boca Raton Theatre Guild, please visit www.brtg.org, or contact Carol Kassie (ckassie@gmail.com/561-445-9244).

Sylvia
by A.R. Gurney
September 28-October 14
Thu-Sat 8pm, Sat-Sun 2pm
The Willow Theatre at Sugar Sand Park
300 South Military Trail,
Boca Raton, FL 33486
Tickets:  $25
Phone: 561-347-3948
Group Sales:  561-948-2601
www.brtg.org
www.facebook.com/pages/Boca-Raton-Theatre-Guild/103606986210?ref=ts

The Women’s Theatre Project Finds a New Home in Boca Raton

24 Thursday May 2012

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The Women’s Theatre Project has found a new home in Boca Raton. The acclaimed 10 year old company will move from their performance space in Fort Lauderdale to the Willow Theatre in Sugar Sand Park.

Incorporated in 2002, the Women’s Theatre Project is a company of professional female theatre artists dedicated to producing theatrical works exploring the female voice, and the move from their previous intimate 50-seat venue to the Willow’s state of the art 155-seat theatre is an exciting step forward in the company’s continuing evolution.

“A unique opportunity presented itself at The Willow Theatre,” says founding member and Artistic Director Genie Croft. “I’ve directed The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife and several other plays for The Boca Raton Theatre Guild at the Willow, and have imported The Women’s Theatre Project’s productions of The Year of Magical Thinking and Bridge and Tunnel into the theatre – it’s a natural progression to make our home here – a perfect union of theatre, creative growth, and venue to expand our productions and mission.”

Actress, founding member, and company treasurer Jacqueline Laggy agrees: “This move provides us with the opportunity to continue our work and expand our audience base. We’re very excited!”

Carol Sussman, TWTP secretary, and another founding member of The Women’s Theatre Project, is  thrilled the company’s mission will continue. “The Willow Theatre is the perfect venue for TWTP to further our vision of telling women’s stories,” she says. “We have worked long and hard to be able to share our passion with the community and we look forward to many years in our wonderful new home.”

The Women’s Theatre Project was incorporated as a 501c3 not-for-profit organization in May of 2002. The company was founded from a need for women’s voices to be heard, a desire to break down the stereotypes of women propelled by the media, and to create more professional theatrical opportunities for women of all shapes, sizes, races, and ages. The young company quickly drew praise from critics and audiences alike, received numerous Carbonell nominations, and built a strong and loyal following throughout South Florida.

The Women’s Theatre Project has presented staged readings, one act, and full length plays. Works by local, national, and international female playwrights have been featured throughout TWTP’s 10 year history, including the world and regional premieres of several works such as Speaking Elephant by local playwright Terry Lawrence, Jar the Floor by Cheryl L. West, Three Fittings by Stephanie Alison Walker, and True Blue by Marj O’Neill-Butler. Other recent productions include Playhouse Creatures, Eclipsed, Sunday on the Rocks, Chitterling Heights, and Women Drivers.  Over the past few years, TWTP has run a lesbian play festival in conjunction with the Pride Center.

Two productions are planned for the company’s 2012-2013 season at the Willow Theatre, Delval Divas, a comedy by Barbara Pease Weber will run November 2-18, and Faye Sholiton’s powerful memory play, The Interview will run January 4-20, 2013.  A third production is “not an impossibility,” says Croft.

The Willow Theatre at Sugar Sand Park is located at 300 South Military Trail in Boca Raton, just south of Palmetto Park Road. Tickets for Delval Divas will be on sale August 1st and can be purchased at the Willow Theatre Box office: 561-347-3948. Tickets for all performances are $25.

http://www.womenstheatreproject.com/#