MOLLY PICON'S RETURN ENGAGEMENT (1998)|Sun-Sentinel Review

Gary Waldman & Jamison Troutman, theater producers, presented the premiere professional production of the musical-comedy Molly Picon’s Return Engagement at Queens Theatre in the Park, New York, NY (1997), the Drama Center, Deerfield Beach, FL (1998) & the Kaplan JCC (1998), The Hollywood Playhouse (1998) … the following is a review published by the Sun-Sentinel:

Molly Picon's A Star Again _ In Spirit

May 11, 1998|By BILL VON MAURER Special to the Sun-Sentinel

She's tall, has long hair with red highlights and is beautiful in a Helen Hunt sort of way. A Molly Picon look-alike she's not.

What Joanne Borts does have is the warmth, the comic flair and the emotional range that endeared Picon to generations of Yiddish theater fans.

Picon, who died in 1992 at the age of 93, was an icon of New York's famed Second Avenue theater district, later a Broadway and international star and a success in television and films. Any attempt to clone her would have been impossible and the result, no doubt, a travesty.

The producers of Molly Picon's Return Engagement wisely decided to focus on Picon's talent rather than her appearance. They cast Borts to send the message, and she does so with great style and verisimilitude.

Molly Picon's Return Engagement, a two-character musical play by Sarah Blacher Cohen at the Drama Center in Deerfield Beach, is a celebration of its subject rather than a tribute, a revue of Picon's songs and comedy etched against the background of her troubled marriage and the turning points in her career. Her husband of more than 50 years, the controlling playwright Jacob Kalish, is played by Oscar Cheda in a remarkably conflicted performance of love and domination.

Return highlights Picon's struggle for stardom, from her youth as the daughter of immigrant Ukrainians. Amazingly, as a youngster, she couldn't speak Yiddish.

We learn of the remarkable diversity of her career as she worked with such disparate talents as Godfrey Cambridge and Sophie Tucker. She became known as the Yiddish Helen Hayes and tells of a touching backstage encounter with that luminary.

Although her rise as a beloved entertainer under Jacob's iron guidance is the show's focus, Picon's songs light up …Return Engagement. Sung by Borts with great spirit and often with poignancy, they will stir anyone who ever loved Yiddish theater.

Here are only a few of them (some of which Cheda, who has a good voice, sings along with her): Yom Pom Pom; Du Shaynst Vi Di Zun; Hei-Digga-Lai; Vos Zol Ikh Ton Az Ikh Hob Im Lib? and Yidl Mitn Fidl. Many are in English: Steam, Steam, Steam, Busy, Busy, Busy and Chin Up, Ladies!, the latter from Jerry Herman's musical Milk and Honey.

Gary Waldman, who directs with zest, wrote new English lyrics for some of the songs; Michael Larsen accompanies on piano.

Bill von Maurer covered theater for more than a decade for The Miami News and is a frequent contributor to the Sun-Sentinel.

Gary Waldman's new production is a family affair! - Sun-Sentinel Feature Story

Gary Waldman & Jamison Troutman, theater producers, presented the premiere professional production of the musical-comedy Pickles at the Atlantis Playhouse, W. Palm Beach, FL (2003) … the following is a feature story published in the Sun-Sentinel:

:

LISA GODDARD ON STAGE

Production is a family affair

October 17, 2003|LISA GODDARD (link to original article)

The on-again, off-again love affair between Ginger Reiter and comedian Jackie Mason is the subject of Pickles, a new play written by Reiter that will premiere at the Atlantis Playhouse on Wednesday.

Starring in the lead female role is Sheba Mason, the real-life daughter of Reiter and Mason. "I'll be playing my mom starting when she was in her mid-20s and covering about a 10-year span of time," she said.

'Pickles' stage set mimics a Miami Beach delicatessen

Mason, 18, who lives with her mother in Boca Raton, is excited about the opportunity to portray her mother and expand her acting repertoire.

"It's a very interesting experience, playing my mother," said Mason, who attends classes at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. "It's easy in some ways because I'm just like her. She has shtick, and I have an inclination toward that as well. It's fun."

Mason, who has appeared in Little Shop of Horrors at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts and Godspell at the Creative Stage of the Lake Worth Playhouse, says her father is supportive of the effort.

My father knows about the play, but he's not going to be able to be here because he'll be opening on Broadway about the same time," Mason said.

Reiter, who also wrote Solomon's 700 Wives, says she has mixed feelings watching her daughter rehearse.

"It's a real trip watching her play me. On the one hand, I want to hug and kiss her and tell her she's wonderful, and sometimes I want to tell her to sit up straight," says Reiter, who likes to say she's older than Brooke Shields, but younger than Goldie Hawn. "She's a natural actress."

The play, whose title is based on the legendary Wolfie's Restaurant in Miami Beach, is a piece Reiter has worked on for years.

"It's been a work in progress for a very long time, but this is the brand new, finished version. Jackie has always been encouraging of it," said Reiter, who is now married to the cantor for Temple Beth El in Hollywood. "There's comedy and music and a lot of drama, and we have original music with live musicians. Gary [Waldman], the director, and the whole crew have been incredible. It couldn't be better if it was on Broadway."

Reiter "fictionalized everything; she didn't want a Jackie Mason impersonator," Waldman said, "but you do see hints of him and the essence of his personality."

Local actor "Mark Harmon plays the role as a character actor, and that's good."

Singing and entertaining on the South Florida condo circuit with her mom and comedian Frankie Man since the age of 6, Mason hopes to make the theater her career.

Reiter, who performs Women of the Bible, a show featuring belly dancing and comedy, is optimistic about the show.

"It could play elsewhere, you can never tell what will happen," she said.

Previews run through Sunday. Opening night is Wednesday, and the show runs through Nov. 30. Preview tickets are $21.50, $24 for Saturday evening and Sunday matinee. Regular performances are $26.50, $29 Saturday evenings and Sunday matinees. Performance times are 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday; 7 p.m. Sunday; and 2 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday.

The Atlantis Playhouse is at 5893 S. Congress Ave. in the Shoppes of Atlantis. 

E-mail Lisa Goddard at ladygatr8@aol.com or fax 561-272-3189.

THE LIFE (2004-2005) – Miami Herald Review

Gary Waldman & Jamison Troutman, theater producers, presented The Life, a musical by Cy Coleman, Ira Gasman & David Newman at the Atlantis Playhouse, W. Palm Beach, FL (2004-2005) … the following is a review published in the Miami Herald, June 12, 2004:

 Sing a song about a prostitute

A musical melodrama recalls the seamy years before New York’s 42^nd Street got it’s tourist-friendly makeover

BY CHRISTINE DOLEN

cdolen@herald.com

ALL HANDS: The cast of THE LIFE sings ‘Use What You Got.’

First, the caveat: The brassy musical that has just opened at the Atlantis Playhouse isn’t one of the Jewish-themed shows the company’s audiences have come to expect. Not by a long shot.

The Life, a 1997 Cy Coleman-Ira Gasman Broadway hit, is a down-and-dirty singing soap opera, an ode to the flashy hookers and slick pimps who worked on the edge of Manhattan’s theater district before Rudy Giuliani and company made the 42^nd Street neighborhood safe for Disney shows, chain stores and restaurants.

Crucial to the success of any production of The Life are actors who can sick the heck out of Coleman’s score, a beguiling (if lyrically blunt) blend of jazz, blues and Broadway. Director Gary Waldman has found a killer 13-member cast, one that belts, brays and coos under Phil Hinton’s fine musical direction. They dance well too, working the Kevin Black-Jamie Cooper choreography with a tongue-in-cheek, provocative sass.

The quality of the acting is more erratic, though the melodramatic tone of the show’s script (by Coleman, Gassman and David Newman) makes both the weaker and over-the-top performances easier to forgive. The Life is an amusing, ultimately sobering fantasy about gals who work hard for the money and guys who never treat them right.

The show’s focal characters are Queen (the charismatic Jeanne Lynn Gray), a Georgia gal who’s turning tricks only until she can buy a better life, and her man, Fleetwood (Ben Bagby), a drug-addicted Vietnam veteran who’s increasingly (and exploitatively)pragmatic when it comes to his women.

Jojo (Dean Swann), the weasel of a narrator, is in cahoots with Memphis (Carl Barber-Steel), a fly pimp who works his girls hard and answers any rebellion with violence. Sonja (the wonderful Nadeen Holloway), his main gal, brings down the house with The Oldest Profession, an amusing take on just how wearying years of streetwalking can be. And Mary from Minnesota (Elizabeth King who makes way too many distracting faces), the just-off-the-bus “innocent,” proves that sleaziness comes in many guises.

As Queen, Gray turns her many solos (He’s No Good, I’m Leaving You, We Had a Dream)into aural gold. Her voice has ahoneyed warmth, and she projects the inherent dignity that makes Queen seem different from the other women.

Though it’s simple in design, with the actors moving against a graffiti backdrop on the raised platform of a stage, The Life at the Atlantis is an effectively escapist – if gleefully raunchy – piece of musical theater.

Christine Dolen is the Herald’s theater critic.

FIVE GUYS NAMED MOE (2006) South Florida Tribune Review

Gary Waldman & Jamison Troutman, theater producers, presented the Five Guys Named Moe at Carmen's Supper Club, Boca Raton, FL (2006) … the following is a review published in The South Florida Tribune.

“Five Guys Named Moe” to delight with humor

By Al Price

SPECIAL TO THE TRIBUNE

There’s a new dinner theater in town – at the “Bridge Hotel” rooftop restaurant overlooking the Intracoastal. What a great atmosphere to see an enjoyable musical and eat sumptuous food by an award-winning chef.

Five Guys Named Moe was one of the most popular shows in cabaret history. Its off-Broadway show totaled 445 performances. It takes you back a bit, especially if you remember the big band sound. Six dynamic guys take off on Louis Jordan’s music from the ‘40s with high-powered song and dance. His musical style was called “The Big Bounce.” It took the swing-era jazz style, mixed it with rhythm and blues, and pushed it toward rock ‘n’ roll.

The five guys are Eat Moe, No Moe, Little Moe, Four-Eyed Moe and Big Moe, who sing and dance around the stage in an exuberance rarely seen on any stage in this area. It opens with a lovelorn Nomax (Gary Waldman), whose lady love is moving out of his life. The Moes suddenly appear to help Nomax out of his depression.

Carl Barber-Steele (“The Life”), Lorenzo Gutierrez, David Hughes, Christopher George Patterson and Dante Sterling dance and sing up a storm, performing some 24 of Jordan’s work’s including favorites like “Let the Good Times Roll,” “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby” and “Caledonia.”

They are an extraordinary group of performers, and as the show moves forward, each one is in perpetual motion, and each has the opportunity to sing a song and show his stuff. There is a distinct personality to each Moe as he sings and dances, which gets the audience toe-tapping – it’s infectious!

Choreographer Christopher George Patterson ahs his cast not only energetically dancing but has turned the show into an interactive event with audience members who participate with the performers in humor, dance and sing-alongs.

The Moes are costumed in classical striped Zoot suits that add to the hilarity of the evening; and the cast also seems to enjoy every moment on stage. Phil Hinton, who is the musical director, is a former Carbonnel and Curtain Up nominee for last season’s “The Life.”

Each one of the Moes has his own Louis Jordan specialty number with the others dancing around him. At one time Sterling leads the group with “I Like Them Fat Like That.” In “Safe, Sane and Single” each takes his turn in stanzas directed at the audience. And when Carl Barber-Steele has the audience prompt him in “Caledonia, Caledonia, What Makes Your Big Head So Hard,” the audience is suddenly part of the show.

Other fun songs are “Ain’t nobody Here But Us Chickens,” and “Choo Choo CH’Boogie.”

“Five Guys Named Moe,” directed by Gary Waldman, is a great way to spend an evening and enjoy a good dinner as well.

“Five Guys Named Moe” is playing at Carmen’s Rooftop Restaurant at the Bridge Hotel, 999 E. Camino Real in Boca Raton. Open ended. For tickets, call 561-392-2744.

SOPHIE, TOTIE & BELLE (New York, 2000) Playbill Feature Story

Gary Waldman, Jamison Troutman, Jay H. Harris and Kathi & Alan Glist opened an 8-week run of SOPHIE, TOTIE & BELLE off-Broadway at Theater4 on March 15, 2000. Here is a feature story published in Playbill Magazine.

Gwendolyn Jones, Kathy Robinson, Joanne Cunningham in SOPHIE, TOTIE & BELLE 
at Theater4, New York City                                                                Photo: STEVE SINGER

Yiddishkeit & Raunch to Mix in OB’s Sophie, Totie & Belle

15 Mar 2000

You wouldn’t ordinarily associate Jewish humor with earthy, raunchy comedy, but three comediennes of decades past weren’t above mixing the two. Sophie Tucker, Totie Fieldsand Belle Barth all spiced old-fashioned ethnic comedy with racier material — at a time when even most male comics were still PG-rated. Fields faced even further obstacles later in her career, when diabetes forced the amputation of her leg.

You wouldn’t ordinarily associate Jewish humor with earthy, raunchy comedy, but three comediennes of decades past weren’t above mixing the two. Sophie Tucker, Totie Fields and Belle Barth all spiced old-fashioned ethnic comedy with racier material — at a time when even most male comics were still PG-rated. Fields faced even further obstacles later in her career, when diabetes forced the amputation of her leg.

Now the styles of all three laugh-getting ladies are on view in a new Off-Broadway tribute show, Sophie, Totie & Belle, which started previews March 8 for an official opening March 15 for an open run at Theatre Four. Jay H. Harris, Gary Waldman, Jamison Troutman,  and Kathi & Alan Glist are producing the piece, which stars regional actresses Gwendolyn Jones as Sophie, Kathy Robinson as Totie and Jo Ann Cunningham as Belle. Daniel Neiden plays “All the Men in Their Lives.”

Joanne Koch and Sarah Blacher Cohen’s penned the book for STB, which has the ticklesome trio meeting in the afterlife and reminiscing about their careers and personal difficulties. As such, we get to hear Tucker belt out her 40s-era hits, “Some of These Days” and “Red Hot Mama”; Barth tell her shamelessly naughty jokes; and Fields talks about her experiences with self-mocking humor.

Robert Craig Dawson choreographs, and Jon Delfin serves as musical director for the piece, which is staged by producer Waldman. Other plays by Koch include Safe Harbor, which was staged at Chicago’s Organic Theatre, and Nesting Dolls. Cohen collaborated with Isaac Bashevis Singer on the musical comedy, Schlemiel the First.

According to spokesperson Joan Spector, Sophie, Totie & Belle was a hit in Florida, playing three months in Deerfield Beach, followed by three more months at Fort Lauderdale’s Wilton Playhouse.

Spector said she was drawn to the material because, “These were three very strong women. They were all bawdy and tough on stage, but they all had difficult personal lives. Sophie was a torch singer of the first order. Belle used language — you were shocked. Back then, it was mindblowing that anybody talked that way. Both of them had ratty husbands. As tough as they all were on stage, they were marshmallows with their men. Totie — who was clean on TV but not in her nightclub act — had a very supportive husband, but she was heavy-set and hated herself. Her humor was very self-deprecating, and deep down, that probably didn’t make her too happy.”

Tickets are $40-$45. Theatre Four is located at 424 West 55th Street. For information, call (212) 239-6200.

– By David Lefkowitz