Roy Berko - Page 31

Book buyers spend an estimated $1.08 billion dollars each year purchasing romance novels. Since 1972 when Avon printed Kathleen Woodiwiss's 'The Flame And The Flower,' supposedly the first U.S. published book of that genre, almost 55% of all paperbacks sold in the U.S. have centered on romantic relationships with optimistic endings, whose covers usually feature a handsome buff man saving a helpless woman. These types of stories also dominate E-book downloads.

I consider OUR TOWN, which is now being performed at Blank Canvas, to be one of the greatest plays of the 20th century. It not only won the Pulitzer Prize in 1938, it has become one of the most performed and studied plays in the English language. It, along with Arthur Miller's DEATH OF A SALESMAN, Eugene O'Neil's LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, Tennessee Williams' STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, and William Inge's DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS, continue to be listed as the best written modern American plays by theatre experts.

Though the weather is still warm, soon the leaves will be turning and the Fall 2015 theatre season will be upon us. Here's a list of some of the offerings from September through December.

The farcical yet message-loaded 'Hairspray' is the type of musical that in a bad production falls flat, but in a good production leaves the audience energized and dancing in the aisles. Fortunately the must see production at Porthouse Theatre is dynamic, creative, full of joy!

Jackie Maxwell, the Shaw Festival's Artistic Director, states, 'I have always found that theatre is at its best when the audience spans several generations - a guarantee that the story being told on stage is being taken in and reacted to in a variety of ways, enriching the experience for all.'

As the capacity audience was settling in on opening night of Groundworks Dance Theatre's summer concert in Cain Park's Alma Theatre, there was a loud electronic sound stage right. As the eyes shifted in its direction, a lawn mower was pushed on stage. This was followed by a series of other sounds and actions of everyday occurrences including playing golf, sunbathing, and living in suburbia.

Local theatres each tend to have a niche audience based on the venue's play selection. Dobama leans toward intellectual contemporary which are having their local premiers. convergence-continuum tilts toward off-beat writers and plots, many with homosexual themes. Cleveland Public Theatre thrives on a diet of creative, often devised theater offerings. Beck Center for the Arts is noted as the place for family offerings and scripts that appeal to the more conservative tastes of its older patrons (e.g., 'Mary Poppins,' 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'She Loves Me.')

Liz Duffy Adams, whose play, 'The Reckless Ruthless Brutal Charge Of It, or The Train Play' is now on stage at convergence continuum is noted for being an American abstract writer. The word 'abstract' may be the key to confronting 'The Train Play.'

As I sat shaking my head in disbelief of what I was seeing and hearing on the Blank Canvas Theatre stage, those around me were howling with uncontrollable laughter. What I was seeing was ridiculous, unbelievable, and basically poorly performed. I'm not sure what was making my audience-mates laugh so hard, but I heard one of the young ladies behind me confide that she had just wet her pants and then I got sprayed by a shower of beer that came forth from her companion's nose as he exploded in laughter.

The story goes that in 1970, while attending college in Pittsburgh, John-Michael Tebelak went to church on Easter Sunday. A theology student before he decided he wanted to be a theatrical director, he found the service to be devoid of feeling.

What do 'West Side Story,' 'Gypsy,' 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,' 'Company,' 'Follies,' 'Sweeney Todd' 'Sunday in the Park with George,' and 'Into the Woods,' all have in common? Yes, they are shows which have music written by Steven Sondheim.

In her book, 'Dress Codes: of three girlhoods-my mother's, my father's and mine,' Noelle Howey writes, 'I have a dad who is a woman much like me, but with better legs. And when he was still male, I had a dad possibly like yours: sullen, sporadically hostile, frequently vacant. I had a dad who became a woman in order to be nice.' Noelle goes on to say, 'I have a family that survived a life in the closet . . . a traditional family . . . that would probably be the right wing's worst nightmare.'

2015 Summer Cleveland Theater Calendar

ALWAYS...PATSY CLINE, now on stage at Actors' Summit, is a well formed musical review in which a Patsy Cline-imitator wails away Cline's signature songs, including 'Walkin' After Midnight,' 'I Fall to Pieces,' 'She's Got You,' 'Anytime,' 'Stupid Cupid,' 'Lovesick Blues, 'Faded Love,' and 'Crazy.' The songs are interspersed with comments by a Cline fan and Cline, 'herself.'

On the surface, Horton Foote's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, THE YOUNG MAN FROM ATLANTA, now in production at Beck Center, tells the tale of the Kidders (Will and Lily Dale), a Houston, Texas couple who, in 1950, take different paths in coping with the death of Bill, their only son.

About fifteen years ago, an African American student on a Semester at Sea around the world educational cruise jumped overboard. The ship was sailing toward the Suez Canal, with Africa on the port side. The ship turned in the Gulf of Suez, and miraculously found the college student. The young man, after arriving back, stated that he had jumped overboard because he 'wanted to touch the water, that touched the land from which his forefathers were taken into slavery. He wanted to be reunited with his history.'

New York is about 500 miles from Cleveland. Several times a year I wander forth to see the bright lights of Broadway and venture into some theatres. This spring, during a period of a rash of show openings, I had the chance to see some excellent offerings.

Steve Yockey's WOLVES: AN URBAN FABLE, now on stage at convergence-continuum, centers on three people, Ben and Jack, ex-lovers who still live in the same apartment, and Wolf, a trick that Jack picks up one night at a bar.