Jan McArt Leads MURDER ON GIN LANE in Boca Raton and Miami Beach

Jan McArt, the legendary Florida theater pioneer who two Governors proclaimed to be the 'First Lady of Florida Musical Theatre,' returns to the South Florida stage, this time starring in Tony Finstrom's new comedy thriller MURDER ON GIN LANE.

A reading of the play will first be presented as part of McArt's Theatre Arts Guild Play Reading Series at Boca Raton's Lynn University (where she currently heads up the theatre arts program development) on Monday, October 24th, at 7:30 p.m, in the Wold Performing Arts Center.

Wayne Rudisill will direct the reading, with a cast that also includes Jeffrey Bruce, soon to be seen in JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre; Iris Acker, host of the Beacon TV series "Onstage with Iris Acker" and soon to be seen in THE TALE OF THE ALLERGIST'S WIFE at the Boca Raton Theatre Guild; and Beth Holland, New York actress/song stylist and Board of Directors President for the Symphony of the Americas.

Another reading of this play will then be presented at the Byron Carlyle Theatre in Miami Beach on November 5th, at 7:00 PM, as this presentation has been invited to take part in the fourth annual all-night arts and culture festival SLEEPLESS NIGHT MIAMI BEACH.
The cast for the Miami Beach reading will again include McArt and Bruce, this time with Shari Upbin and Blanca Goodfriend.

The play takes place on Gin Lane, a narrow Southampton road filled with ocean-front mansions out on the end of New York's Long Island, where Max Greenway (a Broadway producer/director) died last spring - apparently a suicide. But his widow, the former stage star Delphine Davenport, thinks it was ... murder! She and her French maid, Fifi, are spending Labor Day weekend at the Greenway country estate, along with her stepsister, Winnie, and an old boy friend, Inspector Benjamin Walker, formerly of Scotland Yard. And she intends to solve this 'homicide' before Monday, ... if it kills her.

"MURDER ON GIN LANE is a delicious murder mystery set in Southampton," says McArt. "I'm particularly excited that the October 24th event will be the first time that the play has ever been read in public. Because we anticipate that a number of area theatre directors and agents will be attending, we are moving the play reading to the main stage of the beautiful new 750-seat Wold Performing Arts Center."

Finstrom says "We've decided to present it as a "radio" play. So, rather than doing a simple reading, we'll be presenting this as though we are in front of a radio studio audience, with sound effects and some music and a few costumes. Of course this play demands the presence of a BIG STAR, and I'm thrilled that Jan McArt is willing to take on the central role of a glamorous, former Broadway actress. The part fits her like a satin glove, and I think she plans to change costumes at least three times over the course of the presentation! It should be a lot of fun."

Tickets to MURDER ON GIN LANE at Lynn University, 3601 N. Military Trail
Boca Raton, FL 33431, are $10. Reservations are suggested through the Box Office at 561-237-9000, or on-line at
www.lynn.edu/tickets.

Tickets to MURDER ON GIN LANE at the Byron Carlyle Theatre (current home of the Miami Beach Stage Door), 500 71st Street, Miami Beach, FL 33141, are free. For more information on the SLEEPLESS NIGHT events, go to: http://sleeplessnight.org.

About Playwright Tony Finstrom:
Tony Finstrom worked as a journalist at New York's After Dark Magazine and at The Soho Weekly News, prior to his playwriting studies at the Circle Repertory Company, at Primary Stages, and at the Bay Street Theatre on Long Island. His drama, LARGER-THAN-LIFE, was produced in 1996 at The Public Theatre of South Florida. In 2000 he founded Footlights Inc Theater Company of Fort Lauderdale and wrote their premiere production, AS FATE WOULD HAVE IT, OR THE FAMOUS TRAGIC HISTORY OF LADY JANE GREY, which won the "Best Play of the 2001 South Florida Theatre Season" (City Link) and was nominated for a 2001 Carbonell Award as "Best New Work." In 2003 he won The Theatre League of South Florida's "HeART" Short Play Competition for his one-act comedy THE HAPPIEST COUPLE, produced in 2005 at Island Rep, on New York's Fire Island. In 2006 The Palm Beach Dramaworks' Playwright's Festival named his comedy KNISH ALLEY! "Best Play of the Year." It was then produced in 2009 by the Broward Stage Door Theatre Company. The Theatre League of South Florida awarded him their 2006 Remy Award for outstanding service to the local theatre community, and a 2008 Silver Palm Award for his outstanding contribution to the 2008 South Florida Theatre Festival. The Mosaic Theatre named him a recipient of the Jack Zink Spirit Award for 2011, having "demonstrated excellence in the areas of leadership, creativity, commitment and passion for the arts." He currently sits on the Board of Directors for the South Florida International Press Club, is the chairman and co-founder of South Florida's Silver Palm Theater Awards, is a South Florida Carbonell Theatre Award Judge, and is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

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