Passage Theatre Company Holds 10th Annual Solo Flights Festival, 3/4-27

Passage Theatre, Trenton's only professional theater company, will present its 10th Annual Solo Flights Festival with six events and two special readings from March 4 through 27. Performances will take place at the Mill Hill Playhouse, located at 205 E. Front Street at the corner of Montgomery Street, in the heart of Trenton's historic Mill Hill district.

"We are celebrating out tenth year presenting this diverse, electric festival," said June Ballinger, Executive Artist Director. "For Passage it is an opportunity to take some big risks in subject matters and performance styles while testing the pulse of the public. It's a chance for us to see what we might consider for main stage programming for future seasons."

This year's Festival will feature Passage favorites Princeton chanteuse and actresses Mary Martello, ragtime pianist and raconteur Terry Waldo plus humorist and CBS Morning Show commentatorNancy Giles as well as introduce new faces Martin Dockery and Chandra Thomas. The centerpiece of the month long celebration will be No Parole, written and performed by Carlo D'Amore. Rounding out the festivities will be two special readings Draw the Circle written and performed by Deen, directed by Chay Yew and  David Lee White's new play Slippery as Sin, directed by Adam Immerwahr.

Princeton resident Mary Martello, one of Philadelphia's most admired singer/actors, will kick off Solo Flights Festival 2011 with The Style of Weill, a look at the life of Kurt Weill, the stage composer of "Mack the Knife" and "September Song." Two performances: Friday, March 4 at 8pm and Saturday, March 12 at 3pm.

Terry Waldo, hailed by the "New York Times" as a "ragtime pianist nonpareil and eminent scholar of the form," will bring his brand new show Tales from the Bawdy House to Trenton on Saturday, March 5 at 8pm and Sunday March 6 at 3pm. Waldo will delight audiences with stories and songs from America's most famous red-light districts: New Orlean's Storyville, New York's Tin Pan Alley, St. Louis's Rose Bud Café and more.

Passage Theatre is delighted to welcome back to its stage social commentator, actress and comedian Nancy Giles on Friday and Saturday, March 25 and 26, at 8pm, in Black Comedy: The Wacky Side of (Post) Racism. Giles, who has made her mark dismantling misconceptions about race, feminism and sexism, takes another look at her 1998 Passage Theatre solo show that the Village Voice called "smart and unforgiving." Her acclaimed work on CBS Sunday Morning has provided the largest audience yet for her unique blend of laugh-out loud humor and common sense wisdom.

The centerpiece of this year's Solo Flights Festival will be No Parole, written and performed by Carlo D'Amore for three performances on March 12 at 8pm, March 19 at 8pm and March 27 at 3pm. Carlo D'Amore will roar into Trenton  with a wry, energetic adventure play about his real-life flamboyant, live-for-the-moment con artist mother, who has no trouble posing as an attorney, professor, daycare worker, or diplomat, as see through the eyes of her young son, who as her look-out, bail bondsman, and partner-in-crime. Part Inca, Indian, Italian, French and Spanish with a healthy splash of zany, D'Amore has delighted both audiences and critics across the country.  No Parole was named one of the top ten plays in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2007 and nominated for an Audience Favorite Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Direct from the Adelaide (Australia) Fringe Festival, Martin Dockery will perform his acclaimed solo show Wanderlust on March 18 at 8pm and March 20 at 3pm.  After more than a decade of temping, both at work and in relationships, a man embarks on a five-month solo trip deep into West Africa and across the Sahara. There he demands an Epiphany. Any Epiphany. Some proof that though we may be temporary, we're more than mere temps. Comic, affecting, and true, Wanderlust is one man's quest for the perfectly meaningful story. Wanderlust has been named "Best of the Fest" at the Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Orlando Fringe Festivals.

Solo Flights Festival will also offer three one-night-only special events:
Draw the Circle, written and performed by Deen, directed by Chay Yew will have a workshop reading on March 11 at 8pm. Deen's moving and hilarious story of one transgender man's journey from female to male, told entirely from the point of view of those closest to him - including his strict Indian immigrant parents and his politically active femme lover. Laid bare is one family's struggle with a child who continuously defies their most basic expectations of what it means to have a daughter...and one woman's commitment to unconditional love. All tickets: $10
In David Lee White's new play, Slippery as Sin, a group of formerly wealthy Americans, still reeling from the affects of the Great Depression, decide to hold a séance to summon the spirit of a deceased financier. This FREE reading will take place on Wednesday March 16 at 8pm. Part of and supported by The New Jersey Theatre Alliance's The Stages Festival and Family Week at the Theatre.  www.njta.org  www.stagesfestival.orgOn Thursday, March 17 at 8pm Passage Theatre will present Barrymore nominee Chandra Thomas (who spells her name all lower case) in Forgive to Forget. What do you do when police find your father walking through Harlem in shorts and a tee-shirt on the coldest day in January? If you're Brenda, you throw a party. Actor/writer Chandra Thomas poeticizes, sings, dances and speechifies through the entangled memories of Brenda and her father as they learn what to remember and what to forget.

Passage Theatre operates out of the historic Mill Hill Playhouse, located at 205 East Front Street at the corner of Montgomery Street,  in the heart of downtown Trenton adjacent to the beautiful Mill Hill district. Free, security-guarded on-street parking is available.

Regular admission: $20 general admission; $10 students; seniors 10% off.  Tickets for groups of 10 or more are $15 per person. For tickets, call (609) 392-0766 or visit online at www.passagetheatre.org. Tickets to Draw the Circle are $10; tickets to Slippery as Sin are free.
Tickets can also be purchased at the Passage Theatre administrative offices at 219 East Hanover Street, between Stockton and Montgomery Streets, Monday through Friday, 10:30pm-5:30pm. During show days, the box office is open at the Mill Hill Playhouse one hour prior to the performance time.

For 24 years Passage has been the professional Actors Equity Theater with a mission to develop and produce boundary-pushing and stylistically adventurous new works for the theatre that entertain and challenge a diverse audience.  It is housed in the 100 seat Mill Hill Playhouse in the historic district of downtown Trenton. We draw audiences from throughout New Jersey and the Philadelphia region.

Passage's mainstage season is made possible in part by the NJ State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the NEA; the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation; The Times of Trenton; Trenton Marriott at Lafayette Yard; the City of Trenton Dept. of Recreation, Natural Resources and Culture; WIMG 1300; the Curtis McGraw Foundation, The James Kerney Foundation; PNC Bank; The Bunbury Company; The Garfield Foundation; Princeton Area Community Foundation; and Bank of America.
 
10th Annual Solo Flights Festival
The Style of Weil
Written and Performed by Mary Martello
March 4 @ 8PM, March 12 @ 3PM
Princeton chanteuse and actress Mary Martello returns this season with a look at the life of Kurt Weill, the stage composer of "Mack the Knife" and "September Song." Mary dives into the passion of his musical and collaborative journeys from Berlin to Broadway. This intimate portrait in song and story of a complicated man and musician brings little known aspects of his career into the limelight.

Tales from the Bawdy House
Written & performed by Terry Waldo
March 5 @ 8PM, March 6 @ 3PMRagtime pianist and raconteur Terry Waldo will return with this brand new show, delighting audiences with stories and songs from America's most famous red-light districts: New Orleans's Storyville, New York's Tin Pan Alley, St. Louis's Rose Bud Café and more. Thanks to Terry, Passage audiences will get a full-course sound feast of the music and spirit of the once-legal underworld of some of America's most colorful cities.

Draw the Circle
Written & performed by Deen, directed by Chay Yew
Special Workshop Reading: March 11 @ 8PM
Deen's moving and hilarious story of one transgender man's journey from female to male, told entirely from the point of view of those closest to him -- including his strict Indian immigrant parents and his politically active femme lover. Laid bare is one family's struggle with a child who continuously defies their most basic expectations of what it means to have a daughter... and one woman's commitment to unconditional love.

No Parole
Written & performed by Carlo D'Amore, directed by Margarett Perry
March 12 & 19 @ 8PM, March 27 @ 3PM
Carlo D'Amore will roar into Trenton with a wry, energetic adventure play about his real-life flamboyant, live-for-the-moment con artist mother, who has no trouble posing as an attorney, professor, daycare worker, or diplomat, as seen through the eyes of her young son, who acts as her look-out, bail bondsman, and partner-in-crime. D'Amore showcases his indomitable spirit and unique theatrical style. Part Inca, Indian, Italian, French and Spanish with a healthy splash of zany, D'Amore has delighted both audiences and critics across the country.

Forgive to Forget
Written & performed by Chandra Thomas
March 17 @ 8PM
What do you do when police find your father walking through Harlem in shorts and a tee-shirt on the coldest day in January? If you're Brenda, you throw a party. Actor/writer Chandra Thomas poeticizes, sings, dances and speechifies (yes, "speechifies") through the entangled memories of Brenda and her father as they learn what to remember and what to forget.

Wanderlust
Written & performed by Martin Dockery, directed by Jean-Michele Gregory
March 18 @ 8PM, March 20 @ 3PM
An award-winning, comic, true story: After more than a decade of temping, both at work and in relationships, a man embarks on a solo trip deep into Africa, trekking from the Atlantic to the Sahara. There he demands an Epiphany. Any Epiphany. Some proof that though we're temporary, we're more than mere temps.
Black Comedy: The Wacky Side of Post?-Racism
Written & performed by Nancy Giles
March 25 & 26 @ 8PM
If you were fortunate enough to have seen Giles at Passage in 1998 ... she is Black by Popular Demand...but with an Obama era spin!

photo: Nancy Giles

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