Red Curtain
Don't miss this pre-New York, limited engagement at Willow Theatre in Sugar Sand Park  The Boca Raton Theatre Guild Presents
Avi Hoffman's Still Jewish After All These Years: A Life in the Theatre

Coming Soon!

Punch & Judy, and
the Three Sillies

              May 17th -19th 

Inspired by the timeless comedic styles of Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges, and patterned after English folk tales, pantomime, and 17th Century puppet shows,
Punch & Judy, and the Three Sillies includes a typically convoluted 
 plot, mistaken identities, and pure comedy - all of which combine to provide perfectly silly entertainment!

Punch & Judy and
the Three Sillies
Friday & Saturday, May 17 & 18 
7: 00 pm 
Saturday & Sunday, May 18 & 19 
2:00 pm 
Tickets: $12/$8 for juniors (11 & younger)

 

Sol Children Theatre 
3333 North Federal Highway 
Boca Raton, FL
Phone: 561-447-8829 
~*~
Get Jazzed!
with
Paulette Dozier
~
Friday, June 14th  
  Club Tavolino della Notte
Tavolino della Nonna Restaurant
  
10181 W Sample Road, Coral Springs, FL 33065
  8:00 pm
Contact: (954) 509-0046
or visit  www.tavolinorestaurant.com
 Reservations Recommended  
~ 

Wednesday, June 19th


    
Jazz Journalist Awards 
The Blue Note Jazz Club

New York City

Click here for more information!
~*~
'Still Jewish', Still Avi Hoffman

By Rod Hagwood
Reproduced from the Sun-Sentinel &
South Florida.com

Avi Hoffman is Jewish. Still.

So much so the actor proclaims it with the title of his latest stage project, "Still Jewish After All These Years: A Lifetime in the Theatre." The one-man-show is being produced through May 19 by the Boca Raton Theatre Guild in the Willow Theatre at Sugar Sand Park.

      Hoffman, who plays lawyer Sid Raskin in the Starz television series "Magic City," has also been a regular on NBC's "Law & Order" and A&E's "The Glades." "Still Jewish" is the third in a trilogy, following "Too Jewish?" and "Too Jewish, Too!" - both of which won a slew of awards during off-Broadway runs and were broadcast nationally on PBS.

      "The show was created four, maybe five years ago," Hoffman says from the Coral Springs home he shares with his wife, the actress Laura Turnbull, and their two daughters. "It's when the New Vista Theatre Company was on its last legs. That was my [theatrical] company in Boynton and then in Boca that we had for a few years. And then, all hell broke loose. The economy dies, and all the funding just dried up. [Bernie] Madoff destroyed  philanthropy in Palm Beach County pretty much."   

      Unable to stage the musical "The Producers" for his subscribers and fulfill his theater troupe's season, Hoffman had returned to a tried-and-true product: the "Jewish" series, about his experiences as an actor and how his culture and heritage have influenced his stagecraft.  

      "I decided to give them something, come hell or high water," he says. "I think I wrote it in four days. We started performing it in lieu of 'The Producers,' and the audience loved it. The reviews were very positive."  

      Hoffman says the show has "evolved substantially" over the years, as he toured it around the country in between gigs as a highly sought-after director and actor for local company's such as Outre Theatre Company ("An Iliad"), Mosaic Theatre ("Death and the Maiden," "The Irish Curse"), Parade Productions ("Brooklyn Boy") and Boca Raton Theatre Guild ("Chicago"). He plans to bring "Still Jewish" to New York this fall.  

      "You might say this is my last pre-New York tryout," Hoffman says. "I can tell you it's a hell of a lot shorter. My first version was like 2 1/2 hours long with an intermission. Now, it's 90 minutes with no intermission. ... I've been able to hone what really works best, which stories seem to touch the nerves, the funny bone of the tears. Now, it's become a very tight piece of theater."

      Like the first two shows, this one is a mix of songs that make much of vaudeville shtick and Catskills comedy.  

"I started in the Yiddish theater and singing at the age of 2 for racists in Georgia. I started professionally when I was 10, so I've been doing this profession for 45 years. Sometimes, I teach classes ... and I ask the students why they want to be an actor. They say to escape into another character or to be famous or whatever. You never hear someone say, 'I want to touch someone's soul.' Well, I want to touch people's souls. I want to get into their psyche and take them on a journey and help them forget their troubles for an hour, and at the end, they acknowledge they have come with me on this ride, and I thank them. That's what I am doing when I bow. I thank the audience, and not the other way around."  

      Unlike Hoffman's first two one-man-shows, this one is multimedia.  

      "Up to now, it was just me and a piano. That's it," he says. "[But] this time, I realized I'm a pack rat, and I have every photograph, every program, every article and every review of everything I've ever done since I was 4 years old."  

That includes one line of dialogue from a movie filmed with Richard Harris in Israel. "And that movie ["The Hero"] is probably the most-obscure movie of all time," Hoffman says. "I found the entire movie online and downloaded it."  

      And then, there's the time he was 8 years old and played Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof" in a community-theater production in New York. "My mother, who basically recorded everything I ever did, was able to send me the recording. Now, wait, I grew up in the Bronx, so you have an 8-year-old Tevye with a Bronx accent. Imagine a baby Tony Curtis playing Tevye."  

It's been five years since a South Florida audience has seen "Still Jewish." And in that time, he has come to look at the show differently.    

       "I wrote this because I needed to replace 'The Producers' with something that the audience wouldn't walk out on," Hoffman explains. "In the years since, I have been able to look at this as a piece of theater. I believe this piece has become a truly universal look at stereotyping through my lens, my specific lens, and it's a very entertaining piece for that lens. But ultimately, what I talk about in those shows is the fact that people get boxed into their stereotype whatever that might be and everyone has this problem. Everyone."  

 
The Boca Raton Theatre Guild Presents:

Still Jewish After All These Years: A Life in the Theatre
May 10 - 19
Final 5 Performances:
May 16, 17, 18 at 8:00 PM
May 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

 

 Like us on Facebook            www.brtg.org 
~*~

 

We eat ham and jam and Spam a lot... 
 

presents
    

 June 20 - 30 

Monty Python's Spamalot is "lovingly ripped off from" the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Like the film, it is a highly irreverent parody of the Arthurian Legend and the Knights of the Round Table, featuring a bevy of beautiful
girls, not to mention cows, killer rabbits, and French people.

Monty Python's Spamalot

  June 20 - 30 
Tickets: $20               
Groups of 15 or more - $15 (16th ticket is free)
Children under 12 - $10 
Student Rush (1/2 hour before curtain)  $10 with valid ID
Box Office: 561-243-7922, ext. 1
To purchase tickets on line: DelrayCenterForTheArts.org  
Performances:  
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, 8 p.m.
Saturday, 2 & 8 p.m.
Sunday (June 23), 2 & 8 p.m.
Sunday (June 30), 2 p.m.                              

Delray Beach Center for the Arts / Crest Theatre
Old School Square, 51 N. Swinton Ave.
Delray Beach 33444 

 

Monty Python's Spamalot 'raises silliness to an artform'... The Sunday Times

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The Women's Theatre Project will present Girl Play, the Fourth Lesbian Play Reading Festival on Friday, June 21st, and  Saturday, June 22nd at 7:30 PM and Sunday, June 23rd at 2 PM in association with Art Gallery 21 at the Woman's Club of Wilton Manors at 600 NE 21st Court in Wilton Manors.  Scripts were submitted for consideration from all over the USA, Canada, as well as Australia.  Friday's and Saturday's performances are completely different programs featuring readings of the sixteen selected short scripts with a focus on lesbian themes. Audiences will vote for their favorites, and those plays will be performed on Sunday as 'the best of the fest'!  The plays will be presented by a team of professional directors and actors from across South Florida. 

 

The Women's Theatre Project produces plays dealing with women's stories.  The festival was created to give the lesbian community a voice in the arts.  After the New Times named the TWTP "The best place to meet intelligent lesbians" in their 2008 "Best Of" issue, the festival seemed a perfect match for their mission.      

Tickets are $15 for one show; $25 for two shows or $35 for all three shows and will be sold on-line and at the door. Seating is limited so it is recommended that tickets are purchased in advance.  For more information or to reserve seats, call TWTP at 561-705-0470.  

 

   
The Women's Theatre Project, founded in 2002, is a 501(c)(3)
not-for-profit professional theatre organization, committed to presenting works about women.

 

~*~


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