A Lot of Choices As Season Opens

By Colin Dabkowski

Starting tonight, in a coordinated onslaught of onstage entertainment, area theaters are preparing to unleash no fewer than 15 productions on eager audiences in a span of 10 days.

With this year’s Curtain Up! extravaganza scheduled for Sept. 19 and precious little time to plan, the options are dizzying. But there’s no need to despair. Here, in chronological order, is a bite- sized summary of what to expect.

“Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story,” MusicalFare Theatre (4380 Main St., Amherst); tonight through Oct. 12.

Continuing with its long string of popular jukebox musicals, MusicalFare kicks off the new theater season tonight with a production of this look at the short and storied life of Buddy Holly. The show features a big cast, with MusicalFare veteran Joseph Wiens in the lead role. It chronicles a roughly three-year period of his life, from his time as a struggling country singer to his tragic death, along with the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens, in a 1959 plane crash.

“Rabbit Hole, Alleyway Theatre (One Curtain Up Alley); Thursday through Sept. 27

This Pulitzer Prize-winning play, which starred Cynthia Nixon (of “Sex and the City”) and Tyne Daly in its 2006 Broadway debut, is nothing short of a tear-jerker. It revolves around a family deep in grief after the accidental killing of a child, but contains the engrossing and sometimes even humorous dialogue that’s become the trademark of its young playwright, David Lindsay-Abaire.

“Star Quality,” Irish Classical Theatre (625 Main St.); Friday through Oct. 12

An innocent young playwright sits at the center of a whirlwind production that threatens at any moment to implode over the clashing egos of an overpowering leading lady, a testy director and the manipulative, back-stage machinations of the theater world. Sounds just like the plot of Tom Dudzick’s “Don’t Talk to the Actors,” which last year opened the season for Studio Arena Theatre. But this time, that popular story line is from Noel Coward’s final play “Star Quality,” featuring Josephine Hogan in the lead role.

“Mauritius,” Kavinoky Theatre (320 Porter Ave.); Friday through Oct. 12

Coming straight to the Kavinoky after its short and reportedly lackluster Broadway production last year, “Mauritius” is touted as an attempt to bring back proper suspense writing to the stage. It focuses on a pair of sisters who come into a potentially lucrative stamp collection and fall victim to a collection of sinister characters. The show is directed by Anne Gayley and features Eileen Dugan and Kate LoConti as the lucky — and then not so lucky — sisters.

“A Little Bit of Paradise,” Road Less Traveled Productions (639 Main St.); Friday through Oct. 5

Hopes are high for the world premiere of this epic melodrama by Annette Daniels Taylor, which emerged, like Melody Von Smith’s excellent 2007 play “Bonegrinders,” from the company’s New Play Workshop. The show, set on Buffalo’s East Side in 1925, reveals a side of our cultural history rarely exposed to the light of day.

“Something to Hide,” Kaleidoscope Theatre at the Marie Maday Theatre at Canisius College (2001 Main St.); Friday through Sept. 27

In case “Mauritius” sells out, theatergoers in search of a tense film noir sensibility can take in this by-the-book mystery-thriller by Leslie Sands. This particular production comes with an added twist from the innovative thespians at Kaleidoscope. “I think the audience is going to be kind of shocked, surprised and leave it at the end going, ‘What just happened?’ ” said Keith Wharton, the company’s production director. “It’s not going to be a ‘Scooby Doo’ ending.”

“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” Lancaster Opera House (21 Central Ave., Lancaster); Friday through Sept. 28

This beloved musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice is a staple of college and high school productions across the country. With a story also drawn from the pages of Genesis, the show makes a nice compliment to “In De Beginnin’,” albeit with a few more recognizable tunes and a long history that involving Donny Osmond.

“LIT401: A School Shooting in One Act,” ALT Theatre (Great Arrow Building, 1685 Elmwood Ave.); Saturday through Oct. 4

This piece of theater by Drew Derek and Gordon Tashjian, set up more like a class than a traditional play, aims to give audiences a glimpse into the minds of victims and perpetrators of school violence. The show will include a significant talk-back at the end, in which audiences are encouraged to question their “naive acceptance of the media’s depiction of scenarios.”

“Girls’ Night: The Musical,” Shea’s Smith Theatre (660 Main St.); Tuesday through Oct. 12

Think “Sex and the City” with the dialogue replaced by music, including faves like “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and “I Will Survive.”

“Palace of the End,” Subversive Theatre Collective (Great Arrow Building, 1685 Elmwood Ave.); Sept. 18 to Oct. 19

As the inaugural production in Subversive’s modest new home in the Great Arrow Buildling, this trio of monologues relating to the war in Iraq is drawn from what the theater says are “only slightly fictionalized sources.” They come from a former Abu Ghraib prisoner, a whistle-blower in former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s administration and an Iraqi woman who witnessed the war’s destruction firsthand.

“Dusty Springfield. . . With You,” The New Phoenix Theatre (95 Johnson Park); Sept. 19 through Oct. 11

This 90-minute original musical by New Phoenix Artistic Director Richard Lambert (who also directs) takes place during the final recording session of famed soul singer Dusty Springfield. Loraine O’Donnell stars as Springfield with Eric Rawski as famed producer Jerry Wexler, who died last month.

“In De Beginnin’,” Ujima Theatre; Sept. 19 through Nov. 16

After taking a year off to restructure and raise funds, Ujima is coming back full-force next week when it remounts one of the most popular shows in its 30-year history. Oscar Brown Jr.’s “In De Beginnin’ ” is a retelling of the stories of Genesis in the late Brown’s dialect-heavy verse, featuring characters like the Lawd (Beverly Dove), the Rev (Rodney Appleby) and the Debil (Phil Knoerzer). “For us,” said Ujima’s Executive Director Rahwa Ghirmatzion, “it embodies so much of who Ujima has been for the last 30 years in one play.”

“Diva by Diva,” at O’Connell and Company and Theatre of Youth (203 Allen St.); Sept. 19 and 20

O’Connell and company, which was more or less priced out of its old digs in Snyder Square, will mount a production of its long- running, women-affirming, incredibly popular “Diva By Diva” in collaboration with Theatre of Youth at the Allendale Theatre (203 Allen St.). The show will feature a who’s who of Western New York women, including TOY director Meg Quinn, former Studio Arena head Kathleen Gaffney, News Executive Editor and Vice President Margaret Sullivan, Buffalo Zoo President Donna M. Fernandes and, of course, Mary Kate O’Connell.

“An evening with Stephen McKinley Henderson,” Studio Arena Theatre (710 Main St.); Sept. 19 and 20

Former Studio Arena Artistic Director and CEO Kathleen Gaffney will host a two-evening fundraiser featuring McKinley Henderson, a veteran of the Studio stage and an accomplished actor on and off Broadway. The evening will see Henderson performing bits of August Wilson and Athol Fugard amid reminiscences of his time working at Studio Arena and elsewhere. “Much of it will be Kathleen and I exchanging ideas,” Henderson said.

e-mail: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

Originally published by NEWS ARTS WRITER.

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