City Theatre

A REVIEW

SUMMER SHORTS
ONCE AGAIN
DOUBLY SIZZLES

By Ron Levitt
Theatre Critic

As a lifetime Floridian – like many others – I am never too anxious for the heat of summer. However, if you are a theatre afficiando, one of the items which make the long, hot summer bearable is Summer Shorts, this year opening in the round at the Carnival Center’s Studio Theatre in Miami and then headed to Broward. It is always a staged program that assures a tiny mix of drama, comedy, fantasy and thoughtful presentations. The 2007 Summer Shorts lives up to previous years!

The 12th annual Summer Shorts mini-theater festival is up and running through July 15, once again with a smash selection of plays put together ably by Producing Artistic Director Stephanie Norman, Managing Director Danielle Karliner and Festival Artistic Coordinator, three-time Carbonell winning director J. Barry Lewis.

This year’s festival of plays includes two programs about 90-plus minutes each, with eight plays contained in one and seven in the other. Each play runs from under five to15 minutes. Program A of Summer Shorts will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 6 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday; Program B is at 7:30 p.m. Friday, 8:30 p.m. Saturday and 5:30 p.m. Sunday. There is a special supper available on days in which both Programs are shown back to back. Check www.citytheatre.com

And, what can you expect? Some of the best acting you will see in a long time. Outstading performances by South Florida favorites Irene Adjan, Antonio Amadeo, Elizabeth Dimon, Kameshia Duncan, Erik Fabregat, Ceci Fernandez, Bechir Sylvain, Stephen Trovillion and Tom Wahl. And fine-tuned direction by Desmond Gallant, Margaret Ledford, J. Barry Lewis, Stuart Meltzer, Stephanie Norman, James Samuel Randolph and Paul Tei. And, we certainly have to praise the playwrights – Kent R. Brown, Jim Fitzmorris, Rinne Groff, Sara Hammond, Joshua James, Rolin Jones, Jessica Lind, Michael McKeever, Montserrat Mendez, Marco Ramirez, John Walch, Susan Westfall and Craig Wright.
Of course, when you see 15 plays – even short, short ones – in a matter of hours, certain ones stand out, even though all may be worthy of attention.

In Splat! by Davie-based playwright Michael McKeever actors Irene Adjan, Steve Trovillion Tom Wahl and Antonio Amadeo play pint-size residents of Oz who are none too pleased that they have to clean up the mess made by a girl from Kansas. It is a complete departure of anything the prolific McKeever has ever written. But, this fantasy – directed by Stephanie Norman – is worth the price of admission by itself. It is one laugh after another as Adjan, Amadeo and Trovillion, play munchkins, deciding what to do with the remains of the wicked witch.

The award-winning Amadeo – along with Bechir Sylvain and a laugh-provoking Erik Fabregat —also tickles our fancy in Angle of Attack, a comedy by John Welch and directed by Paul Tei. It is a minute number of minutes into the lives of friends and how they treat one another, a gem of writing and acting.
Irene Adjan and Amadeo provide a keen sense of drama as a troubled couple in What I Learned from Grizzly Bears by Rolin Jones and directed by Paul Tei, and a topnotch Tom Wahl and Kameisha Duncan makes us laugh and ponder about what life has in store for us, in Foul Territory, by Craig Wright, again directed by the multi-talented Tei.

In Ambivalent, by Joshua James, a brilliant script set in an airport pits Ceci Fernandez, Elizabeth Dimon, Bechir Sylvain, and an hilarious Stephen Trovillion as passengers, deciding whether to take a flight which one of them says he has a premonition of disaster. The play, directed by Desmond Gallant, is funny and thoughtful.

And, just for one big laugh there is a comic performance by Tom Wahl in The Son of Mickey, directed by Margaret Ledford and authored by Jim Fitzmorris, Aiding Wahl in the just-for-fun fantasy are Dimon, Trovillion and the entire ensemble cast.

Summer Shorts is at the Carnival Center's Studio Theater in Miami through July 8 (www.carnivalcenter.org, 305-949-6722), then July 12-15 at the Broward Center's Amaturo Theater (www.browardcenter.org, 954-462-0222). To buy tickets, call the Carnival Center box office at 305-949-6722 or visit www.carnivalcenter.org; call the Broward Center box office at 954-462-0222 or visit www.browardcenter.org