By Ronald B. Hellman
I’ve lived in Queens all my life, but there are places in the borough almost as foreign to me as Staten Island. According to my father’s 8mm films and the Hellman family archives, I was present at both World’s Fairs at Flushing Meadows and the openings of LaGuardia Airport and JFK (then called Idlewild).
Growing up in Jackson Heights, I got around, but there remain some communities close to home that I seldom get to.
So on a summer’s night I find my way to unfamiliar territory in Middle Village and St. Margaret Parish Hall, where Maggie’s Little Theater is presenting “All Shook Up,” featuring the songs of Elvis Presley. Among the growing number of theater companies in Queens, Maggie’s Little Theater is the newest, just two years old. What gets me to show up is what typically motivates the local audience — I know somebody in the cast. In this case it’s Scarlett Ahmed, who was in The Outrageous Fortune Company’s “Yellow Face,” and Nydia Reid, who stage-managed “The Moonlight Room.” And, of course, Elvis is still the King!
“All Shook Up” is a jukebox musical with a lot of hokey romantic entanglements that had moderate success when it was at the Palace Theater, but it’s a perfect choice for community theater — the audience and the cast had a great time. MLT is run by a couple of husband-and-wife teams, Ed & Dolores Voyer and Alan David Perkins & Miriam P. Denu. Alan, by the way, is a leading local playwright, most acclaimed for “Nobody Knows I’m A Dog.” Miriam is not to be confused with her mother Miriam U. Denu, also a formidable presence in local theater, who just celebrated her 88th birthday.
On another evening I updated my bridge-and-tunnel credentials by showing up at The 78th Street Theater Lab on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to see an original work, “This Isn’t Paradise.” The first-time playwright was Richard Hymes-Esposito, another Outrageous Fortune alumnus, having appeared in the Christopher Durang one-acters “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You” and “The Actor’s Nightmare.” Richard, who lives in Corona, is nothing but persistent, which is an essential quality if you want to get things done.
His play, in which he has a leading role, is set in a real estate office. Although not quite up to “Glengarry Glen Ross,” David Mamet’s masterwork about real estate hustlers, Richard’s script holds the audience’s interest from start to finish.
Above all, anyone who writes a play and can get it produced, deserves a lot of credit.
Most recently I attended the 5th birthday party for the New York Innovative Theater Foundation, when they officially announced their 2009 nominees at the Carmine Street Recreation Center in the West Village. Although Katie Rosin, my favorite press agent from Kampfire PR, had suggested that several Queens groups would be nominated, only one, the Astoria Performing Arts Center, made the cut.
NYIT is an organization dedicated to celebrating Off Off Broadway. This season’s nominees include 142 individual artists, 49 different productions and 38 theater companies. Winners will be announced in September. Definitely tilted toward Lower Manhattan, and works of scant name recognition, NYIT now includes groups in Brooklyn and Queens. Since NYIT is a growing force in the theater world, let’s get more of our companies to submit their productions and performers for awards. Check out nyitawards.com to find out how to do it.
Contact Ron Hellman at RBH24@Columbia.edu.
