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Stage: hot ticket
By JOHN FLEMIN
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 31, 2002
Playing it safe
The Asolo Theatre Company is sticking with the tried and true in its 2002-03 season, which opens Friday with Inherit the Wind, the Jerome Lawrence-Robert E. Lee play about the Scopes "monkey" trial of 1925. The production began in previews Wednesday. Howard Millman, Asolo producing director, stages the venerable drama with a cast that includes, from left, Bradford Wallace and John Sterling Arnold. It's followed by two more standards, George Bernard Shaw's You Never Can Tell and Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs, opening Nov. 8 and 15, respectively. All three run in rotating repertory into next year. Tickets: $15-$43. (941) 351-8000 or toll-free 1-800-361-8388.
Your chance to catch 'Greater Tuna'
The 20th anniversary tour of Greater Tuna features original stars Joe Sears, left, and Jaston Williams, right, who wrote the play with Ed Howard. There was a time, in the late 1980s, when their comedy about the third-smallest town in Texas was the most frequently produced play in the United States. A pair of performances were given at the White House at the invitation of President Bush and Mrs. Bush in 1990 and 1991.
Sears and Williams portray all 20 characters: men, women, children and animals. The two met at San Antonio's First Repertory Company, a press release says. "Their 29-year stage partnership has outlasted the comic duos of Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and Martin and Lewis."
Greater Tuna has performances at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday at the Mahaffey Theater at Bayfront Center. Tickets: $19-$44. (727) 892-2100.
Catholic comedy
Catholic humor strikes again in Late Nite Catechism, making a return engagement to the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. This time around, Colleen O'Neil, above, plays the parochial school nun who lets her ruler do the talking when it comes to disciplining students.
"Vicki Quade and Maripat Donovan's script is humorously nostalgic while at times suggesting a child's vision of purgatory," wrote Christopher Blank in a 2000 review for the St. Petersburg Times. "Humor is backed by lessons on church lore, like the proper way to bury a statue of St. Joseph in the yard to sell a home faster (upside down and facing the building)."
Naturally, Catholic school survivors are most receptive to the interactive play. Said Blank: "The gimmick that makes Late Nite Catechism a unique experience is that the audience isn't just involved in the show. They're trapped in it."
Late Night Catechism opens Friday and runs through Dec. 22 in the Jaeb Theater. Performances are 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $17.50-$29.50. (813) 229-7827 or toll-free 1-800-955-1045.
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