By Doug Smith



Buffalo’s 2008 theatrical tragedy did not transfer to Niagara County and Ken-Ton theaters.

Heavy in debt after years of alleged mismanagement, the landmark Studio Arena died with “To Kill a Mockingbird” in March. Displaced patrons took this as a cue to make entrances at smaller professional and enthusiastic amateur troupes, often declaring they’d found in their own backyards nearly as good a show for $15 as they’d seen downtown for $50.

The community troupes

The Niagara Regional Theatre Guild caught a little bit ‘o luck almost immediately, attracting joyous throngs for its May production of “My Fair Lady” at its new digs in Cardinal O’Hara High School. The company’s stature soared with the glowing reviews of “Tuesdays with Morrie” and finished strongly with “The Secret Garden.”

“Morrie” constituted a sharp departure from the Guild’s traditional musical-theater programming and educated hundreds in on-school-time performances. The guild’s Fran Newton noted that, “We kept receiving letters saying how much the show had touched our patrons weeks after it closed. For an all-volunteer company, that’s the finest praise of all.”

North Tonawanda’s Starry Night Theater hit the jackpot with “Lottie & Bernice.” Created as bit players in two earlier comedies, the two Polish-American East Siders were pushed onto center stage by Starry Night resident playwright L. Don Swartz in a spoof of that generous target, Buffalo TV news past and present.

Audiences beat down the doors. Most shows were sold out, and a Florida publisher picked up the play. Swartz promises that audiences have not heard the last from the two in the roles created by Debbie Swartz and Joann Mis.

Overall, Starry Night attendance rose by some 800 for the year, “Most of it with Lottie & Bernice,” Swartz reports. Also popular: the more familiar “Hello Dolly” summer musical, “Picnic” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The troupe’s theater school maintained a consistent enrollment and the in-house art gallery continued to grow.

The Towne Players wrapped up their 50th season in May with the falling-down-funny “Whose Wives Are They, Anyway?” and opened their 51st with an all-encompassing “The Hobbit,” in November, both honored in adjudication by the Theater Association of New York State.

The players have prospered in their new home at the Sheridan-Parkside Community Center with its tone-perfect (if shopworn) auditorium and abundant storage space, an inventive, cost-efficient use of property by the Town of Tonawanda. “Hobbit,” though, was staged in the mini-Gothic setting of Kenmore’s Episcopal Church of the Advent — just the right ambiance for J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth — and got hordes of youngsters involved.

For Theatre in the Mist, the imposing surroundings and intimate stage at Stella Niagara on Route 18 provided an ideal setting for its ghostly “Spoon River Anthology” and nostalgic “GI Holiday Jukebox,” with which it rang out 2008.

“Jukebox” jammed ‘em in, more than 500 attendees; vets and military personnel received well-deserved comps. This show won three Meritorious Achievement awards; adjudicators complimented the troupe’s “warm and happy diversion on a cold winter’s night.”

Woodbox Theater is winding down a year of distinction, going where none have gone before — “Fences,” which closes this weekend, continues its locally unique concentration on African-American playwright August Wilson, and the year began with the premiere of Margaret Laurie’s “Niagara Lights the World.”

It hasn’t been easy. The Woodbox seats only 72 on the second floor of the Niagara Arts & Cultural Center, 1201 Pine Ave., and it’s still perceived as a new kid on the block. Nonetheless, it remains in the black, its artistry undisputed. Larger audiences would be its just due.

The showplaces

North Tonawanda’s Riviera Theater welcomed 65,000 show-goers on some 200 dates in 2008, about a 15 percent increase over 2007, according to Executive Director Frank Cannata.

An updated ticketing system has helped seal many a deal for The Riv. One upcoming big-band tribute show “has been getting people from as far away as Cleveland,” Cannata said.

The Riv forged a new connection when O’Connell & Company, Mary Kate O’Connell’s musical-theater troupe, lost its lease in Snyder. It’s a real change of venue for the talented Miss O; the Riv’s stage is almost as large as her entire former theater.

O’Connell’s Wednesday “Diva by Diva” shows have created considerable buzz, and a “Night of a Thousand Divas” is in the works as an early ‘09 fundraiser.

Lockport’s Palace Theater wound up the year with “Scrooge: The Musical.” He’d have loved these numbers — about 1,000 patrons for each of six locally mounted shows by the house troupe, Curtain Up Productions.

As director Chris Parada helps develop a reputation for solid, dependable entertainment, the county seat’s ornate forgotten treasure is pulling in show-goers from four counties, and is also the site of concerts and actual high school musicals.

The colleges

At Niagara University, director Gregory Fletcher says the storied Leary Theater in Clet Hall will undergo major renovations after May’s final production, not to re-open until 2010. He believes the Leary’s space constraints have squeezed community attendance in recent years, “and we consider it part of our mission to get Niagara County theater-goers back into our buildings.”

NU certainly reached out in 2008. Its productions featured a giant beetle in an art gallery (“Metamorphosis” at the Castellani Art Gallery), a woodland forest (“Goldilocks” at the Lewiston Church) and on-stage roller skating (“The Rink” at the Leary). Ticket prices were restructured, which, Fletcher said, “started us on the way back” to attracting the vital off-campus audience.

While Fletcher ethically declines to comment on the year’s top theatrical achievement, it would be hard to top the transcendent “Cabaret” of May.

Niagara County Community College has one of the brightest marquees in the area, but its productions in isolated Sanborn always have been lightly attended. While theater arts director Kyle LoConti hopes that new on-campus housing will improve turnouts, “It’s never been about making money, it’s about training the students. The Student Senate has been pretty generous in funding.”

On a practical level, NCCC rates bravos for its placement of students in technical and backstage jobs, both locally and in New York.

NCCC traditionally schedules one large-scale play (this fall, acclaimed local actor Richard Wesp’s “Eurypides”) and a smaller, coffee-house style offering (“All in the Timing”).

In sum, 2008 was a year of remarkable stability on area stages. They’ve had it better, but many elsewhere have it worse, and the outlook shines for 2009.



Doug Smith has covered theater on the Niagara Frontier since 1969. He had the title role in Niagara Regional Theater Guild’s “Tuesdays with Morrie” this fall. E-mail him at pollyndoug@hotmail.com.