biki

---For this assignment you will need to attend an adult play produced by community theaters, college theaters, state theaters etc.during this current semester. You must be seated in a live audience and watch actors presenting a two or three act play on stage. You will need to upload  your paper and a copy of a ticket stub or program with it by scanning etc. Your paper should be from 500 to 600 words in length. In your paper describe the plot, the quality of the acting, the use of technical effects, audience response and a little information about the playwright. Also note any special themes that appear in the plot. Read chapter 7 on Theater before you attend and pick a current play. Remember that middle school, high school and church productions are not acceptable.Identify whether your play is modern tragedy,modern serious comedy,contemporary anti-middle class comedy , naturalism,theater of alienation,or the theater of cruelty. Examine the definition of these as they are described in Chapter 7 on Theater.------------------------------------
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RAY RODERICK (Director/Choreographer/Co-Writer) is currently directing MAME starring Tony Nominated Louise Pitre and Broadway Veteran Judy Blazer for Goodspeed Musicals, where he also directed SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN, 42ND STREET and MY ONE AND ONLY. He has recently created/directed ‘S WONDERFUL! THE NEW GERSHWIN MUSICAL. Ray adapted the script and directed the 1st US National and UK tour of CHITTY, CHITTY, BANG, BANG now licensed by Music Theatre International. He was associate director of A CHRISTMAS CAROL at Madison Square Garden for six years, where he was privileged to work with original director Mike Ockrent. He was also associate director for Susan Stroman’s Broadway revival of THE MUSIC MAN, and subsequently directed the successful 3 year North American Tour. He co-wrote/directed/choreographed Irving Berlin’s I LOVE A PIANO (Carbonell Award nomination best choreography, Florida Stage) 4 year National Tour US and Japan. Off-Broadway, Ray directed and co-wrote the new musical THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER (published by Samuel French), and directed and choreographed THE ARK, LAMOUR THE MERRIER and THE STORY GOES ON. He also co-wrote, directed and choreographed THE RAT PACK LOUNGE! (Carbonell Award nomination, best new work, Florida Stage), A CHRISTMAS SURVIVAL GUIDE (published by Samuel French) and I LOVE NEW YORK (Bistro Award, Best Musical Review 1999). Ray was the founding artistic director of Tri-State Center for the Arts, where he remained at the helm for seven years. With partner James Hindman, he formed Miracle or 2 Productions (Miracleor2.com), a licensing and production company dedicated to the creation and development of the new American musical. Together, they have created ARE WE THERE YET?, COMING TO AMERICA, and THE BIKINIS…A NEW MUSICAL BEACH PARTY! touring 2012/2013.

JAMES HINDMAN (Co-Writer) currently a member of The Advanced Playwriting Workshop at The Barrow Group. As a writer – His play MULTIPLE FAMILY DWELLING is in development at New Jersey Rep. THE DRAMA DEPARTMENT (Terrence McNally Award finalist), developed at Hangar Theatre, reading at Second Stage; THE BIKINIS! (Productions include Goodspeed Musicals, Long Wharf Theatre, Riverside Theatre); PETE ‘N’ KEELY (Outer Critics Circle Award nomination, two Drama Desk nominations, Pub. Samuel French); recipient of an NEA Grant for my original musical BEING AUDREY, commissioned by The Transport Group; contributor to THE AUDIENCE (Drama Desk nomination), INCUBUS (Pittsburgh Public Play Reading Series), MERCADA (Vineyard Theatre Reading). His adaptation of the award winning animated film, THE LITTLEST LIGHT ON THE CHRISTMAS TREE was presented at The Vital Theatre in New York. MOVERS AND SHAKERS winner of The Hartland Theatre 10 minute play festival. Co-writer: COLD FEET, I LOVE NEW YORK (Bistro Award); A CHRISTMAS SURVIVAL GUIDE (Pub. Samuel French), ARE WE THERE YET? (Numerous Productions around the country) HEAVEN HELP US (Denver Center, Carbonell Award nomination) and was one of the creators for a new show at Busch Gardens. Proud member: Dramatist Guild of America.

JOE BAKER (Music Arranger/Composer) has been working as a Conductor and Pianist on and around Broadway for over 20 years. Shows he has performed include: WICKED, THE LION KING, BLOOD BROTHERS, THE LIFE, GRAND HOTEL, STARLIGHT EXPRESS, THE TAP DANCE KID, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, CATSKILLS ON BROADWAY, FOOTLOOSE, BELLS ARE RINGING, and LAUGHING ROOM ONLY. He has also done duties as Orchestrator, Vocal Arranger or Dance Arranger on shows as: BUBBLY BLACK GIRL, THE GREEN HEART, and FOOTLOOSE. Across the sea, Joseph has worked on the 1987 Japan tour of LITTLE SHOP as music director and conductor. Since 1999 he has been a guest conductor, arranger, and music director for the HYUNDAI Theatre Company in Seoul, Korea, performing their successful productions of TRIPITAKA, and CHANG POGO. He also went with the company to Europe as well. He has performed with several well-known artists on the concert stage, and especially enjoys work in the symphonic orchestra field. He has conducted for Artists such as Helen Reddy, Petula Clarke, Art Garfunkel, Chita Rivera, Leslie Uggams, Jackie Mason, Carole King, and David and Shaun Cassidy. He has recently had some success as a composer and producer in film and TV, He composed and arranged the score for the smash hit documentary MAD HOT BALLROOM, and is Composer Arranger –Producer for DITTYDOODLE WORKS, an exciting new children’s TV series on Public Television WLIW called, with a possible world wide release in 2007. He also works as a Recording Music Producer, and his work is currently on recordings by Jeremy Kushnier, (the current star in RENT), Petula Clark, Jonny Peterson, Steven Lutvak, and J. Mark McVey. His other “musical life” includes projects in his own midtown studio, (bakerboysmusic@earthlink.net), and when not being a musical-arranger, he arranges time with his wife Renae, and children Rosemary and David Baker. He dedicates his work on this concert to his father, who showed by example that anything is possible through love and generosity.

Back together after 20 years! That girl group from the sixties everyone loves is bringing back the sun, fun and all the great songs they sang down on the boardwalk at the Jersey Shore… all to raise money for the good folks at Sandy Shores Mobile Home Beach Resort.
With a show that promises to get everyone dancing in the aisles, THE BIKINIS, or “The Jersey Girls,” relive their heyday and beyond, beginning the summer of 1964, the night these four inseparable friends got their name, winning the Belmar Beach Talent Contest, wearing just their bikinis! The boardwalk was smitten with the 4 teens… Jodi and Annie, two sisters from Paramus New Jersey; Karla, their slightly manipulative first cousin from Philly; and best friend Barbara, from Staten Island.
THE BIKINIS is a nonstop celebration of song filled with hits like IT’S IN HIS KISS, YELLOW POLKA DOT BIKINI, HEAT WAVE, UNDER THE BOARDWALK, THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR WALKIN’, INCENSE AND PEPPERMINTS, LOOK WHAT THEY’VE DONE TO MY SONG, MA, WHEN WILL I BE LOVED, I’M EVERY WOMAN, I WILL SURVIVE, IT’S RAINING MEN and many more!

What can separate even the closest of friends? The future. What can reunite them? The past.
In the Hippodrome’s newest production, “The Bikinis,” Kelly Atkins, Catherine Fries Vaughn, Melanie Souza and Wydetta Carter play members of an aspiring girl group from years gone by. The Bikinis have reunited as their old stomping grounds are threatened by condominium developers offering to buy up the land for a hefty sum.
Decades after their heyday in the age of flower power, Jodi, Annie, Karla and Barbara reunite on the eve of the year 2000 to perform at The Sandy Shores Mobile Home Beach Resort, a trailer park community on the Jersey Shore.
The performance is a show-within-a-show. The concert sets the stage for the women to tell their story and, ultimately, for the community to decide whether to keep their homes or take the corporate payout.
With music dripping in mod and Vietnam-era nostalgia, “The Bikinis” tells the story of four Jersey girls who were on their way to local fame. In the first act, it seems like all that stood in their way to stardom was teenage girl obsession with boys like the hunky “Lifeguard 23” and the funds to record their first 45 rpm (vinyl record). The first act is silly, lighthearted and seems a bit frivolous, but it introduces you to the personalities of the characters.
By the second act the tone shifts, and more serious topics begin to cast a shadow over The Bikini’s aspirations for the Shangri Las-like fame. The war in Vietnam had begun and the girls reminisce on how the world seemed to change overnight. The subject of teenage fantasies and love triangles – “Lifeguard 23” – is drafted along with young men all over the country. Now grown women, Jodi, Annie, Karla and Barbara discuss how college, activism and marriage set The Bikinis on different paths.
“Act two takes a turn in terms of what was going on in our country during the Vietnam War, and some of the most gorgeous songs that have ever been written are in that act,” said director Lauren Warhol Caldwell. “We also see a group of women come out to those mike stands who are more mature and who have lived a lot more of life.”
The second act emerges with strength after the music-dense first act. Basic individuals blossom into relatable characters who, despite their stark differences, form a reflection of enduring female friendship and a bond that transcends circumstance.
“I think the audience can relate to the friendship between the four women, and because of (Caldwell’s) casting, the four of us are very different,” Vaughn said. “The friendship between the women in the show when they were a young girl group singing those songs in the ‘60s, up through the serious times of their lives, the Vietnam war and how the friendship bonded them through all of it.”
With an all-female cast and female director, “The Bikinis” glides through themes of female friendship with a natural ease. The women are flawed, but their individual relationships as sisters, cousins and friends are layered and evolve throughout the show.
“The main core of the show is these women, what they survived, what they created together, who they became and the music just sort of lifts them as a platform that relates to the story of this friendship,” Caldwell said.