Published: September 14, 2007 04:58 pm            

THE ISLE FILE: Spotlighting players on the Grand Island stage

“Curtain Up” dominated the Mainland Friday night but Islanders were all over the playbills. Here’s our cast of characters:

• Administrator – Frank Cannata, Riviera Theater, North Tonawanda. In his first year on the job, the one-time GI school board member and principal is nudging The Riv in new directions. The internationally touring comedy “Viagara Falls” (next stop: London, Ontario) is unlike anything the Riviera has ever presented, and gave the theater a unique presence in the Curtain Up lineup. Curtain time is 7 p.m. both tonight and Sunday, an extended one-act, over well before 9.

• Producer – Randall Kramer, MusicalFare on the Daemen College campus in Snyder. MusicalFare has quietly and persistently, with a great sense of purpose, advanced to the ranks of the region’s leading presenters of musical theater. “Altar Boyz,” sort of a joint spoof of liturgy and boy bands, continues through Oct. 14.

• Director, choreographer – Fran and Dawn Newton, Niagara Regional Theater Guild. Their “Fiddler on the Roof” opens next weekend in the well-traveled Guild’s new home, just over the South Bridge at Cardinal O’Hara High School.

Their cast includes Islanders Karen Conboy as Golda and Steve Olszewski as the Innkeeper. Five members of the Rustowicz family are cast as villagers, along with David Conboy and three of Steve Olszewski’s children. Here’s hoping they don’t jam up the bridge coming home after the shows, which continue through Oct. 6.

• Lead actor – Ron Swick, in “On Golden Pond” for O’Connell & Company’s Theater in the Square, just west of MusicalFare. The former Island teacher and director plays opposite lustrous mainlander Ann Gayley in the popular romantic comedy, which has some aspects of the Riviera show, minus the pills. “Pond” ripples until Oct. 14. Supporting actor -- Bob Priest, a police officer in “Arsenic & Old Lace” at

the Lancaster Opera House. He describes Lancaster’s Curtain Up atmosphere as “just like Buffalo’s, except for the parties and tuxedos.” As the season continues he will be directing two shows for the Niagara Falls Woodbox Theater in Niagara Arts Center on Pine Avenue. “Arsenic’ continues through Oct. 7.

• Otherwise occupied – Norm Sham, making a movie. GIHS grad Norm, one of Buffalo’s most popular actors (unforgettable in “Marty”), is working on a movie depicting the life of Nicholas of Myra, model for the character we today see in a red suit in December. Norm is playing Nicholas of Tenessum, not the big guy, for the record.

And finally…

• Inspiration – Sharon Onevelo Watkinson, associate director of Niagara University’s world-class program at Niagara University and a joy to behold, even in the produce aisle at Tops, where Polly caught her with Doug last week. NU opens with “I’m Peggy Guggenheim and You’re Not” next weekend at its Church Theater in Lewiston, then opens “Our Town” in NU’s O’Leary mainstage Oct. 4.

Miss any cues? Drop us a line.

Isle File idea? Write Box 1186, Grand Island, NY 14072 or e-mail pollyndoug@hotmail.com.

        

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