WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

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WPCNR PHANTOM OF THE THEATRE. By John F. Bailey. March 11, 2005: Fort Hill Players winter production of Deathtrap, the longest running thriller ever on Broadway, is a revival of Ira Levin’s play-within-a-play that works and keeps the audience guessing. It brings back the John Barrymore of White Plains, D. Scott Faubel (denizen of The Journal-News news room in real life), for another one of his meaty performances in tough roles and introduces a new star to be, Mike Edmonds, just in his early 20s.

APPLAUSE. APPLAUSE: The cast of Deathtrap, sans Patti Rome greeted with a minute and a half of applause after their premier performance Friday evening.  Left to right, Richard Molyneaux (Porter Milgrim), D. Scott Faubel (Sydney Bruhl), Mike Edmonds (Clifford Anderson), Bona Crehan (Helga Ten Drop)Photo by WPCNR StageCam.

D. Scott Faubel, the Tommy Heinrich “Old Reliable” of the Fort Hill Players, (who has landed star turn after star turn from The Odd Couple to Art), creates a believable Sidney Bruhl  (played by Michael Caine in the movies) as a nasty old playwright whose bulging, gleaming eyes, and calculating nature thrill and chill. Faubel’s Bruhl has a slightly insane Captain Queeg edge to him that has this play going from laughs to horror in a gunshot and a lightning bolt.  

 

Faubel is not the Michael Caine type – but instead makes his Bruhl far more evil. Mr. Faubel has the ability to make you forget the famous actors who played the parts Mr. Faubel plays, a tribute to the Faubel method. He’s a dominator that takes a part and makes it his.

 

Welcome, Mr. Edmonds!

 

Faubel’s furtive mannerisms deliver the sinister side of the playwright without a hit, Sidney Bruhl, and his worthy foil is 22 year old Mike Edmonds in his first major role for the Fort Hill Players. Mr. Edmonds hails from Arizona and has come to New York to be an actor. He is one.

 

Edmonds plays Clifford Anderson, the student who attracts the attention of Bruhl during a summer writing course. As Act I opens, the audience observes Bruhl and his wife played by Patti Rome in her first major dramatic role for FHP discussing the play Mr. Anderson has written and sent to Mr. Bruhl for his opinion.

 

Bruhl, income dwindling and in need of a hit, is jealous because Anderson’s first time play is great. (Or so we are lead to believe). Bruhl and his wife discuss collaborating with the young playwright. Bruhl invites him over to discuss the possibilities. Bruhl is furious that one of his students has written the “one set, five character, moneymaker.”

 

Who is plotting against whom over the “valuable property” named “Deathtrap” is never quite clear.  The overriding theme is an inside look at writers’ vanity, their jealousy and lusting for success at any cost that exists in the real theatre. (Not to say anyone has killed anybody in the theater over a play yet. But, it could happen.)

 

You’re Killing Me or Are You?

 

Faubel, discussing dwindling finances observes, “Nothing recedes like success,” and voila, motive is born. The premise of the play:  some want that success enough to kill for it. What’s new?  Who is killing who in this play, how they are going to be killed, and were they really killed makes for bizarre twists that will engrosses the audience in the puzzle of the Deathtrap.

 

The play takes on two layers. The audience of 50 persons on opening night is taken on a serious of emotional swings as events they see are not always what they seem. From the first big turnaround “sold” by Patti Rome’s histrionics at the end of Act I, the audience buys the play and goes along for the wild ride.

 

Mr. Faubel’s timing is perfect, his desperation, his slinking,  (especially trying to find out what his young protege has locked in his desk drawer, is funny. Faubel’s pompous observations send-up the vainglorious playwrights of our time.

 

The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

 

But it takes two to tango and Mr. Edmonds  in the Christopher Reeve role (in the movie) Clifford Anderson,  the playwright-wanna-be, acts with the self-assured cockiness recalling to mind Presidents and Executive Officers we have known.

 

Mike Edmonds as Clifford Anderson. Photo by WPCNR StageCam

 

Edmonds, acts with an easygoing control is self-effacing, sycophantic, charming, playing to Bruhl’s ego with genuine sincerity. In Scene 3 of Act One when the amazing first murder takes place, Edmonds changes character smoothly from victim to co-conspirator and the audience buys it.  Edmonds looking like a White Plains High senior, builds his character through the play, and turns as evil as Bruhl in the play’s unexpected, shocking climax.  The audience swallows him all the way.

 

Like any good criminal,  Edmonds has you trusting him all the way and hating Bruhl, when it was really the other way around all along. Edmonds creates a Professor Moriarity-like superiority to his nemesis Bruhl when he vainly describes what has happened in an acid, mocking delivery. The audience’s collective jaws drop as the nice young man turns into not so nice young man. Edmonds face in his lecturing of Faubel took on  “the masque of Fu Man Chu,” the look of pure evil – the evil that it takes to kill.

 

Unlike the twerpy male movie leads of today,  Mr. Edmonds is a young actor who can act.

 

Two Dominators and three sidekicks.

 

Patti Rome, the statuesque brunette of the trio, More Than Music  in her debut in a dramatic role for FHP as Bruhl’s wife in Act One has to project and make her lines heard in her role, perhaps stating them more slowly. She delivered too quickly, too high and too quietly to cut through the “Snidely Whiplash” rumble of Faubel and the engaging elocution of charmer Edmonds.  Her body language and exasperation with Bruhl were genuine. It is an admirable first effort and she will get better. Ms. Rome did not stay for bows, as she was gifted with a new grand daughter Saturday evening and rushed to see the new actress.

 

Patti Rome as Myra Bruhl (in rehearsal). Photo by WPCNR StageCam

 

Rome, though has the most powerful moment in the play. She is the evening’s first key shocker and gets it exactly right.  Her horror at her husband’s deed at the close of Act One turns the audience into the play.

 

Ms. Rome gives this all she’s got, she screams piercingly, expresses anxiety, and creates a creeping hemorrhaging feel of panic that ices the theatre atmosphere much as panic and shame do in real life. Ms. Rome handled her lines well, but, in my opinion,  has to contralto them a little deeper in the back of her throat rather than speaking from the front of her mouth. She’s got all the emotion, body language and that worried wife role out there.

 

Brona Crehan as the ditzy psychic, Helga Ten Dorp, does a good comic turn as the neighborhood psychic who foresees what is to come, but gets it slightly wrong, keeping the audience guessing. However, Ms. Crehan overworks her Hungarian accent and needs to slow it down to make sure the audience gets her predictions. She’s a natural comedian, but she has to modulate slower to deliver the accent, perhaps a little less thickly.

 

One of the dangers with doing impressions of accents is you tend to do them too fast.  Take a cue from Peter Green’s Count Dracula. He was effective because he was slow. You know what you’re saying, but the audience does not. Crehan has the flightiness of the eccentric down. She has the wonderful comic flare of Imogene Coca and is appealing to look at and balances the skullduggery afoot in this brooder.

 

The Rochambeau Theatre may have a lot to do with Ms. Rome and Ms. Crehan’s troubles with clarity, or maybe this reporter needs hearing aids. The high domed ceiling creates bounce, echo and tends to distort the women’s voices while mellowing the mens’.

 

Richard Molyneaux as Porter Milgrim, Bruhl’s lawyer, deserves admiration for skewering the blue-blazered Connecticut lawyer perfectly. I loved his Westport accent and thought I was looking in on Greenwich. I knew people like him.

 

Highlights.

 

The special effects in Act II are atmospherically perfect: lightning, thunder. The staging of shootings, stabbings, deaths are disturbing and real and neatly choreographed.

 

Best moments: The Faubel-Edmonds discovery scene at the top of Act II when Bruhl finds out what  his young lover Anderson is doing. Edmonds doing the famous explanation of the plot at the conclusion, and the horrifying denoument.

 

The Set Design by David Jacob the Director, was very Connecticut. However,   I did not like the situation of the writing desk being situated where it was upstage right,  because it forced Edmonds to speak to the back of the set when he is typing. Fortunately Edmonds has the pipes to overcome this. By placing the desk in the left center of the stage, audiences on the left angle in the wings are blocked. I deliberately moved my seat to the right side so I could see the centerstage action.

 

They cannot see the action behind the desk when they view from the left side. I have never seen a play where an actor is forced to speak straight to the back of the stage. The actors usually are angled laterally.

 

The lighting created what Producer Joan Charischak describes as “a glowing ember,” and the set takes on the aura of a sinister place. The lightning flashes and thunder and startling gunshots were jolts of reality. The producer reported a cable broke during the first act causing  shortcircuit, but the actors persevered admirably and the technical crew fixed the cable for Act II.

 

Mr. Edmonds and Mr. Faubel worked as a team. They were believable. Timing impeccable, interaction – especially on the violence, sobering and shocking. Mr. Edmonds reminds one of a young Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate. Just 22, Mr. Edmonds was encouraged to audition by a friend of his at work, Suzanne Davis (whose Lucy in FHP’s Dracula  was another memorable performance by a beginning actor).  WPCNR looks forward to more of Mr. Edmonds’ work, he and Mr. Faubel nailed Toneys for this performance.

 

Deathtrap matinees Saturday at 2, this evening at 8 and next Friday and Saturday at 8 at The Roch, Rochambeau Theatre, 228 Fisher Avenue. For tickets, call 914-309-7278 or go to www.forthillplayers.com. Photo by WPCNR News

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WPCNR PRESS BOX. By John F. Bailey. March 11, 2005: The Fastest Game On Earth  was the tagline Madison Square Garden used to promote the New York Rangers back when there was a National Hockey League in the 1950s. The Broadway Blues always had tickets and used to run tiny hockey stick shaped ads in the sports sections of the old Herald Tribune and World-Telegram and Sun to fill the blue smokey rafters of the old garden where you were right on top of the action. Kids could attend 2 PM Garden games against the Red Wings, the Bruins, Black Hawks and Maple Leafs and of course The Flying Frenchmen.

 

 

The Voice of the Bad Boys of Hockey is Ebersole Rink’s own John Ransom who invented phrases such as “Be part of the Evil Empire,” and “The Bad Boys of Hockey,” Ransom handles public address duties at the Danbury Arena and contributes to the family entertainment atmosphere and the creation of the Danbury Trashers mystique. Fans come out and come back thanks to the friendly ushers, the well-disciplined crowd control, and a “family” crowd evenly divided between college students with their dates and families with hockey playing sons and daughters. Ransom’s son has become involved with the team as a stick boy and despite their rough and rowdy, no-nonsense ice style, the players have become the darlings of Danbury. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

The Danbury Arena: Home of the Trashers. Newly refurbished and has become a Danbury hub thanks to the Trashers. Photo by WPCNR Sports

 

Well, the NHL ruined itself this season, but the fastest game on earth lives in places like Bridgeport, Providence, Flint, Fort Wayne, Kansas City, Elmira, Adirondack in the United Hockey League and the American Hockey League. Instead of the Flying Frenchmen The Tri-State area has the Bad Boys of Hockey, the Danbury Trashers, owned by the youngest owner in sports A. J. Gallante owner of a carting company in the Danbury area who has singlehandedly given Danbury a team it has taken to heart,  supporting their Bad Boys with an average attendance of 2,400 fans a game.They have drawn 81,345 in 34 dates.  Tonight in the first of two straight home games they meet the Adirondack Frostbite their chief rival in the UHL Eastern Division. The gloves will be flying.

 

HOCKEY IS ALIVE! IT’S ALIVE! At the Danbury Arena. Here the Trashers in white attack the Motor City Mechanics. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 

The United Hockey League is a well-balanced league considering that the Trashers have a 12-8-5 record in 1-goal games and a 14-3 record in 2-goal games. The games are competitive, end-to-end action, and are highly energetic. These are young professionals playing because they love the game, certainly not for the money or the 1,500 mile busrides from Danbury to Michigan, Missouri, Indiana and western New York.

 

The New Philadelphia Flyers. The Main Street Maulers.

 

The young Trashers from their opening game were the targets of the league as older teams tried to push the new guys around. The Trashers were having none of it and lead the league in penalty minutes with 2,378.  There was one game where the owner even got involved in an altercation, but John Ransome says he was there and it was blown out of proportion. The league actually banned a Trasher for life from taking a poke at a coach. However, there has been bad blood built up over the course of the season

 

Number 40: Ruman Ndur – The Trasher you don’t want to mess with. Within the first 10 minutes of every game, there’s usually a fight as the Trashers defend their ice and themselves.  Ruman Ndur has a classic fighting style, he drops his gloves, rolls up his sleeves, and poses like John L. Sullivan. The fans love him. Photo by WPCNR Sports

 

The Boys in Black are penalized so much they have 18 short-handed goals. Though big, they are fast and get a ton of breakaways as opponents with a skater advantage attempt to “pinch in.”  For the record, the Trashers in  65 games have 92 Majors – that’s at least 92 tiffs, with 474 Minor Penalties, 8 Bench Penalties, and an astounding 58 Misconducts. They are very touchy feely guys and very sensitive.

 

Trashers Congrat Scott Stirling on another win. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 

 

The Trashers have the best goaltender in the league Scott Stirling who leads the league in wins with 31 wins and has a 2.31 Goals Against Average. He has lightning like reactions and looks like a cross between Bernie Parent and Terry Sawchuck. He fills the goal but has matinee-idol looks behind the mask. The T-men play excellent defense in front of him, kill penalties well and always are battling the odds. They like this image.

 

The Trashers have made it easy to purchase tickets to their games, by telephone and on the internet through an easy-to-navigate website, www.danburytrashers.com. On the site the fan gets a complete update on the previous game and can access the entire league’s statistics, including attendance figures.

 

 

TRASHER PLAY-BY-PLAY ON THE NET: in this reporter’s opinion, what has gotten Danbury to come on out and support the hockey club is that the team internet-casts all of its games on their website free with an audio play-by play, relayed worldwide by their Public Information Director, Phil Giubileo at the microphone. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 

For fans who miss hockey on television they can watch the Trashers play at home, enjoying Mr. Giubileo’s play-by-play with the web live telecast for $6 a game. No doubt, the ability to follow a team when the local media are not covering them is what has helped the Trashers grow in popularity. (New York-New Jersey Juggernaut, National Pro Fastpitch Teams take note).

 

The Price is right.

 

Everything about the Trasher operation is big league except the prices. They fit a working reporter’s pocket book. For less than the cost of two beers at Madison Square Garden, you can watch two hours of hockey action, and enjoy beer (cut off after two periods), soda and concessions at prices that are very reasonable. A Trasher front row seat is $12. For that you get Zamboni Races on the video screen; replays of goals, fights, and sequences on the big video jumbotron; and you are closer to the action, virtually on top of the game. It reminds you of the Old Madison Square Garden.

 

THE SAN DIEGO CHICKEN HAS MET HIS MATCH: It’s Scrappy the Trasher launching Trasher T-shirts to the fans inbetween periods. Photo by WPCNR Sports

 

The Staff is nice and you have parking.

 

You can park in the Danbury garage, or at the railroad station lot across the tracks next to the old Danbury Railroad Museum. You can park for $4.50, even get walk-up tickets at the door. But, the team is very popular, so I suggest phoning ahead.

 

 

The World’s Sexiest Zamboni — Always a Thrill. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 

Inside the arena, the staff does everything possible to make you feel welcome. The box office girls are pleasant, the souveniers are really big league, the ushers are always glad to see you. The concessions move fast. The arena is intimate and there are no bad seats.

 

Never a dull moment.

 

The pregame introductions introduce “The Evil Empire, your Danbury Trashers.” Every stoppage of action, for “discussions,” or whatever,  produces hard-driving up tempo music that keeps the jive going that appeals to the twenty-somethings and the 50-somethings.

 

Inbetween periods there is the world’s sexiest Zamboni, painted to look like a sanitation truck (the Trashers are owned by a carting company). There is the ever popular Chuck-a-Puck raffle, where hundreds of fans throw pucks on the ice with hopes of taking home a pot of money. There are promotions. At a recent Motor City Mechanics game, two local girls hockey 12-and-under teams competed. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 

The Trashers do a lot of promotions and outreach to local groups, and thanks to their internet play-by-play, fans (mostly children) are able to keep in touch with the outstanding young men who visit schools to clinic youngsters coming up. The Trashers are only tough on the ice. They are good interviews and clean cut. They also travel on the road in jacket and tie.

 

TRASHERS SUPPORTED THE Danbury Hornets — a 12-under Girls Hockey Team that played an exhibition between periods. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 

The Trashers are getting set for the playoffs, having four home games remaining after this two-game set with Adirondack. Upcoming home action is with Elmira, March 18; Richmond, March 23; Motor City, March 26 and the final home game is with Muskegon, March 27. The Trashers play their final 7 on the road before playoffs start mid-April.

 

 

 

Trashers to watch are leading scorer Number 22, Bruce Richardson with 20 goals and 54 assists; the opportunistic Blake Bellefeuille, Number 13 with 16 goals and 14 assists; Jeff Daw, Number 11 with 21 goals and 42 assists (63 points);  and Number 24, Dan Cristiansen with 19 goals and 26 assists for 45 points.

 

KICK SAVE ON A PENALTY SHOT by Scott Stirling. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 

Top policeman on the team is former  Ranger, the big defenseman from Nigeria, Number 40, Ruman Ndur, a fan favorite and Number 71, Mario LaRocque, a little tough guy who has 26 assists as a defensemen. I miss Brad Wingfield, Number 42, who broke his leg several weeks ago in a wild game. Wingfield’s wife works the souvenir stand in Danbury and reports big Brad is mending well but that his only hockey now is on the PC.

 

 

 

The Trashers also lost their stylish winger Brent Gretzky, who this reporter saw score several impossible goals earlier in the year. Nevertheless the Trashers are second in the division to Adirondack who they play tonight back-to-back at the Big D in Danbury.

 

The Trashmen have a record of 38-22-5 behind the DACK’s 41-15-8, 9 points behind with 11 games to play.

 

 

 

 YOU TALKIN TO ME? SCRAPPY WANTS TO SEE YOU THERE AT THE PLAYOFFS. Photo by WPCNR Sports.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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WPCNR PARENT ABOUT TOWN. March 10, 2005: The White Plains High School Symphony Orchestra and Eighth Grade Orchestra, and the WPHS Symphonic Band presented their Mid-Winter Concert Thursday evening and held an audience of 400 spellbound with their artistry, sensitivity and complexity of presentation. 

 

William Eckfield, the ebullient Director of the WPHS Symphony Orchestra and Eighth Grade Orchestra collaboration charmed the audience first with his impeccable high school and Eighth Grade combination which played the McPherson’s Lament evoking with sensitivity strings those ancient moors. Photo by WPCNR StageCam.

What impresses this reporter is that the combination of the two orchestras (Eight Grade and High School)  only had one reheasal and that was Tuesday. The cooperation and cohesion between the two groups is a tribute to Mr. Eckfield’s way with children and the pride and professionalism of the children themselves. They sound more interesting than a professional orchestra. They never play tired. They always play sensitive. They attack the music and take it apart and deliver it.

Ecfield picks not easy pieces either. The 1812 Overture showed the audience that with splendid, seamless transitions from section to section, and my admiration for the young lady on the bells. The cellos and basses lay a beautiful bed complimenting the sensitive strings. Eckfield has a  way of making selections showcase every section of the orchestras. We have heard eighth graders enjoy and look forward to playing with the High School orchestra in these concerts as a right of passage continuing the musical tradition at White Plains High school, rated in the Top Ten High Schools for Music in the country.

Eckfield returned to the podium after a brief intermission with his White Plains High School Symphony Orchestra playing Mozart’s Oveture to The Abduction, Fascinating Rhythm and then delivered the piece de resistance, Phantom of The Opera Selections. Photo by WPCNR StageCam

 

The orchestra displayed the professionalism of every section, every player. The violins were delicate and forefront when they had to be; the horns supportive on the Mozart classic, flourishing romantically on Gershwin’s Fasinating Rhythm (that really is not one of the great arrangments), then really doing star turns on The Phantom of the Opera. (It’s not easy being brass in an orchestra, but they do not override the string artistes). This Phantom was forceful, this Phantom was delicate on segues into Music of the Night, holding you spellbound. I loved the very pressure packed flute solos in this.  The WPHS Symphonic Orchestra gave this most florid of pieces a class and refinement that made it beautiful.

Mr. Eckfield from what we are told is well-liked by his very serious young muscians. You can hear it.

STAND UP AND BOW! BRAVO! The White Plains High School Symphonic Band getting two minutes of applause. Photo by WPCNR StageCam.

 

After intermission, the curtain swept back (so glad to see a stage in White Plains use a curtain!) on the White Plains High School Symphonic Band under the direction of the effervescent Lesley Tompkins. The best band in all the land delivered a bouncy ingratiating toe-tapping version of Eine Kleine Yiddishe Ragmusic by Adam Gorb, then showed all their bench on The March from 1941 by John Williams. The swells of the march themes, the boom of the brass, the joy of the clarinets and the thunder of the percussion (WPHS lays down persussion support that just lifts you to heights when they’re playing behind you), made this reporter hanker for his old trombone and Pleasantville High School Military Band uniform again. WPHS closed with Ride by Samuel R. Hazo.

These groups have such a great sound, ladies and gentlemen, and these concerts simply get better, the musicians better, the entertainment better every time I hear them. These organizations play as a team and take their sound and their presentation seriously. You can hear it.

The White Plains High School Mixed Emsemble and White Plains High School Choir will perform March 22 in their portion of the concert, due to their inability to perform Thursday evening. A compact disk recording was made of Thursday’s concert and will include the choir portion.

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WPCNR PRESS BOX. From Paul Saccarelli. March 10, 2005: The New York State Wrestling Federation will return to Yonkers, NY on Saturday, May 21st at Murray”s Skating Center located on 348 Tuckahoe Road. Scheduled to appear in action include former WWE Superstar and current TNA superstar Billy Gunn, Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake, The Honky Tonk Man and Mt. Vernon’s own WWE Hall of Famer Captain Lou Albano.

“There is a void for entertainment in Westchester County,” NYSWF promoter Paul Sarachelli said. “And I plan on delivering the cream of the crop in sports and entertainment available to feed our audience a product that the entire family can experience together.”

Chris Candido, a mat performer seeing regular action on Fox Sports Net wrestling programming will be in action joining the list of growing talent. Salvatore Sincere, The Patriot and former WCW Hardcore Champion Crowbar are slated for action as well.

Chuck Zito from HBO”s television show “OZ” will be signing copies of his book Street Justice at the event.
Westchester County’s “So Fine” Vic D. Vine & The Shark Attack Kid fill out the card for 8 wrestling matches presently scheduled.

First match begins at 7:30 p.m with autographs available at 6:00 p.m. Tickets are on sale now for as low as $20 (General Admission). Tickets can be purchased online at www.nyswfwrestling.com. Murray’s Skating Center is easy to reach by car, conveniently located right off of the Sprain Parkway and I-87. Just take the Tuckahoe Road West Exit, and Murray’s is your first left. For further information call 914-235-4676 or email info@nyswfwrestling.com

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  WPCNR BACK LOT. From Laugh Loud Productions. March 9, 2005:  Anton Evangelista, Director of the award-winning White Plains produced movie, Intervention, is working on a new show. Anton tells your CitizeNetReporter, he’s casting again. Here’s the lowdown:

Laugh Loud Productions is seeking all types of men and women for a variety of different roles, for a movie being made on the gift of laughter. We are also seeking specific types such as over the top characters, people with big noses, big ears, bulging eyes, heavyset men and women, dwarfs, older men without teeth etc. We’ll even look at attractive model types if they’re funny.  Think of the old Benny Hill show. All must have a good sense of humor and a comedic flair. All types will be considered.  There is no pay but great exposure. Heavy DVD and VHS distribution. Meals and DVD included.          

Send Pictures Headshots bodyshots videos etc. to Laugh Loud Productionsm, P.O. Box 1020    Bronx New York 10465