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 ON THE AISLE. Theatrical Review by John F. Bailey. October 13, 2012:

The beginning moment: the exotic Fiddler,the magical, agile, light-on-his-feet,engaging-on-the-bow Andrew Mayer,(right) with the likable, laughable, lovable, Bill Nolte (left) bring Zero Mostel and Fiddler to life.  

As Nolte sung Tradition beginning Broadway’s 9-Tony award-winning musical , Fiddler on the Roof, at Westchester Broadway Theatre Opening Night, the classic cast the spell it always has from first note to last whether you are seeing it for the first time or many times.

Bill Nolte as Tevye in the Zero Mostel role, gives an  opening explanation of Tradition starting  you off and never lets you stop living and enjoying, suffering, and experiencing life for all its moments. (Photos Courtesy, Westchester Broadway Theatre by John Vechiolla)

Set in a little Russian village in 1905 (that could be 2005) portraying the conflict of one generation to the next and the sufferings of all oppressed people,  “Fiddler” so connects with its audience, it made Zero Mostel a star. “Fiddler” musically preserves the struggle of life from a Jewish perspective. The “Fiddler” songs in just the first act still touch every parent’s heart.

To Life!

The Inn scene where Nolte as Teyve and the men of the village sing To Life (L’Chaim) to celebrate Teyve’s  assenting to give his daughter Tzeitel’s hand in marriage to the much-older butcher (Eric Johnson) though Tzeitel has her cap set for the tailor in the village, who does not have the courage to ask Teyve for her hand. Mr. Johnson and Nolte make give joyous meaning to the toast L’chaim. This is easily the happiest number in a show that has all that life has in store, drudgery, joy, hope, achievement, heartbreak, courage, it is all here in Fiddler.

Bill Nolte plays Tevye as Zero Mostel played him, a swaggering,bigger-than-life, everyman character whose masterly performance nobly recalls Mr. Mostel’s master-timing of jokes, deadpans, eyebrow rolls and asides and evokes the sense of bewilderment and pain, ability to muddle and endure the inevitable pain of life.

Guests at the wedding of Tevye’s daughter reflect in Sunrise, Sunset on how daughters (and sons) leave to start lives on their own. There’s Nolte’s whimsical tour de force delivering If I were a Rich Man,  

To set the scene for you: it is 1905 Russia  where Jews are afflicted by a labor movement, strikes and resentment gripping all of Russia that lead to pogroms against Jewish towns and enclaves by the Czar and Nationalist groups. Jewish groups had suffered from the Czar’s May Laws restricting Jews from immigrating to Russia, when Jewish labor groups were blamed for the assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1882.

In May 1882, the Czar introduced temporary regulations called May Laws lasting 30 years until 1917. Policies of discrimination, limits on the number of Jews allowed to obtain education and professions caused widespread poverty and mass emigration. In 1886, Jews were expelled from Kiev. Communities of Jews were removed by Czarist forces and nationalist groups alike. “Fiddler” plays out in this atmosphere of  persecution and ethnic cleansing of that time.

Tzeitel (Rachel Prather, left) starts a trend, with Teyve’s other two daughters, Hodel (Sarah Rolleston)(center) and Chava (Donna Glaus)(right each falling in love with a radical young man and a young man not of the Jewish faith. Here the three sisters sing Matchmaker, Matchmaker in Act One.All three deliver their integral cameo romances with believable pathos and longing — all the emotions love is. 

Tevye convinces his wife,  Golde (played with comic seriousness by Emily Zacharias,left, above) that Grandma Tzeitel came to him in a dream predicting that Tzeitel should marry the tailor.The dream sequence wonderfully lit by Andrew Gmoser, is a farce of husbandly storytelling.  Does Golde buy it? What do you think? Nolte and Zacharias also sing a touching duet in Act II, Do You Love Me? I enjoyed this amusing yet poignant portrayal of mystery of marriage.

The musical presents a history lesson of the faith and traditions of the Jewish people, as Teyve works through his daughter Tzeitel (wanting to marry Motel a poor tailor, and not the butcher that matchmaker Yente (Terry Palasz) has selected for her.  Tzeitel played with earnest, believable longing  by Rachel Prather (left), prevails on him to give his permission. She sings a marvelous, touching ode to young love conquering all with Motel, her tailor, Miracle of Miracles.

 Boza and Prather make a winning couple– Boza as Motel is the picture of the infatuated desperate young man, and Prather the lovestruck, determined spirit of youth fighting tradition. They make a great couple.

Act One concludes with the joyous wedding scene featuring the bottle dance…only to end in chaos, as czarist authorities disrupt the ceremony boding troubles to come – that unfold in the second act.

The second act ends with the uplifting spirit of people everywhere who endure and survive. An outstanding song is song by  Sarah Rolleston’s Hodel. She breaks your heart as she sings of her new life with the young man she has chosen to follow taking her Far From the Home I Love.

A viewer who saw the second night performance told this critic, she felt it was the best production she had ever seen at Westchester Broadway Theatre.

Fiddler plays until November 25, then returns to WBT, January 5. For more information on tickets call (914) 592-2222, or go to www.broadwaytheatre.com.

To Fiddler!

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Jeffrey Dunne, Steven Bardsley and David Gavin of CBRE Group Inc.’s New York Institutional Group represented LC White Plains Retail, LLC, and LC White Plains Recreation, LLC, affiliated entities of Cappelli Group, Inc., in arranging the joint venture majority interest sale of City Center Retail in White Plains, NY. The team was also responsible for procuring the new joint venture partner, whose parent company is Inland Diversified Real Estate Trust, Inc. The new joint venture valued the center at $166.4 million.

City Center is a 381,905± square-foot, grocery-anchored, trophy mixed-use retail and apartment property located in the heart of downtown White Plains. The property is fully leased and anchored by a high profile tenant mix, including ShopRite Supermarkets, Toys ‘R Us (estimated occupancy March 2013), Nordstrom Rack, National Amusements (15-screen theater), Barnes & Noble and New York Sports Club. The Center is shadow-anchored by a 154,241±sq.-ft. Target P-Fresh store, which was not included in the sale. The sale included 99-year air rights over the parking garage, which houses the New York Sports Club and 24 fully leased, in-demand residential apartment units.

City Center’s epicenter location, with frontage on Main Street, Martine Avenue and Mamaroneck Avenue, is surrounded by several recently developed apartment and condominium projects totaling more than 1,000 units, including The Residences at the Ritz Carlton and Trump Tower at City Center. With population growth of more than 15% since 2000 within a one-mile radius and average household incomes of nearly $140,000 within five miles, City Center will continue to be a primary shopping and entertainment destination. 

Mr. Dunne commented: “City Center will provide the new partnership with stable in-place income due to anchor tenants’ long-term leases, while providing upside through contractual rent increases. The significant foot traffic generated as a result of ShopRite opening last year will be further enhanced by Toys ‘R Us opening at the Center in the spring of 2013.”

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WPCNR CAMPAIGN 2012. October 9, 2012:

The absentee ballots for the November 6 general election were available for the first time today at the Westchester County Board of Elections. If you requested one, you may pick it up from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. at the Westchester Couny Board of Elections on Quarropas Street, White Plains. If you are picking one up for someone else, you must have been named on the application for an Absentee Ballot by the person requested the ballot, and be able to present a I.D. (Drivers License) to pick up the ballot.

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WPCNR STAGE DOOR. Theatrical Review by Renee Marks Cohen October 6, 2012:

Don’t miss the White Plains Performing Arts Center production of “August: Osage County,” Tracy Letts’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony award winner (Best Play, and four more). “August” is the opener for the WPPAC’s special 10^th anniversary season; this is the venue for the New York regional premier of the play.

A Taste of “August”

From left, the actors are Amanda Yachechak, Daniel Mian, Mark Lanham, Peter McClung, Derek Robert Smith, Laura Cable, Robin Lilly, and Suzy Kimball. Peter McClung as Uncle Charlie and Amanda Yachechak as the Native American housekeeper are extremely strong in their portrayal of wise individuals navigating amidst hellish chaos. Uncle Charlie protects his son, a late bloomer, from the verbal viciousness of others. The housekeeper is meditatively focused on doing her job with kindness.

Photo, Courtesy White Plains Performing Arts Center by Kathy Davisson.

All is not OK in a hot hot northern Oklahoma August. The Weston family is driven together to await the return of a missing father, who is a poet, professor, and openly alcoholic. The matriarch, Violet, is a long-time pill-popper. Three daughters, an aunt, significant others, a niece, and a household helper complete the Weston dance of dysfunction.

This is a semi-gothic household where the window shades are taped shut, because day and night do not matter. The scenery—three levels—is superb, as is, I stress, each and every cast member.

Will you judge this family’s dysfunction against your own experience? You will rivet your focus on scenes where the family sits at the dining room table, in ensembles of entropy. All the scenes are a funny unraveling of secrets and lies.

Congratulations to the cast and to Jeremy Quinn, who is the Director and WPPAC’s Producing Artistic Director.

When  “August” opened in New York in 2007, the New York Times called it “the most exciting new American play Broadway has seen in years.” Variety said it was “darkly delicious and ghastly.” Playwright

Tracy Letts’s father, Dennis, played the role of the patriarch in the original Chicago cast.

“August” is on stage at the White Plains Performing Arts Center. 8 p.m. Oct. 5-6 and 12-13; 2 p.m. Oct. 7 and 14. To order tickets call 914 328-1600; or go online at www.wppac.com or visit the Box Office at 11 City Place, City Center, 3^rd floor, White Plains. Recommended for those ages 16 and older.

Yes, there will be a movie soon, produced by George Clooney and The Weinstein Company. Visit http://vimeo.com/12892186 to see and hear Howard Starks reading his poem “August: Osage County,” which inspired the play’s title.

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WPCNR POLICE GAZETTE.  October 4, 2012:

After receiving the Analysis of the White Plains Police Department  Wednesday evening from the Mayor’s Office by e-mail, WPCNR found it also contains an analysis of police conduct in handling the Kenneth Chamberlain incident in November of 2011, in which Chamberlain died after being shot by police.

The Chamberlain death prompted the city to commission this report to analyze the police department procedures in their entirety: training, selection, operation, staffing, standard procedure in handling incidents, etc.  The Chamberlain family is currently suing the city over the shooting.

On pages 35 and 36 of the Haberfeld report, Professor Michael Walker presents his analysis of “200 pages of documents along with crime scene photos, audio-video clips filed as a result of the situation on November 19, 2011 involving Kenneth Chamberlain and members of the White Plains Police Department.”

The report describes Professor Walker as having “taught police use of force in academies throughout Northern New Jersey and has been accepted as an expert witness in cases where Patterson (N.J.) Police Officers have resorted to the use of deadly force.”

Professor Walker’s analysis of the material notes,

 “the officers used a Haligan tool from the fire department to hold the door (to Chamberlain’s apartment) open while using a pair of bolt cutters to cut the snap lock. As this was being attempted, Chamberlain threatened to kill anyone who came into the apartment. Chamberlain then took a meat cleaver and struck at the officers through the door opening and, at an opportune instant, the officer using the bolt cutters to latch onto the cleaver and rip it (the cleaver) from Chamberlain’s hands. Chamberlain then used a butcher knife to cut at the officers through the door opening.”

Walker describes, “At one point an officer was sent to the outside rear of the apartment to bang on the windows and distract Chamberlain so that entry could be made while he was away from the door; this failed to get the desired result.”

“The officers on scene used a novel combination of implements to keep the door wedged open while attempting to stay back from Chamberlain’s knife slases; the axe that originally held the door open was replaced with a Halligan tool connected to the officer controlling it by a length of rope.”

“When the door was finally breached at approximately 6:30 A.M. it fell into the apartment but at a tilt since a chair had been placed behind the door. Initially the officers attempted to deploy a Taser to incapacitate Chamberlain, but only one dart lodged in him and the device was ineffective.”

“The officers then decided to use less-than-lethal bean bag rounds to disable Chamberlain, who was still gripping the butcher knife and threatening to kill the officers; the first round was intentionally aimed at Chamberlain’s upper thigh because officers felt that a shot to the chest might cause a heart attack. The shot hit its mark and Chamberlain was unaffected by it and still held the knife; three more (bean bag) shots followed into Chamberlain’s chest but these too were ineffective — they knocked him back but he still gripped the knife.”

“As Chamberlain advanced on a sergeant in the room, an officer fired two rounds to stop Chamberlain: one hit him in the top of the arm which held the knife but traveled into Chamberlain’s chest and turned out to be the fatal round, the other (shot) missed.”

“Chamberlain fell backward onto the floor and began to use the knife in an attempt to cut his own throat; the knife was knocked free with an ASP baton and Chamberlain was restrained and given medical assistance. He was transported to the hospital where he was pronounced dead at 7:09 A.M.”

The report prepared by Dr. Maria (Make) Habergeld, Dr. John DeCarlo, Dr. Robert Vodde and Professor Walker concludes this analysis with the following comment:

“Based on Professor Walker’s assessment of the documents presented to us, his law enforcement training and experience it is his belief  that the shooting of   Mr. Chamberlain was totally justified and took place only after negotiations and all non-lethal means were unsuccessful and Mr. Chamberlain came at a police sergeant with a knife.”

The report has two recommendations for the police department in handling such barricaded situations: “Purchase additional equipment, like cameras that can be slipped under doors, in order to assess the gravity of given situations,” and “ensure that the hydraulic ram (which enables the breach of a door typical of one found in a housing development) be available at all times for members of the White Plains Police and Fire Departments”