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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 “The Women’s Hall of Fame has recognized so many women for their contributions to Westchester and to women,’’ said County Executive Andy Spano. “These women were brilliant, motivated and dedicated. Some were elected officials and businesswomen others were educators, homemakers, volunteers or religious leaders. What they all had in common was a commitment to improving the quality of life for women. This year’s honoree epitomizes the works of all those who came before her. Senator Clinton has worked to improve conditions for women the world over, whether in Bejing, Iraq or right here in Westchester. We welcome her to the Hall of Fame.’’

In honor of its 20^th anniversary, the Women’s Hall of Fame has invited all of its past honorees to the reception (see attached for complete list). And as it has done in past years, the Hall of Fame will award scholarships to promising young women it hopes may be future inductees. This year, 18 scholarship winners will receive a total of $61,000 in scholarships.

Clinton Reaction:

Senator Clinton of Chappaqua said she was honored to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

“I am so very honored to be placed in the company of so many incredibly talented and inspiring women.  The stories of each of these women have inspired countless others to fulfill their dreams; indeed, it is humbling to be recognized by the Westchester Women’s Hall of Fame in this way.  I have always thought that the Westchester Women’s Hall of Fame has an important role in reminding us all of how very far we have come and offers a tremendous opportunity for all of us to learn about our history, our heritage and our future,” 

            Recognized as a role model for women around the world, Hillary Rodham Clinton was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000, the only First Lady ever to be elected to the U.S. Senate. A tireless advocate for the rights of women and girls, she has traveled around the world speaking on behalf of a woman’s right to education, family planning and economic opportunity.

Senator Clinton, who serves on the Senate Committees for Environment and Public Works; Health, Education, Labor, Pensions and Armed Services, has introduced legislation to rebuild schools, strengthen the economy of upstate New York, secure Homeland Security funds for first responders and extend unemployment insurance benefits.

 In Westchester, Senator Clinton was recently a featured speaker at the county’s Elderboom Conference, which focused on the need to prepare for social changes that will take place with the surge of aging baby boomers. She also participated in a Not-For-Profit Summit to help non-profit agencies leverage funding.

Born in Chicago, Illinois on October 26, 1947, she grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois and attended public school there. She attended Wellesley College, and is a 1973 graduate of Yale Law School. Senator Clinton is married to former President William J. Clinton and they have one daughter, Chelsea.

The Senator has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Claude Pepper Award of the National Association for Home Care, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Medal, the Servant of Justice Award of the New York City Legal Aid Society, the Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal, the Public Spirit Award of the American Legion Auxiliary, the Shalom Chaver Award for International Leadership of the Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies, the Albert Shanker Award of the New York State United Teachers.

Senator Clinton is also a best-selling author of  Living History, released in June of 2003; It Takes a Village: and Other Lessons Children Teach Us, An Invitation to the White House, and Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids Letters to the First Pets.

In nominating Senator Clinton award committee members wrote, “Senator Clinton is a role model for women across our country. She had a dream and made that dream a reality. Beginning with her outstanding collegiate record at Wellesley College, where she excelled as a leader among women, to her years a Yale Law School, where she shined academically and set new standards proving that women can achieve whatever they set out to do.’’

Irene Gill College of New Rochelle Founder.

Nominated for this year’s Posthumous Award is another woman who served as a role model to thousands of girls and women. Mother Irene Gill, founder of the College of New Rochelle, believed that women could find advancement through education and used her vision to create the first Catholic college for women in New York State.

Born in Ireland in 1856, Mother Irene Gill came to the United States at the age of 12 and joined the Ursuline order in 1876. In the tradition of the Ursuline order, founded in 1533 in Brescia, Italy, Mother Irene persevered and established the college—then called the College of St. Angela—on September 12, 1904.

 Mother Irene died on Dec. 22, 1935 at the age of 80, but the college, known as The College of New Rochelle since 1910, continues to thrive today.  CNR is committed to its Catholic heritage, educating women and men from a women’s perspective, and providing students with a liberal arts education. This year CNR celebrates its 100^th anniversary, and is comprised of four schools ‑‑ School of Arts & Sciences, School of New Resources (for adult learners), School of Nursing, and the Graduate School ‑‑ with six campuses, an enollment of about 7,000, and more than 38,000 alumnae. The School of Arts & Sciences remains all women, while the other three schools are coeducational.

According to President Stephen J. Sweeny, “The College continues to model for society a creative environment that values diversity, promotes appreciation for difference, and prizes justice. Here students of all ages discover and strengthen their dignity and journey from this College to transform the world, not simply as women and men of personal and professional achievement, but as women and men of conscience and compassion.”

Hall of Fame Award recipients are selected by a panel of judges on the basis of their work to improve women’s lives in significant and enduring ways, and their work as pioneers in a particular field. Past hall of fame winners have included Rep. Nita Lowey, Sally Ziegler, County Legislator Lois Bronz and District Attorney Jeanine Pirro and former Sen. Mary Goodhue.

Proceeds from the luncheon will go to help fund scholarships for college-bound women, who will receive the awards at the event. The luncheon is hosted by the Westchester County Office for Women and sponsored by Avon, the Stock Family, Con Edison, Fuji, IBM, Lanza Family Foundation, MasterCard International, Diversified Investment Advisors, Merrill Lynch, Verizon and the Westchester Women’s Bar Association Foundation. Fortunoff’s is presenting past recipients of the Hall of Fame with a specially-designed gold charm commemorating the 20^th anniversary.

Tickets for the Hall of Fame luncheon are still available at a cost of $65 per person. For more information, call the Westchester County Office for Women at 914-995-5972.

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WPCNR Fourth Row, Left Center. Review by John F. Bailey. March 10, 2004: It Had to Be You,  starring America’s last traveling acting couple, Renee Taylor and Joe Bologna won over a packed house at the White Plains Performing Arts Center at Wednesday Matinee, with their, fast-talking, great-line-every-20 seconds, road-show comedy reminiscent of Ben Hecht’s The Front Page, and The Man Who Came To Dinner . Taylor and Bologna or Bologna and Taylor rivet the audience, because you don’t want to miss a line. You’re laughing every 10 seconds after Ms. Taylor takes the spotlight, at her, at him, at love’s mystery.

As Joe Bologna’s character Vito Pinioli says, in Act II,  “When a Theatregoer puts down his money for a ticket to a comedy, he wants to laugh” that is what the WPPAC audience gets to do, despite themselves.

From the opening houselight dim, IHTBY is fast fast fast, naturally funny, not a polite laugh needed, and it is not excessively off-color comedy. It uses every gimmick, (frozen pants is one), except a pie-in-the-face to wring a laugh from the audience. Laughs just spill out naturally, the mark of masterful comedy writing. You simply can’t stop yourself.

The comedy written by Taylor and Bologna, first performed in 1981, has been upgraded to contemporary references and delivers rapid fire, wise guy lines between two real and vulnerable people that we haven’t seen since the 30s, when screwball comedy was the king. I say, after seeing IHTBY, let’s bring screwball comedy back.  You never laugh politely at the lines in this play, you laugh naturally!

The two versatile pros are completely in-character, hardworking, with utter believability to the audience in the Christmas tale of Thea who turns an audition for a televison commercial into a romance with a cab-ride, a locked door, an incredulous playreading of just a few of her 30-or so manuscripts of her own play  about Sasha, the greatest Russian comedy writer.

These manuscripts are hidden about her apartment and, after seducing him, she pleads with Vito to hear her treatment of a particular scene to prevent him from leaving. (The playreading scene cleverly mocks Chekov). Sasha is a great Russian comedy writer being tortured by the Czar, and that is the scene she reads in a comedy, you understand.  

In Act II, when Vito is trying any way he can to leave the apartment, Thea’s winning personality works miracles on the middle aged roué, Vito Pinioli in a most ingenious, quirky, believable way.

Their fight in Act II is one of the stage’s great fights between romantic protagonists, artfully delivered to wrest ever laugh that’s in it.  Mr. Bologna’s “ballet of derisive gestures” causes the staid audience of “White Plains Most Dignifed” to erupt in convulsive laughter.

The two playwrights do a wicked sendup of collaborative play-writing in Act II, so good you wish they’d write a play about that, too, next.

Pathos? Feeling? You want that too. It’s there is a superbly right-on scene when Mr. Bologna makes a phone call he has been putting off a long time. It brings tears to the audience eye at what the magic of love can do.

Can a woman change your life in one night? Impossible, you say. This play shows the romantic in us how one determined woman can do it.

Thea is everybody’s ne’er-do-well aunt, down on her luck, needing a job, without anyone in her life and it’s Christmas Eve. She has your heart from her opening line, “I’m Thea Blow, and this is my love story,” as she steps into the spotlight and never leaves it.

The writing gives you the setup most cleverly, having Thea tell you about her stage in life as she steps into a spotlight for a television commercial audition, and monologues to the impatient disembodied voice of the commercial director (done to perfection by “Mr. Disembodied Voice”). She groans about how she really needs this job, the way casters see her (“I’m not seen as new.”), her body  (“I’m 5-2 and becoming sexy”), and says her agent just died. Ms. Taylor is funnier in this 7 minute “audition” that Jay Leno is in a week of monologues. So funny she attracts Vito, the creative Director’s attention who consoles her. Hence the cabride and the Christmas Eve romance that unfolds. The comedy mystique begins.

Thea takes Vito to her apartment, seduces him then does not let him leave. In the course of two hours she entertains, angers, amuses, confounds, and touches him and brings out “the writer” in the man that lurks behind a man pretending to be happy. She even convinces him to do something he has wanted to do for a long time through her own Molly Goldberg-type genuineness of feeling. How two actors deliver this is the old play’s magic.

Why are old plays done again and again. Because they are timeless and, as Mr. Bologna’s character remarks in a clever sendup of playwrighting, they are funny.

The art of comedy is making the incomprehensible plausible and funny, and getting you into caring about the characters, Ms. Taylor and Mr. Bologna have bottled that elixir of laughter, and open it and let it work its mirthful mischief.

SideBit Sendups Seamless

Bologna & Taylor,  drive their ode to serendipitous romance that effortlessly captured the hearts of the senior romantics in the Matinee audience, as well as the cynical isolated hardboiled reporter.

They do it the way the masters did it,  with great sidebar running gags, such as Bologna’s repeated calls to his limo man to pick him up (“You wait three hours for them to arrive, then they honk”), his ode to the art of making television commercials that he feels movie directors can’t touch (“They’ve got 2 hours, I’ve got 30 seconds”), and Thea’s obsession with health food. They bring to life the foibles, dreams and dashed hopes of all in their timeless identity with the humanity and the dreams of any audience, young or old.

Bologna acts out  backpain in a most hilarious manner. Bologna has his own comic persona, debonair as Cary Grant, manic as Sid Ceasar, as sarcastic as Tony Randall, as pompous as Tony Roberts, as timely as Milton Berle in delivery.

Sometimes it takes a pro to show the young comics how to segue punchlines right on so you hear the joke, seamlessly, a talent many of today’s younger actors simply do not have. They tell the joke too fast, swallow the payoff line and wonder why the audience does not laugh. Bologna and Taylor act and are their jokes and you hang on every nuanced delivery. There are no flat jokes in this play.

IHTBY does that all the way, laughing all the way, from the posters on the set of her apartment for Thea’s forgettable roles of the past( “The Ice Capades Strangler” and “Bride of the Vampire.”) to the hilarious sight gag at the end that breaks up the audience.

Mae West and Cary Grant Return to the Stage.

If you’re looking for a parallel in filmdom, consider the incongruous pairing of debonair  Cary Grant and the legendary Mae West in She Done Him Wrong (I think that was the picture).

Taylor’s Thea recreates the indulgent, inviting, earthy directness of the immortal Mae West seducing Mr. Bologna’s Cary Grant type, as personality, honesty and understanding and substance and guile  triumph over Vito’s preoccupation with younger, nubile women, materialism, superficiality. The pair have written and setup a winning combination of character motivations.

It Had To Be You plays for just four more performances at the White Plains Performing Arts Center at 8 tonight, Friday and Saturday and Sunday Matinee.

For Ticket Availabilities, dial 1-888-977-2250 and will play for many more across this country for people who go to the theatre to put their money down and laugh – a lot.

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WPCNR STAGE DOOR. March 9, 2004: The White Plains Performing Arts Center continues its limited run of the touring play, It Had to Be You, this evening at 8, starring husband and wife traveling duo, Joseph Bologna and Renee Taylor, (Emmy Award-winner for her role of the mom on The Nanny), this evening for the fourth of a string of 3 more performances through Sunday. The play debuted on Broadway in 1981, written by Ms. Taylor and  has toured the country the last five years.

SHOWING THE SET: One of America’s most popular traveling acting couples, Joe Bologna and Renee Taylor with The CitizeNetReporter, relaxing before this evening’s performance at the White Plains Performing Arts Center. House lights dim two times Wednesday at 2 PM and 8 PM. Photo by White Plains Performing Arts Center

 Tickets are available for  Wednesday matinee at 2 and 8 P.M. Shows on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings are at 8 with a 2 PM matinee on Sunday.  The weekend performances are “filled nicely.” Advance Sale has been strong reports Oscar Sales, theatre spokesperson. Patrons may order tickets by calling 1-888-977-2250.

WPCNR met the acting duo in their dressing rooms Tuesday afternoon, fresh off a run at WPPAC’s partner in show biz, the Queens Theatre in the Park. WPCNR talked with Ms. Taylor and Mr. Bologna about the popularity of the show around the country.

Ms. Taylor said the show which the couple premiered on Broadway in 1981, “is hysterical. It’s one long laugh. I look forward (each performance) to hearing the people laugh. Of course, we’re older now, and have suggested other people do it, but around the country, but they (the theatres) want us to do it.”

Mr. Bologna said that their closest friend, the late comic and musician, the great Steve Allen, called them up after having seen their movie of It Had to Be You, saying it was the funniest movie he had ever seen. “When he called us to tell us that, we had to meet,” and we became close friends, Bologna recalled. He recalled “Steve was a marvelous talent. Such a nice person.”

The playwright, Ms. Taylor, says It Had to Be You’s appeal is funny and very romantic: “When Joe says I love you at the end of the show, the audience stands and applauds because the way it’s set up you have to.”

The Last Traveling Acting Couple.

WPCNR asked the dynamic creative duo if they were the last of the acting couples on stage. They thought for a moment and mentioned Stiller and Meara, Ann Jackson and Eli Wallach, Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, but noted those couples rarely peform any  more. So, at this writing then WPCNR will dub them the Last of the Traveling Actor Couples.

Mr. Bologna and Ms. Taylor have three shows they perform in around the country, tonight’s, and If You Ever Leave Me, I’m Going With You, and Ms. Taylor’s moving portrayal of  Golda. It Had to Be You, Mr. Bologna said travels light with two sets, one based on the West Coast, the other on the East Coast , and their “company” consists of themselves, their Stage Manager and assistant.  

Bologna said an agent books their shows into theaters around the country, and the deal depends on the kind of theatre they play in. For a single house with a short run like White Plains Performing Arts Center, they receive a straight fee, while if playing an extended run in a city such as Chicago, they would receive perhaps a fee and a percentage of the house.

The actor noted that the theatres they play in range from large centers what book them for short runs and others that book a long run. He said that regional theatre consists of some theatres of longstanding reputation that make money, while others are provided at a subsidy to provide arts to a region. He notes one in Rio Dos,  New Mexico, North of El Paso, that is run by a wealthy person to provide an arts experience for West Texas who use the nearby resorts.

The Jewish woman-Italian man from New York jokes and writing play very well no matter where the couple perform the show, Bologna said.

Bologna said, based on his traveling show experience, the best ticket is the one time paying customer, who goes to the theatre because they want to and the worst is “the comp” who is really not that interested in the show. He notes the best audiences are on Saturday nights and Sunday Matinees.

Fast moving, Fast Talking Fast Laughs Fresh.

Asked about keeping their show fresh every time they do it, Ms. Taylor said, “We’re funnier now,” and says “the show changes every time we do it, a line here, a line there.”

Sometimes, Bologna says, they have to change the show because of a problem, and it improves the show. “Once we had a sightline problem in the First Act,” Joe remembered, ” I could not be seen when I was sitting on the bed, so I started walking around the stage so that part of the theatre would see me. It worked so well we kept it in the show. Things happen. When something goes wrong you have to adjust to it. “

Every performance, Ms. Taylor says the pair find themselves doing and saying things in our lines that “are part of us.” 

Mystery of Love

Mr. Bologna said It Had to Be You is about “the mystery of love, the joy of two people  finding each other and creating together. Ms. Taylor, the writer said, “There’s a knowing when she meets him (in Act One) he is the one. She chooses him and she creates him, or you would say he creates her.”

Taylor said, “I’m seeing the mystery of their romance, too.”

The couple said that in Act One, she pursues him, and in Act Two, he pushes her away. Bologna said that the play is also about “Entitlement, you’re entitled to have it all in life — romance, love, success of deciding not to settle, but to have love and be successful and deciding you can have that.”

The Stage is Different. Two Approaches.

Bologna said he preferred to come in for a show very close to the start of the performance to feel “an edge” prior to coming on stage. While Ms. Taylor said she preferred to arrive two hours before curtain and slowly slip into the character she plays.

Her husband said he much preferred the stage, because “you love the venue or medium that allows you to fully explore the role. In film you just have to get one take, and get it right. In television, it’s hard because you’re so rushed.

Bologna said “it’s easy to phone it in, (a performance)” but he prides himself on never doing that.

Bologna gave a few tips on how an argument between a couple should go. Both have to be equal, he says, if one is more aggressive, the audience does not appreciate it. Equality of adversary is essential to writing and playing a lover’s quarrel, he says, and there is a good one in Act Two.

So Lucky

“Every night, I am so lucky to do what I do,” Bologna said, “with the woman I love.”

Taylor said, It Had to Be You, allows them to fall in love again every time they do the show. 

The couple invite patrons to come back stage and talk with them about the show.

Asked who has the best lines in It Had to Be You, Ms. Taylor said she does.

SET AWAITS  IT HAD TO BE YOU AT White Plains Performing Arts Center Photo by WPCNR StageCam

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WPCNR CITY CENTER DISPATCH. By John F. Bailey. March 8, 2004: A spokesman for Cappelli Enterprises, Geoff Thompson, told WPCNR Monday that construction work on the South Condominium building, and its Martine Avenue construction companion, the smaller townhouse condominium, next door has been holding for about 5 weeks, and will resume shortly, “within a month.” 

AWAITING RESUMPTION OF CONSTRUCTION: Thompson said work has been put on hold on the two finishing pieces of the City Center complex due to different design changes that engineers and designers felt had to be made before work proceeded. The Townhouse on Martine is at left, the South Condominium “citadel” is at right. Date of the picture is February 20. Photo by WPCNR News

Thompson said work has been continuing “at a rapid pace” inside  North apartments, now being touted as “One City Place,” overlooking Main Street. Thompson said One City Place will open its sales office on the site on March 27. Thompson said the model apartments are just about completed, promising WPCNR a Preopening Tour shortly.

The Martine Avenue Condominium Citadel, now holding at 9 completed floors, is having its mechanical systems redesigned to fit into a different configuration within the building. Thompson said that when the south condo column was architecturally reconfigured and divided into condomiums, it was discovered that the former mechanical design used in the north tower would disrupt the new condominum floor plans Cappelli’s architects had recommended.

Thompson said, it was decided by the organization to hold back now, and retool the entire mechanical systems  to work around the new spacious new condo designs, rather than “tearing up the floor” and compromising the interior look of the condo parcels with the former mechanical system. Work is wrapping up on the development of a mechanical system that works aesthestically for the larger number of  units per floor. 

This explanation is very consistent with what the Super Developer Louis Cappelli remarked to WPCNR when work first stopped, when he said there was redesign being done.

On the Townhouse next door, (topped out in October), Mr. Thompson said that the window treatments are being redesigned before exterior work begins on that building.

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WPCNR MAIN STREET JOURNAL. March 8, 2004: The publisher of the White Plains Watch has sent out another message to White Plains, reporting the suspended monthly publication must sell 322 subscriptions by March 11 to come back to White Plains. On March 11, at 7:30, a special meeting will discuss “Countdown to The Watch.” Here is Ms. Chang’s urgent communication to the citizens of White Plains issued at midnight Sunday night:
 March 8, 2004

Dear Friends of the Watch,
      As many of you already know, a large group of White Plains residents
have been hard at work for the last month to raise a sufficient number of
subscriptions to allow the Watch to resume publication. Our initial restart
target is 2000 and we have 322 subscribers to go to reach that goal.  We
will be holding a final “count down to publishing” meeting this Thursday,
March 11, at 7:30 PM at Memorial Methodist Church (on Bryant Avenue between
North Street and Mamaroneck Avenue). At that meeting we will try to close
the subscription gap. We urge you all to attend.  Nothing less than the
future of your independent community newspaper–and your connection to the
community–is at stake.

      This weekend, as I read over the many, many emails received by the
Watch, I was struck by the variety of ways the paper has served the White
Plains community over the past six years.  Without the Watch, would there
have been a public record of your son’s or daughter’s academic achievement,
or an acknowledgement of how a special teacher touched your child’s life?
Would there be a place to spread the word about your sports organization or
the doings of your Boy or Girl Scout troop? Without the Watch how would
neighborhood communicate with neighborhood? How would you know about that
new restaurant that opened downtown?

      Without the Watch, how would you find out what was going on, in an
in-depth way, when it came to new retail and residential developments, open
space and housing issues or where your elected officials stood on these
issues? Without the Watch, would your professional achievements or
volunteer efforts have been celebrated? How would the word have been spread
about the needs of your favorite nonprofit? How would you know about your
city’s history? Perhaps you ran for office and were able to use the Watch
to reach the voters of White Plains in our election forums. Perhaps you
strongly disagreed or agreed with one of our editorials and got the
satisfaction of letting the community know just how deeply you felt by
seeing your letter published in the Watch.

      The Watch has been there for you for the last six years. Now the
Watch truly needs you and your neighbor.  If you have not already
subscribed or your neighbor or business associate hasn’t, please bring your
subscription pledge and theirs to Memorial Methodist Church this Thursday.
Or let us know by return email that you will be subscribing. Then mail your
subscription check today to the White Plains Watch, PO Box 348, White
Plains, New York 10602. The costs are as follows:
      $25 for one year mailed within White Plains; $45 for two years
      $35 for out-of-town mailing; $65 for two years

      If you are not sure whether or not you are already a subscriber
please email us and we will let you know. Please note that the PO Box is
348, not 345 as we mistakenly reported in our last email!

      Thank you for your support,

      Susan Arterian Chang, Publisher & Editor


White Plains Watch Community Newspaper
The Independent Voice of the County Seat
email: susan@wpwatch.com
website: www.whiteplainswatch.com