GIVING MY REGARDS TO OFF-BROADWAY (2/6/2011)

New York is nothing if not theatre central U.S.A.  The scale ranges from full-blown Broadway theatres to hole-in-the-wall performance spaces for off-off-Broadway and experimental theatre. One such small space is The Tank, a non-profit space for performing arts that emphasizes new work by emerging performers, designers, writers, directors and producers.

Avenue of the Americas is a short one-act comedy by  playwright Martin Blank.  The central character is a young women who has been institutionalized.  She is stuck in pre-adolescence and can only think and speak in terms of "commercialspeak." The audience finds out why near the end of the film.  Two of of the actors play multiple roles and they showed great skill at getting inside of the skin of each of their characters. The play was fast-paced with clever dialogue and also managed to be light but also have some depth of message that kept one mulling over things after the play was concluded.

Short, low-pressure opportunities like this give young professional actors a chance to work at the edge of the Great White Way and perhaps be discovered.  It was a brief but entertaining evening.