Spotlight On...
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 Norman Allen NORMAN ALLEN has been on stage since he was nine in Ralph Reader's The Gang Show to raise money for the British Boy Scouts and appeared before the Queen in a Royal Command Performance before he was fifteen. Therefore, it was no surprise that upon graduating from high school, he was accepted to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, on an Ivor Novello Scholarship. After graduating from RADA he joined George Devine's English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre in London where he appeared in several productions including Arnold Wesker's Chips with Everything, the show that would bring him to New York and Broadway. He was 22. On returning to London, Norman was cast in the musical, Half A Sixpence, with British Pop Star Tommy Steele. One year later, he was back on Broadway as one of three members of the London cast to bring Sixpence to New York where he shared a dressing room with John Cleese. The show closed after 511 performances and Norman decided to stay in New York. Norman went on to other Broadway productions including Borstal Boy, which was the Tony Award Best Play in 1970, Comedians, directed by Mike Nichols, Vivat, Vivat, Regina, with Claire Bloom & Aileen Atkins, Major Barbara, Get Thee To Canterbury, and Rockefeller and the Red Indians. He played the closing two seasons at Stratford Shakespeare Theatre, appearing in Hamlet and Henry VI with Christopher Walken and Fred Gywnn and in Henry V with Christopher Plummer and Anne Baxter. At the Stratford Festival Theatre, he appeared with Tammie Grimes in Shaviana, Julie Harris in Whitechapel, and Celeste Holmes in Toes. Regionally, he has appeared in Noises Off, Awake and Sing, Children of Darkness, The Faith Healer, and The Miser. He starred Off-Broadway in Carrin Beginning for the Riverside Stage Company and as Menelaus in The Trojan Women. Norman appears frequently for Play With Your Food and has the great pleasure of returning to work with the Stray Kats Theatre Company. He is a proud member of the Theatre Artists Workshop. He lives in Norwalk, with two wonderful dogs, BuBu & Sappho, and the great "joy" of his life, his wife, Joy, an accomplished theatre teacher and director. |
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Greetings!
We've reached the midpoint of our second season and I am thrilled to see our audience growing. I am completely optimistic that next season will see at least one full production along with our continued exploration of contemporary classics and new works in reading form. Meanwhile, we have an exciting month coming up with the first and last weekends at the Stone River Grille, "By the Heirs of St. Patrick" on March 10th, and I'll be performing with my fellow cut-ups of the Flagpole Shakespeare Repertory in the Flagpole Radio Cafe on March 24th with guest star Livingston Taylor! SEE YOU AT THE THEATRE! Kate Katcher
Artistic Director
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Coming THIS FRIDAY, March 2nd , SKTC is back at Stone River Grille with a full menu of food and fun! In keeping with the style that has made Play With Your Food a Fairfield County fixture for ten years, SKTC puts forth a bill of one act plays read by the professional members of our company. And Stone River will provide a special menu of delicious food and drinks.
March 2nd will include five hilarious one-acts: The Philadelphia by David Ives Lost by Mary Louise Wilson I Break Everything... by James Thurber
Anything For You by Cathy Celesia
Post-Its by Paul Dooley and Winnie Holzman
So don't delay Reserve today!!!!! Seats are limited!
Stone River Grille is located at 1 Glen Road, Sandy Hook. The show is upstairs at 8:30 for just $20. Come early for dinner & drinks, sold a la carte. Call 203-270-1200 to reserve or go to
(Kate Katcher & Nadine Willig in "Lost")
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Coming up: A new play by Steve Bellwood
By the Heirs of St. Patrick
Saturday, March 10th at 7:30
Steve Bellwood is a madman; knowledgeable and irreverent, with a gift of wordplay that belies his British roots and plants him firmly in the tradition of wit and whimsy that defines Irish literature. So when he handed me the first draft of By the Heirs of St. Patrick my first task was to stop laughing. My second was to call him and tell him I wanted to do it.
Bellwood calls Heirs "An Irish Commedica Eclectica Profundis with the Ballygas All Blarney and Blatherin Dramatics, Poetics and Phonetics Club", a community theatre group that meets annually in a Ballygas tavern, butchering the Irish classics on the day of the grand parade. The send-ups show no mercy to such titles as Synge's Playboy of the Western World and O'Neill's Long Days Journey Into Night. But, while a quick perusal of these texts wouldn't hurt, the comedy stands on its own on the shoulders of wacky inhabitants of the tavern, the blue collar members of the acting company; a rag-tag batch of wannabees including two sets of twins to delight and confuse both the audience and themselves.
The cast includes (from Left to right) Norman Allen, Barbara Ellen Stuart, Damien Langan, Nadine Willig, Tom Zingarelli, Joe Rinaldi and Joanna Keylock.
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Excerpts from the Newtown Bee Theater Review: "Seascape" by Edward Albee
By Julie Stern
The Alexandria Room was packed, with an extra row of chairs set up at the last minute. Word had gotten out that the Stray Kats Theater productions of live play readings by Equity professionals are a good bet for a Saturday night's entertainment.....
Seascape, which won Albee the Pulitzer Prize back in 1975, is perhaps his funniest play, and certain one with a happier ending than say Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, or Tiny Alice. Obviously surrealistic, a sort of Thurber-esque fable, it deals with transitional stages in life, and the fear and anxiety attendant upon leaving familiar patterns and structures in order to strike out for something new....
The whole result was entertaining and enjoyable, with just enough food for thought mixed in with the comedy to send the audience home talking....
Up there with the Friends of Music chamber concerts, Stray Kats is a welcome addition to the way the old Town Hall can be used for the cultural benefit of the town. It deserves to be supported, and is well worth the price of a ticket- which, for live professional quality entertainment, is supremely reasonable.
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Gift Certicicates Available
Need a gift for a Birthday? Anniversary? For any occasion, how about giving an evening at the theatre?
Consider a Gift Certificate to Stray Kats Theatre Company! One-size fits all!
Just click on the picture of the gift certificate to go to our order page.
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About Us
Stray Kats is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization dedicating to promoting thought-provoking, high-quality theatrical content.
Contact us: 203-514-2221 or info@straykatstheatrecompany.org
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