You’ll want to catch magician Anthony Reed in performances today and tomorrow at annual Playhouse in the Park fundraiser Abracadabra! His double levitation is gorgeous, we get an eagle-eye view of his sleight-of-hand via a big screen and his show-closing water tank escape/grand illusion is a jaw dropper.

Last night’s gala was faboo. Best dressed – well, it’s always hands-down when Vic Morgan in the room. The Cincinnati Ballet artistic director was looking totally Ginger Rogers in a white satin number with a drop-dead bare back. Where’s Astaire when you need him? Ms. Morgan cut a rug with gala chairwoman Moe Rouse, who even got on stage with the band. Once a rocker, always a rocker.

New Contemporary Arts Center director and chief curator Raphaela Platow also flashed her footwork while – can I possibly have witnessed a small food fight between Playhouse producing artistic director Ed Stern and wife Anne? (I’m sure he deserved it.)

Nearby, Gary Sandy was doing some serious jitter-bugging, dapper in a bowling shirt. Could he have been subtly advertising upcoming Ensemble entry “More Fun Than Bowling”? Sandy’s a frequent onstage visitor and accompanied Ensemble artistic director D. Lynn Meyers to the Playhouse bash.

The last time I say Sandy, he was committing murder (in June, onstage at the first annual “Discovering New Mysteries” International Mystery Writers’ Festival in Owensboro, Ky.) He was starring in the late Ed McBain’s only play, “Final Curtain.” At the time noted the difficulties of working on a new script by a dead author (hard to discuss desired script changes via Ouija board) and we both discovered the Moonlite Bar-B-Que. (See “Road Food” for in-depth details.) Talk about to die for.

Sandy happily reports he’ll pend autumn in Kansas City starring in the American premiere of a farce by so-prolific Brit playwright Ray Cooney. Maybe he’ll bump into Playhouse associate artistic director Michael Haney, who’s opening the Kansas City Rep season with Theresa Rebeck’s “Bad Dates.” Haney directed the one-woman show at Playhouse a couple of seasons back and scored a box office hit.

On to an evening with Bernadette Peters.

Jackie Demaline 

posted by CinStages Buzz  # PermaLink 12:57 PM