Main St. 56 Theater

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It's just a typical Prohibition-era night at Ruth's Speakeasy, where you can find the best moonshine and jazz singers in town before one of the patrons is murdered.

To solve this crime, the cast of Batavia Players needs your help.

"Murder at the Speakeasy" is an immersive and interactive murder mystery and scavenger hunt.

Audiences are encouraged to register in teams of up to four people each and dress in period-correct costumes.

Ruth's is a place with simple rules -- no business and no guns.  It is the haunt of gangsters, crooked cops, businessmen, and rising stars. The perfect environment for betrayal, vengeance, greed, and, ultimately, murder.

Who done it: the crooked police chief? The sultry jazz singer? A scorned woman?

You and your companions will have to figure it out.

You will be provided clue questions to ask the possible suspects and a map of all the local places the suspects hang out so you can track them down and find the clues.  

The adventure begins at check-in. Audience members will receive the secret password to gain entry to the Speakeasy.  Upon entry, they will meet the host of characters, and that's when the game begins. Sleuths must keep their eyes and ears open for any hints that might be dropped.  

The scene will unfold, the murder will happen, and then the questioning begins. Then the audience is released to follow the leads and track down the clues scattered throughout Batavia's local business community.  When the audience returns, the members will cast ballots for who they suspect is the likely killer before reentering the Speakeasy to see if they got the details right.

There are prizes supplied by local businesses.

Batavia Players encourage audience members to take pictures and post to social media but they ask, "please, however, at no time share the solution so the other groups can have the pleasure of solving the crime on their own."

The show is Saturday at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. at Main St. 56 Theater in Downtown Batavia.

Tickets are $30 per person or $100 for a team of four people. For tickets, click here.

Photos by Howard Owens.

“The Whirligig of Time,” the newest production from the Batavia Players at Main St. 56 Theater, melds the fantasy of time travel with the magic of William Shakespeare to captivate an audience's imagination.

Written by Rick Bingen, Whirligig (itself a reference to a line in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night), the play is the story of a woman who visits London on vacation and then returns to complete the journey he longed to take before they returned home. Her husband, a software engineer obsessed with Shakespeare, had planned a visit to a tavern known for its authentic recreation of a watering hole from the Bard's time. Alas, when they arrive on that last night, the tavern is closed.  

The husband begs his wife, Olivia (another allusion to the Twelfth Night), to stay in London a few more days and catch another flight home. After all, he argues, you never know if their plane might roll off the runway or he might die of boredom in his job.

After he passes, Olivia returns to London and that tavern. After a brief visit to contemporary times, she is magically transported back four centuries and meets Shakespeare and his friends and associates, Richard Burbage, Will Kemp, Rebecca Heminges, and John Heminges.

Photos by Howard Owens.

Click here for more information or to purchase tickets!

Four friends who have a lot to say, and they say it through song -- sharing their stories, their ups and their downs, and their secrets -- is the motif that makes Four the Record, a cabaret show, an entertaining show at Main St. 56 Theater this weekend.

The four-person cast features four Harvie Award winners: Deacon Smith, Jocelyn Coburn (not available for photos), Sarah Hill and Sophie Houseman.

The show opens on Friday at 7:30 p.m., with performances on Saturday at 7:30 and on Sunday at 2 p.m.

To purchase tickets, click HERE.

Friday and Saturday evenings, and Sunday afternoon, theater goers can take a special Valentine's moment to explore along with Batavia Players the nuances of love.

The play "Love Lines" was written by Patrick D. Burk, who is also the director of the production, and Vincent M. Gauteri.

The production is described as "a celebration of love and how people fall in love currently or in the past; there are special moments from real people and real-life situations."

Show times are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and  2 p.m. on Sunday, at the Main St. 56 Theater in Batavia City Centre.

For more information or tickets, visit bataviaplayers.org.

Submitted photos.

Click here to purchase your tickets today!

It’s perhaps an unusual title, emphasizing Broadway favorites with a title of "Do Not Sing List, and the “Not” has a red slash through it. So are these to be sung or not?

Director Sophie Houseman, a seemingly jack-of-all-trades when it comes to theater according to her resume, explains the mystic cabaret title of this weekend’s show.

“The ‘Do Not Sing List’ of musical theater is something that I have heard talked about much too frequently during my college education and my continuing path through community and semi-professional theater,” she said. “It is a list that I have always battled with when auditioning myself. Technically, the list is full of songs that agents, directors and other top decision-makers would advise against auditioning with.”

She listed examples of songs that boast about the performer, include profanity, sexual innuendo, rope in one or more people for a duet or ensemble, songs that are “massively over-performed, under-rated, tied to a certain demographic or songs that have such a strong connection to a particularly famous performance that you are unlikely to measure up.”

Ah, that makes the title make a little more sense. The show goes on at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Main St. 56 Theater at Batavia City Centre, Batavia. 

Batavia Players will present the cabaret showcase of the “most memorable melodies from your favorite Broadway shows, new and old, and some fantastic songs you are perhaps yet to hear.” 

Houseman is a versatile participant, with a portfolio listing her as a performer, artistic staff, teacher, actor, dancer, singer, director and musical director, choreographer, music teacher, and vocal coach.

The mezzo-soprano said that, despite all of the pitfalls of the typical audition guidelines for songs, for this weekend’s cabaret, “we are fighting against many of these taboos.”  

“We are tackling the notion that you cannot perform a song if 128 other people are singing it in the same audition room and choosing to express an emotion and tell a story that we think is important, regardless of any connotation attached to it,” she said. “These performers have really taken these songs and used this opportunity to make them different, to stand out from the crowd and really make everyone question why they shouldn’t be performed. They have been dedicated, honest and, frankly, inspirational in their approaches to the material and in their final performances. I thank them deeply for that.”

Furthermore, she said, the troupe of vocalists is taking this two-night opportunity to perform songs  “we think should be banned from the banned list.”

Clever, though, that she didn’t answer the question of what songs would actually be included in the show. To find out, tickets are $18 for adults, $16 for students and seniors, and may be purchased at bataviaplayers.org

Photos by Nick Serrata.

A wandering band of nomadic thespians has finally arrived home.

For the first time since the late 1960s, when the troupe abandoned the dilapidated Playhouse at Horseshoe Lake, the Batavia Players has a theater to call its own.

The Players staged its first show on Friday night at the new Main St. 56 Theater in City Centre.

Norm Argulsky, board secretary, prop manager, and house manager, said the opening of the new theater is a dream fulfilled for the entire group.

"At long last, we are finally in a theater that we really want to be in," Argulsky said as patrons filled the lobby waiting to enter the first performance of Cry Baby, The Musical, performed by members of the Summer Youth Theater. "This is it for pretty good Players. We're going to be here permanently. We have a home. We have a lovely theater. We have a great group of people working for us. They have worked very, very hard, extremely hard in order to have this come to fruition, and it finally did. I mean, we never thought it would happen. And now here we are, opening night. I feel like Broadway."

And Board President Pat Burk said the success of the opening night was a pleasant surprise.

"(Opening night) went extremely well," Burk said. "I was very surprised that we had our biggest audience in quite a few years.  We were excited that the audience had such a great reaction to the show."

Batavia Players is transforming (the project is far from complete) more than 14,000 square feet of former medical office space into a lobby, theater, dressing rooms, prop rooms, and office space at a cost of more than $1 million.

The project is made possibly largely through a portion of the Downtown Revitalization Grant awarded to the city by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2017.

Batavia Players received $701,750 from the pot of $10 million in grant money awarded to various Downtown projects.   In 2020, the group was also awarded $417,000 from the New York Street Anchor Grant Program.

To complete the project, the Players still need to raise $265,000 from private donors. So far they've raised $41,000 (to make a donation, visit bataviaplayers.org).

Argulsky couldn't be more pleased with how things have turned out so far, though he's already running out of prop and costume space, he said.

"I love the theater, the actual theater. The theater is wonderful," Argulsky said. "I'm looking at my costume room, and I'm saying I don't think I have enough room. But the theater is absolutely great. I mean, the sightlines I've sat all over. I've been able to see the different perspectives from the seats, and there's not a bad seat in the house. So I think the audience will like it. I like the fact that there are wider seats, which are not going to be touching the shoulder of somebody else. And the sightlines are great. The sound is great. So I think everybody is going to enjoy being here."

The initial reviews from the first-night patrons standing in the lobby were positive.

Carol and Dave Waples drove from Spencerport for the opening and described themselves as big supporters of Batavia Players.

They love the fact that the new theater is downtown and were impressed with the overall ambience.

"Oh my gosh, unbelievable," Carol said. "I couldn't wait to get in here. We were so so excited about this. Yeah, it's very, very, very nice. Very impressive from what we've seen."

Co-workers Vicky Muckle and Lisa Casey teamed up to attend opening night. Muckle said she was also there to support a friend, Paige Sikorsky, who was appearing in the show.

"It's a definite improvement over the last place they were at, so I'm excited to get inside," Muckle said. 

Casey praised the project for "bringing life back to this area."

They had dinner downtown before the show and said that's the value of building the theater in downtown Batavia.

"You figure the DRI money was awarded in 2017, and now it's 2023, so to see it actually happening is really cool," said Casey, who worked in the City Manager's Office when the DRI award was announced. "I'm super excited. I didn't think I was to be here for the first actual show, so Vicki bought my ticket, and I'm so excited.

Except for that brief period at Horseshoe Lake in the 1960s, Batavia Players has never had a space it could really call its own.  

The Players were founded in 1931 by Ethel McIntosh, a Latin teacher at Batavia High School, and was comprised of 25 members to start. Their first production was "Beggar on Horseback" at Batavia High School (now the Middle School).  Until the 1960s, the Players performed shows at the New Family Theater on Main Street and in school auditoriums.

After abandoning the Playhouse, the Batavia Players almost disappeared until Wanda Frank helped revive the group.  When the school district started raising rental prices, the Treadway Motor Inn offered performance space as part of a dinner theater. In that era, they also performed at the newly constructed Genesee Community College campus.  In the following decades, the Batavia Players staged shows at schools and churches until renting space at the Harvester Center a few years ago.

(History Source: History of the City of Batavia by Ruth M. McEvoy.)

Cast members and leaders of Batavia Players' Summer Youth Theater want you to grab a seat for their production of “Cry Baby, The Musical,” this weekend, and the only question is: just where will that seat be?

Director Patrick Burk has been teasing the community’s curiosity with the debut of this show, via the sign outside of City Centre and an online post about the long-awaited opening of the new Main St. 56 Theater. 

"We have done a great job, thanks to our community, raising needed funds for seating so that we could open the theater for our summer program.  We still have a lot of work to do to complete the overall project.  We are at approximately $41,000 of our $265,000 goal," Burk said Wednesday. "It is our hope that the community will continually support this fundraising effort so that we can complete the project by the New Year."

Even by Burk’s own recounting of the process, it’s been a long, arduous journey of paperwork, grant applications, construction details, COVID delays, increased labor and raw material costs, and, most importantly — fundraising, fundraising, fundraising. 

"Much of the funds we raised paid for rent, interest, insurance and utilities while the project was on hold during Covid.  Now, we have to raise all that funding again to finish the project. We have had a huge outpouring of donated materials and sweat equity from a number of individuals and local companies. More is needed," he said. "It is our hope that the community will look at this beautiful facility and donate to make it happen."

In May, Burk was at best hopeful for a September splash of the new downtown theater at Batavia City Centre. Batavia Players ramped up a “Be My Guest” campaign seeking donations of any amount to help pay for theater amenities, such as that seat you’re going to hunker down in to watch this musical billed as a rebellious teen comedy based on the 1990 film “Cry-Baby.”

"We are very excited to be opening this weekend with the cult classic 'Cry Baby' and present to the community this highly entertaining and fantastic production," Burk said.  "Our cast is amazing."

Based in 1954, when everyone likes Ike, nobody likes communism, and Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker is the coolest boy in Baltimore, this show features a bad boy with a good cause: truth, justice and the pursuit of rock and roll. 

Wade and the square rich girl, Allison, are star-crossed lovers at the center of this world, with plenty of detractors and distractions to get in the way for a fun plot. Or, as the show’s website states: It's Romeo and Juliet meets High School Hellcats.

“Filled with unforgettable songs and a truly unique and fresh story, Cry-Baby is a perfect choice for any theatre looking to add a-rockin' good time to their season,” the site states. “Cry-Baby, Allison and Baltimore's energetic juvenile delinquents will dance their way right into your audience's heart!”

Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and at 2 p.m. Sunday at 56 Main St., Batavia. 

Tickets are $18 for adults, $16 for students and seniors. Go HERE to purchase. 

It won’t matter if your back is turned when a loud, boisterous character bounds onto the scene of Batavia Players’ weekend show “The Drowsy Chaperone.” You’ll know who it is each and every time without looking because Adolpho, aka Qasim Huzair, enjoys the spotlight and wants to make sure his audience equally enjoys his enthusiasm.

“I actually feed off of people that are sitting right in front of me. That boosts me as an actor because I can play off of them more because when I'm this close to an audience, I tend to involve the audience so much more. And it doesn't make me uncomfortable like it would with some other actors. I really like it, actually, being able to look directly at audience members and make them feel uncomfortable,” the 19-year-old actor said just before rehearsal Wednesday evening at Batavia City Centre. “I enjoy having an audience.”

Now don’t get all nervous about him staring you down. He means it in the nicest way. After all, comedy’s his thing, not intimidation. And playing the lovable paradoxical character of a dark-haired Latino who believes he can get any woman yet does “really stupid things” is an amusing part of Adolpho’s charm.

Why not see for yourself at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday or at 2 p.m. Sunday on the Batavia City Centre stage in downtown Batavia?

Ever since his first role as Uncle Fester in “The Addams Family,” Huzair — and his high school play director — knew he was headed for comedic acting. In fact, the director encouraged Huzair, a theater arts major at Genesee Community College, to pursue the funnier side of acting, which he has done ever since.

So with those two attributes going for him — a love of the spotlight and comedy — what else could he be pursuing?

“As far as an end goal, it would be really nice to get into maybe a TV show setting or film. Like as a stable job through a TV show,” he said. “Of course, I would also love to be in professional stage casts, I like all sorts of acting, straight play acting, musical acting, film acting, whatever gets my foot through the door. I’ve just got to stick with it.”

After GCC, he’ll be applying to several four-year colleges for a bachelor’s in fine arts and a minor in music education. The minor is for his Plan B to be a music teacher, though with a strategy to go on multiple auditions in New York City a year from now, it kind of sounds as if Plan B has been stored away for a while.

“Of course, when you first start out, you can't get an agent. But I'm hoping with exposure and going to a four-year college, a lot of four years theater schools offer the opportunity to perform and have a showcase in front of an audience of agents,” he said. “I’m hoping that I can get an agent from one of those opportunities.”

To boost his backup plan, he plays the sax.

A newcomer to Batavia Players, Huzair’s debut was for its last show and his first experience with being up close and very personal on stage with the cast and patrons. While such proximity has certainly unnerved actors a time or two, it fits Adolpho’s style and allows him to slide into the audience rather ceremoniously. He’s not one to tip-toe.

“He is very funny. That’s why I auditioned for him,” Huzair said. “He sings this one song, and it’s hilarious. I love making an audience laugh. When I play off an audience, it gives me more energy.”

Hence, the looking into people’s eyes up on stage thing. He’s unabashedly fearless to make that human connection. So what’s this young actor — who got so carried away as a kid that the director warned him to tone it down because he wasn’t supposed to be drawing all the attention away from the lead  — like off stage?

“When people get to know me, I’m very obnoxious. I’m always practicing my comedy on my family,” he said. “As a person, I’m always trying to make people laugh.”

Adolpho is the stereotypical Latin lover, he said, holding a "rose in his teeth very pompous" type of guy, yet is also very oblivious in that “he doesn’t get basic concepts.” Adolpho is convinced that he could get any woman that he wants, his alter-ego said.

“He's very confident,” Huzair said. “But what's the ironic part about it is his character is very stupid.”

Well-spoken and articulate, Huzair doesn’t exactly mirror that description. He described the show, which neither he nor fellow actor Jeriko Nemeth sitting nearby had ever seen before. 

A comical farce based in a man’s living room, the premise puts the audience in the room with the character aptly titled “man in chair.” He listens to a recording of a fictional 1928 comedy, and the characters begin to appear in his sad, dingy apartment, bringing to life his meager existence into an impressive Broadway performance.

Intriguing set-up, yes? Add to it glitzy costumes, sparkly furniture, painted backdrops, lively personalities — Broadway producer Feldzieg, flapper Kitty, aging hostess Mrs. Tottendale, two gangsters-in-hiding as pastry chefs, and Nemeth’s Amelia Earhart-like pilot character, to name just some of the living room troupe.

Equipment failures starts and stops that freeze the action, a plane trip, wedding plans for four couples, Janet, the alcoholic chaperone who talks of being drowsy (there’s your title), and a line-up of musical numbers that will move this production happily along to “Love is Always Lovely in the End.”

Nemeth, another GCC theater student who is pursuing a creative arts degree, auditioned for Trix the Aviatrix. She was drawn to the characteristics of Trix.

“She is the big black female role,” Nemeth, 18, said. “She always has a smile on her face. It’s definitely an acting job, I can’t relate to, being a pilot ... being in the sky and being in Rio. I’ve never been on a plane before.”

Nemeth has enjoyed being part of the show and a creative environment. Ever since she was a child, painting and drawing were her favorite activities, she said. Then came a fondness for acting, with her first role in “Mama Mia.”

“I ended up having this love for stepping out of my real life and going into something that I can at least forget about everything else for a good couple hours,” she said. “As my character of Trix, since she's a pilot, she has very heavy clothing. I do wear a leather jacket on stage as well as like a heavy cab, and it’s just so sweaty. But that's honestly, my only struggle with the character is just the heat. But you learn to get through it.”

While describing the show, Huzair paused to question why he or many others haven’t seen it before. It’s pretty darned funny.

“This show is short and sweet, not too long. It’s a short little time of fun,” he said. “Chock full of jokes and laughter, acting and singing, all those aspects are put together, it’s a very entertaining show. I don’t know why it’s not more well-known.”

Tickets are $18 for adults and $16 for students and seniors, and may be purchased at showtix4u.com.

Photos by Howard Owens.

Batavia Players premier A Cabaret Showcase: Opposites Attract at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Main St. 56 Theater in City Centre, Batavia.

The show is a smorgasbord of songs showcasing true opposites -- love and hate, dead and alive, in and out, big and small, and more.  All of the songs come from popular Broadway shows.

The show goes on again at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. 

Tickets are $18 for adults and $16 for seniors and students.

Photos by Howard Owens.