Spring play buffet

>> Take your pick from the Virgin Mary to Peter Pan

by AMY BARRATT

As we gradually recover from the Easter feasting and bad Jesus specials on TV, get ready to focus on another member of the family in The Mary Project, opening tonight, April 19, at Infinitheatre. This eagerly awaited collaboration between Ann Lambert and Laura Mitchell is based on one of those weeping statue incidents: a South Shore community is overrun with pilgrims after a statue of Mary supposedly produces tears. Seven women named Mary and one man, John, find themselves effectively trapped in a casse-croute. All of them have stories, but one has a real bombshell to drop.

This is a more than usually ambitious project for the tiny Infinite space. Set and costumes are by graduating Concordia design students Jackie Chau and Sarah Blumel. Lighting and Sound designer Benoit Beauchamp used to work on raves. He'll have to scale it down a bit here. The play also features original music by Choeur Maha director Cathy Richards. It's directed by Rachael Van Fossen, who teaches at Concordia and was recently appointed Artistic Director of Black Theatre Workshop. The Mary Project runs through April 29, tickets are a bargain at $5 for Infini members, $10 for non-members. Call 987-1774, #104 to reserve.

Get down and Boogie

Black Theatre Workshop, forever struggling with a lack of funding, is not producing a show of its own this spring. Instead, they've brought in Stockholm(e) from Toronto. This one-man show won a Best Male Performance Dora award for playwright-performer Boogie Marshall. It runs April 20-May 6 at the MAI. Tickets are $15, $10 for students and group rate. Call 932-1104 or 982-3386 to reserve.

As part of their play development initiative, The Next Stage, BTW will also be presenting rehearsed readings of three new plays at Infinitheatre in May. Of particular interest is Solibo Magnifique, by Franck-Joseph Sylvestre and Muriel de Zangroniz, performed in French in collaboration with the innovative Théâtre qui monstre énormément. That's on May 8. The Art of Thinking and Blacks Don't Bowl follow on May 9 and 10 respectively. Call 932-1104 for Next Stage bookings.

Fly me to the moon

I thought my comments about Cathy Rigby as Peter Pan had come back to haunt me when I saw the press release from John Abbott College about their upcoming production of the J.M. Barrie classic. But it seems that the Peter Pan being presented by the second- and third-year acting students starting tonight, April 19, bears little resemblance to the Broadway version (on video) that holds my three year old so inexplicably enthralled. John Abbott is going with an adaptation by John Caird and Trevor Nunn that first saw light at England's Royal National Theatre. Though their version incorporates a few songs, it's not really a musical but don't worry, there will be flying. The theatre department has arranged with Foy, the Las Vegas-based company that engineered the flying scenes in London and on Broadway, to send equipment, personnel and, possibly, fairy dust, to help their limber young CÉGEP students get airborne. The RNT production ran over three hours, but the folks at John Abbott have cut it down to two hours, 15 minutes.

And for those who can't get enough of British kiddie musicals, Centaur's crowd-pleasing Oliver! has been extended to April 29. Some tickets may still be available at 288-3161.

Peter Pan runs to May 12 at the Casgrain Theatre of John Abbott College. Tickets are $12, $8 for students and seniors. Reserve at 457-2447 or 457-6610, #425 or 426