Panida Playhouse introduces dinner theater
The Panida Playhouse introduces dinner theater to the stage at the Little Theater on the last Tuesday and Thursday of each month. Entertainment will rotate between live theater or a special cinema production.
Kicking off the special production this month will be two live one-act plays — “Karma Comes Calling” and “Press Reset” — written by talented playwright, Teresa Pesche. Think “Twilight Zone” meets “Friends”.
The area’s cream of the crop talent will perform and a catered dinner will be served. Patrons will enjoy dinner followed by the performance and dessert.
There’s simply something special about live performance and whether it’s date night or come enjoy theater with your friends night it’s an experience like no other.
We’ve watched the talented Michael Bigley in many local productions and he brings his directing talents to this performance. He is joined by a talented cast.
Tick-ets must be purchased in advance due to the catered dinner and can be purchased online at www.panida.org
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In “Hologram for the King”, cultures collide when an American businessman Alan (Tom Hanks) is sent to Saudi Arabia to close what he hopes will be the deal of a lifetime.
Baffled by local customs and stymied by an opaque bureaucracy, he eventually finds his footing with the help of a wise-cracking taxi driver Yousef (Alexander Black) and a beautiful Saudi doctor Zahra (Sarita Choudhury). This adaptation of Dave Eggers’ lost-soul novel opens with Tom Hanks as he talk-sings the opening lyrics from “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads.
The film mixes images of his house, car and wife going up in a poof of purple smoke.
Hanks remains a great everyman, which means here he can be a wonderful outsider, a surrogate into our realizations or failures. To Hanks’ credit, the actor is also able to find empathy for a recession-era villain; every time Tywker randomly cuts back to the disturbing silences of Alan’s past life (standing in front of hundreds of workers, about to make a horrific announcement), our heart sinks with him. In some scenes he makes us laugh (when his chairs break, three times); in many others he simply welcomes us to feel small with him. Alan is one of Hanks’ less-flashy roles, but it largely confirms why we’ve made him such a central figure in American film acting and why we love watching him on the big screen.
Playing around Lost in the ’50s events this weekend and continued next week. Rated R (for some sexuality/nudity, language and brief drug use).
Friday, May 20 8:30 p.m.; Saturday, May 21, 5:30 p.m.; Sunday, May 22, 3:30 p.m., Friday, May 27, 5:15 p.m., and Saturday, May 28, 3:30 p.m.