Ryan Kelly and Orville McCarter


Margaret Folwell and Anthony Mondella

Sunday April 10, 2005
Staten Island Advance - BACKSTAGE
MICHAEL FRESSOLA
Ferry Tales
How come it took 14 years to rebuild the Whitehall ferry terminal (and the new escalators don't even work)... but WHEN THEY WANTED A STADIUM, it went up in 18 months?!

No line in "Scenes from the Staten Island Ferry 05" last week brought down the house so loudly as this one. It's from "Whadda Ya Gonna Do?" a short commuter rant written by Joseph Daly, a veteran actor/director who clearly grasps the local score.

(Yes, Whitehall caught fire in 1991 but wasn't rebuilt until earlier this year, 14 years later, and still isn't in perfect order. By comparison the Staten Island Yankees Stadium in St. George went up in a year and a half – practically overnight).

None of the other five short scenarios in "Scenes" had quite so much local color as "Whadda Ya Gonna Do." Other participating playwrights dramatized encounters aboard a boat that was reproduced in shipshape splendor on the Veterans Memorial Hall stage by designer Melanie Smock.

The whole enterprise gets funnier and better-written every year according to Susan Fenley, whose Sundog Theatre Company co-produced the show with Snug Harbor Cultural Center. 'We're learning, too," she said. 'We know what to weed out and what to encourage."

For "Scenes," playwrights agree to write a short script, actors agree to act in it, and directors agree to direct it, all in a 24-hour period that begins at sea, aboard the boat. A 2006 edition is planned.


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