By GREGORY ZELLER //
From the Off-Off-Broadway file comes Nassau County’s only professional theater company and its new venue, picking up where a community-theater group last bowed out.
Welcome to the Elmont Memorial Library Theatre, now the home of Plaza AEA Productions, a professional theater group aiming to leverage its proximity to the Great White Way and fan the flames of Long Island’s long-running love affair with musical theater.
The professional company (essentially meaning cast and crew are paid for their efforts, as opposed to mostly voluntary community-theater productions) is led by Kevin Harrington, director of Lynbrook-based Plaza Theatrical, a circa-1982 nonprofit that’s famous throughout Greater New York for a full playbill of acclaimed musicals, children’s theatre and arts-in-education productions.
Plaza AEA Productions is Plaza Theatrical’s “professional Broadway division,” according to Harrington, who means that literally.
Kevin Harrington: Stage right.
The “only professional Long Island theatre dedicated exclusively to the preservation and development of musical theatre” will collaborate with Manhattan-based casting directors and even stage a few rehearsals in the Big Apple, the director said.
And it will further differentiate itself from community-theater productions, which lean largely on local talent, by welcoming contributors from coast to coast.
“Since we employ Manhattan casting directors, we get submissions from everywhere,” Harrington noted. “We have two people [in an upcoming production] who traveled from Ohio to be in our production.
“The talent mostly comes from Manhattan,” the director added. “Though, on occasion, we do have people from Long Island.”
That includes Island actress Ellisha Marie, who fills a featured roll in Plaza AEA’s production of “The Color Purple,” which premiered May 21 and is scheduled to run through mid-June. The musical version of American author Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel marks the professional company’s first production since it moved into the 392-seat Elmont Memorial Library Theatre late last year.
The state-of-the-art theater – orchestra pit, spacious lobby, the works – is ideal for the professional company’s Broadway-level spotlights, according to Harrington.
Role model: After gracing “Ghost,” Long Island’s Ellisha Marie now deepens “The Color Purple.”
“The previous theater company was a community-theater group that went bankrupt during the pandemic,” he told Innovate Long Island. “So, we became the theater company in residence.”
Plaza AEA is currently negotiating with licensing houses for the rights to various titles and plans to announce the remainder of its 2022-23 season before the start of summer. There’s no official word on how the professional company might follow up its three-week run of “The Color Purple,” but according to Harrington, it’s looking to pack the season with “classic Broadway musicals, a Nassau County premier and some contemporary musicals to appeal to a diverse audience.”
“It’s another option to going into the city, especially in this day and age when ticket prices are high,” the veteran director said. “You add transportation into the city, dining in the city … it becomes a very expensive evening out.
“This is an option for Long Island residents to enjoy something local, that’s also high-caliber.”
I look forward to coming back