New Year’s Laughin’ Eve
Laugh in the New Year with New Year’s Laughin’ Eve at Theatre Three, 412 Main St., Port Jefferson at 6 p.m. and again at 8 p.m. Now in its 13th year, the lineup will include Eric Haft, Joe DeVito and a surprise guest comedian. Hosted by Paul Anthony. Tickets for the early bird show are $50, tickets to the prime time show are $65. To order, call 928-9100 or visit www.theatrethree.com.
By Melissa Arnold
Putting on a stage production is about so much more than actors and musicians. The staff working behind the scenes — stage managers, set builders, makeup artists and costume designers — are just as important, and their skills can make the difference between an excellent show and a mediocre one.
Costume designer Jason Allyn is all about going the extra mile to create the perfect outfit, down to the jewelry, fine detail work and sequins. He sat down recently to talk about the costume design process and his new stage home at Theatre Three in Port Jefferson.
When did you first become interested in costume design?
My mother took me to musicals when I was young, and she was also a seamstress. As for me, I’m a huge comic book nerd, a big Marvel and DC Comics nut. As a kid, I loved the stories and the heroes, but I also loved their costumes! Since I knew how to sew from my mom, I would make and recreate those outfits because I wanted to be them. But I never had the thought of wanting to be a costume designer, at least not at that time.
So when did you start thinking about making it your career?
I did both theater and sports when I was growing up, and even worked at Theatre Three in high school. I went to college for musical theater, and we had to spend a certain number of credit hours on different parts of the process — acting, lighting, design. I found myself doing a lot of costume hours because of my natural love for fashion, period movies and sewing. I got a job working at a local theater as a director, and ended up designing some things. It snowballed from there, becoming a real love.
Why is costume design so important to a production?
It’s a piece of art, just like any other aspect of the show. People know when you’re giving them a bad product, and they know when you’re giving it your best effort.
How did you start working at Theatre Three?
My last job ended around the same time as the pandemic began. It was such a dark time for so many of us in theater, and I wasn’t sure I was ever going to be able to find work again. I began considering going in a different direction with my career. But then my best friend asked me to work with her on costuming a production of The Nutcracker, and after such a long time focusing on directing, it really rekindled my love for costuming.
I had borrowed a couple of pieces from Theatre Three, and when I went to the theater to return them I had a wonderful, two-hour conversation with [Theatre Three Executive Artistic Director] Jeffrey Sanzel. He ended up calling me some time later once the theater reopened and invited me to interview for their wardrobe supervisor position and I started work in August.
Tell us a bit about your process. How do you go about designing a costume?
First, I sit down and read the entire script, taking notes as I go. If it’s a musical, I listen to the original cast recording and sometimes try to find clips online to use as references. Some roles are very particular and iconic, like Maria’s white dress in West Side Story, which you really need to stick to. Other shows allow for the opportunity to design in the ways I feel would be most interesting. For example, I’m working on the costumes for Steel Magnolias right now for the spring, and the main character wears pink, but there is a lot of freedom there.
Jeff and I will sit down and talk about each character and my ideas. Sometimes I’ll sketch or bring in pictures of other looks I enjoy, and he’ll make suggestions or changes. It’s a collaborative process.
Where do you get the materials for the costumes?
Sometimes they are a part of my existing collection, other times we get them at thrift stores or I sew them. I dye pieces to get the right colors we need, and I love using wigs. I get my fabric from JoAnn’s, and the actors and staff are always excited to hear what I’m making next. With Barnaby Saves Christmas, I decided to use different styles for the boy and girl elves, with different colors and details to denote rank. It’s like creating an entire world.
Do you have a favorite fabric?
Cotton is great for children’s theater because it’s washable and doesn’t bleed — children’s shows are very active and so it’s important for the costumes to be durable and easy to care for. As for mainstage shows, it’s more about what would be appropriate for the period and setting of the show. I love confetti dot, as well as anything with sequins or a little glam. Sparkle really makes a costume pop and gives a great effect. There’s something about it as an audience member that’s exciting.
Do you have favorite shows you’ve done costuming for?
Nine the Musical, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Wizard of Oz, Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella are all on my list.
What do you love most about costuming?
Honestly, I love designing for women. Men are wonderful, but they’re simple — you put on a pair of pants and they’re good to go. But women come in so many different shapes, sizes and styles of dress. It’s all beautiful. There’s nothing that makes me happier than when a woman tries on her costume and says to me, “I feel so pretty!” or when a man says, “Wow, I feel great in this.” Everyone is gorgeous and deserves to feel that way. Each person is important and matters to me.
Beyond that, it’s a joy for me to be in the audience and watch the faces of audience members, especially children, when a character comes onto the stage.
What are you enjoying about working at Theatre Three?
It’s such a loving work environment. Everyone is so supportive of everyone else, and it’s a joy to be a part of that. After the pandemic, I truly didn’t think I was going to be able to work again. Jeff is a wonderful director to exchange ideas with — he truly listens and gives me the freedom to be creative, and it means the world to me that he likes my work.
I also love that I have my own workshop space there where I get to spread my wings and be creative. They even painted it purple for me and embrace how obsessive I am about organization. It’s my dream job!
Comsewogue Public Library, 170 Terryville Road, Port Jefferson Station will screen a series of holiday movies from Dec. 27 to Dec. 30 at 2 p.m. Join them for Elf on Dec. 27, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on Dec. 28, It’s a Wonderful Life on Dec. 29 and Miracle on 34th Street on Dec. 30. Open to all. Advance registration is required as seating is limited. To register, visit www.cplib.org or call 928-1212.
By Allan Varela
The very successful 25th celebration of Port Jefferson’s Charles Dickens Festival has come to a close for this year, with energetic plans already in the works for the 26th celebration in 2022. Sadly, one of the many bright spots of the event, Santa’s Workshop, will not be returning. The historic Phillips Roe House, aka the Drowned Meadow House located on the corner of Barnum Avenue and West Broadway, which has played host to the workshop all these years, is officially becoming a year-round museum.
For the last seven Charles Dickens Festivals, Santa Claus and his elves came to life through the tireless work of the acclaimed confection artist Pat Darling. The whimsical workshop has welcomed both the young and young at heart to step back in time and reflect on the storybook charm of cherished memories of an era that has quietly faded.
Snowflakes glistening high above the elaborate confection nutcrackers and giant turrets that have adorned the beautiful displays throughout the workshop area set the mood, while children were greeted by sugar trees and toy soldiers.
The wonderment continued into Hollyberry’s bedroom, an elaborate vignette that featured Hollyberry anticipating the night before Christmas as she busily wrapped presents. The nightscape background featured Santa in his sleigh high in the night sky, coming to visit the workshop.
And visit he did, as the third room presented the real live Santa in all his glory, sitting in a giant arched chair as he greeted families. Smiles and happiness are the legacy of this special exhibit.
Pat Darling has charmed literally thousands of people over the years with her creative vision, inspiring execution and attention to detail that made Santa’s Workshop such a very special happening for the Dickens Festival. The workshop will be sorely missed, but the community at large will be eternally grateful for Ms. Darling’s resolute efforts.
Allan Varela serves as chair for the Greater Port Jefferson-Northern Brookhaven Arts Council which hosts the Port Jefferson Charles Dickens Festival.
SILVER BELLS
Gerard Romano of Port Jefferson Station was out with his camera on Dec. 17 ‘looking for something appropriate for the season’ when he spied these pretty bells adorning the door of the Belle Terre Village Hall and took the perfect shot. Happy Holidays!
Send your Photo of the Week to [email protected]
With Christmas this weekend, families are looking to get together for some quality time.
Last Christmas, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, people quarantined with just those in their households. It was lonely for some, but they stayed safe, away from contact with other people.
Then 2021 came around and with the vaccines we saw some hope — we began slowly peeling off our masks and traveling again. Families became reunited.
But unfortunately, that was premature and now Suffolk County is at a 14% positivity rate as of Tuesday, Dec. 21.
To put it in perspective, municipalities across New York state were shut down at 5% in the spring of 2020. We have doubled the seven-day average compared to where we were at that time and have not shut down.
And there are reasons for that. Luckily more than a year-and-a-half later we have the vaccines, we have boosters and we know that masks work — we just need to continue using them and continue using common sense.
It’s sad to think that this is the second Christmas where some families might not be able to see their loved ones out of fear. It’s sad that we as a country were doing well and now have fallen back into old habits of not taking care of ourselves and of others.
If we continue not to listen to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, our health care providers and the science,
Politicians insist we won’t go into lockdown, but what will happen if the infection rate goes to 20%? What will we do if the hospitals are overfilled again?
With the comfort we felt during this past summer, newly vaccinated with restrictions lifted, some might have forgotten what early 2020 looked like. Visits to grandparents were through a window. Restaurants were not allowed to have inside dining. Disinfectants and masks were impossible to find, while bodies were kept in outside trailers because the morgue was filled to capacity.
We don’t want to head back in that direction, especially with all of the resources now available to us. We have the vaccine, we have the booster, we have masks and we know how to combat this virus. We just need to collectively do it and not treat it lightly.
So, for this holiday season, and throughout the rest of the winter, please take care of yourself, take care of others and be cautious.
By Daniel Dunaief
He was a part of my wife’s family’s inner circle for years. He appeared at summer gatherings and at significant family events and celebrations.
With his white hair, his signature smile and a Polish accent that seemed as fresh in each conversation as it likely was the first time he arrived in the United States, Carl wandered in and out of conversations and rooms, often smiling and always listening.
He seemed as comfortable in his own skin as anyone I’d ever met, paying close attention to his wife, interacting with his children and grandchildren and soaking up life the way everyone around him soaked up the warm rays of the sun.
Carl watched one day almost 20 years ago when my daughter got too close to the pool’s edge, falling in before she could swim. I immediately jumped off the diving board and brought her back up, where, as I dried her off, she protested that it took too long for me to get her.
When my daughter felt comfortable and confident enough to walk away from me, Carl waited for me to make eye contact.
“That’s what you do when you’re a father,” he smiled.
I nodded and sighed while my blood pressure and pulse returned to normal.
Several times over the years, Carl and I sat next to each other, sharing buffet-style meals of chicken kebobs, pasta, and filets.
Carl didn’t have the numbers tattooed on his arm, but I knew some of the story of his life. I didn’t want to bother him or upset him with a discussion of what was a painful and difficult period.
Once, when we were alone inside a screened-in area, I raised the topic.
“Hey, Carl, I understand you survived the holocaust,” I said.
When he looked me in the eyes, he narrowed his lids slightly, processing what I said and, likely, trying to figure out whether he wanted to talk.
“It’s okay,” I said, immediately backing off. As a journalist, I have a tendency to ask questions. I recognize, however, the boundaries that exist during social interactions and with family and friends. I wanted to speak with him to hear about what had been an unspoken part of his life.
“Yes, I survived,” I said.
“How? Where?”
“In the woods,” he said. “I lived in the woods when the Nazis came.”
He described how he was so hungry that he ate leaves, bugs and bark. That, however, was far preferable to being caught by the Nazis, who had murdered the rest of his family. Carl had been a teenager when he escaped to the woods, avoiding Nazi guards who were always searching for people they deemed enemies and who they readily killed.
Surrounded by a collection of other people who might, at any given time, vanish forever, Carl survived for several years, emerging at the end of the war to try to restart a life shattered by violence and cruelty.
After a brief description of his experience, he told me how important he felt it was that people study the specifics of World War II and understand what really happened to him, his family and people in so many other countries. It angered him that people tried to ignore a history that took so much from him.
All those years later, Carl seemed so easy going and relaxed, so prepared to laugh and smile and to enjoy another bite of lunch or dinner.
Carl recently died. I’m sorry for the loss to his family. I’m glad to have known him and to have shared a few meals, a few smiles and a few stories. All those days, months and years of life, like initials carved into a tree, showed that he was, indeed, here and, having seen his family react and interact with him, that his life had meaning.
By Leah S. Dunaief
As the year draws to a close, I think of the Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” That would seem an apt description of the times we are living through today. Why do I say that? Let me count the ways.
For one, we have been tricked by the coronavirus. As spring faded into summer this year, we thought the pandemic was ebbing. We gathered in groups again, even without masks, visited relatives, returned to restaurants, went on vacations. Surprise! By the end of October, the virus started making itself felt again, by November, it was led by the new variant, Omicron, and now it commands the front page of newspapers and the top of the network and cable newscasts.
Yes, we have made impressive progress with vaccines and precautions, but society is still in the grip of the disease, still with some 30 percent of the population unvaccinated, still with those refusing to don masks, and now lined up not for inoculating but for testing. Testing and boosters are the new battle cry. Just as our grandparents, who were living through it, didn’t know when WWII would end, so we who are at war with the virus don’t know when the pandemic will fade into just another annoying wintertime contagion.
For another unprecedented way in recent memory that times are interesting, we have a country so divided and vehemently at odds that neighbors, friends and family members are afraid to talk politics with each other. It is such a contrast with the 9/11 era, when we all held doors open for each other, flew the American flag together and identified as one nation. “Democracy is at risk” is the new battle cry. And the threat of political violence and random shootings simmers just beneath the surface.
Meanwhile, worthy issues involving any sort of social safety net and how to provide money for them, like pre-school education and acceptable child care enabling parents to work, lie undebated in a symbolically divided Congress. It’s no wonder that the national birthrate for this past year is the lowest since 1979. That’s not just due to the pandemic but has been a trend for the last six years.
Climate change is another subject that has driven itself to top of mind this past year. Fires, the likes of which never before seen, also floods, tornadoes and melting ice caps have changed the face of the nation and have killed many residents.
And then there is racism, the shadow that has always loomed over the United States since its inception and has burst forth to claim attention across the country, spawning marches and protests. Is it better for bigotry to come out of the woodwork and be viewed in all its aspects in the clear light of day? Perhaps that is a necessary step for it to be ultimately eradicated. Until then, the atmosphere is bitter with recriminations.
There are some bright spots. Although the possibility of spiraling inflation has lately been a concern, unemployment is decidedly low and the economy has been growing. So has the stock market, while not the economy, is nonetheless a telltale of how their financial standing is perceived by residents. Stimulative monetary policy on the part of the Federal Reserve and equally generous fiscal action by the administrations of both presidents and Congress have kept civil unrest at bay. Savings rates are at a high. And the kinks in the supply chain, although most apparent now with the gift-giving demands of the holidays, will eventually be straightened out.
Furthermore, Dec. 21 is one of my favorite days because it brings with it the longest night of the year. After that, each day has a bit more light. So I hope for whatever darkness we are presently living through to lift, and I am optimistic that it will.
Until the new year, wishing you all healthy holidays filled with devotion and love.
The Heritage Center in Mount Sinai will soon have new owners, but that doesn’t mean that things are going to completely change.
As of Dec. 1, North Shore Youth Council took over the operations and activities of Heritage Trust.
Victoria Hazan, president of Heritage Trust, said that for the last two decades, the center and its grounds were run by a devoted set of board members and volunteers, but it was time for the center to have a new life.
“We were looking for it to be transferred to another nonprofit,” she said. “We loved their mission — NSYC is awesome and are community oriented like we are.”
Based primarily out of Rocky Point, NSYC has been prominent within its community since the early 1980s.
The organization was born out of concern for the high rates of substance abuse and teenage runaways on Long Island at the time.
Driven by the desire to save as many youths as they could from drugs and alcohol, these individuals spawned an innovative model for youth prevention programming that continues to this day. Eventually NSYC began to expand and offer additional services along the North Shore including summer camps, after-school programs and mentorships.
Robert Woods, NSYC’s executive director, said that the organization always had a close connection to Heritage Trust.
“This partnership will allow us to bring in more resources to the community and affords new and exciting opportunities for thousands of residents to enjoy and partake in,” he said. “With this expansion and increase of space for NSYC, we’ll be able to do more of what we love and serve youth and families in greater capacities.”
This doesn’t mean that NSYC will be closing or eliminating their Rocky Point presence, either.
“We’re expanding our services to reach families in other communities,” he said. “We are thrilled for this next chapter of our organization to expand into the heart of the North Shore communities and build upon the center’s 20-year legacy.”
Lori Baldassare, founder and a board member with the trust, said NSYC was always affiliated with the group — her late husband Jaime was president of the NSYC board for a decade.
“They share a mission that was similar to ours,” she said. “It just made sense.”
While the deal is not completely closed yet — Woods said it should be finalized within the next month — NSYC has begun hosting events and taking on the operations that Heritage is known for including the annual tree lighting and breakfast with Santa.
“It’s great for NSYC to have a brick-and-mortar space for them to host events and use that they didn’t have before,” Baldassare said.
Heritage Park, and the center inside it, began 25 years ago when the open land was slated for construction of a new Home Depot located at 633 Mount Sinai-Coram Road. Baldassare was a member of the Mount Sinai Hamlet Study for the Town of Brookhaven at the time.
“People said they didn’t have a central meeting place in the area — not just for Mount Sinai, but the whole North Shore community,” she said. “The Heritage Center and park have been able to create a sense of place.”
Not only will the center host Heritage events in the near future, but Woods said they will be able to bring more activities for residents including LGBTQ youth programs and behavioral art classes.
“It was bittersweet,” Hazan said. “But at the end of the day, it was the best thing we could’ve done for the park.”
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