Gallery Players Announces Line Up of 45th Season, Begins With LITTLE DOG LAUGHED

Brooklyn's award-winning Off-Off Broadway theatre celebrates its 45th season beginning September 2011. The independent theatre institution boasts a lineup fitting of 45 years of bringing Broadway to Brooklyn, presenting: the first New York City revival of The Little Dog Laughed, followed by Little Shop of Horrors, Craig Lucas' Reckless, A Man of No Importance, A Raisin in the Sun, Wonderful Town and The 15th Annual Black Box New Play Festival.

The Gallery Players opens its 45th Season this September with the first New York City revival of the smash hit, The Little Dog Laughed. Three-time Tony® nominee Douglas Carter Beane's "bitingly funny" play is a pull-no-punches look at the film biz, and what it takes to be a movie star when coming out of the closet is the farthest thing from being in. The Little Dog Laughed runs September 10-25, 2011.

Charming, tuneful and hilarious, Little Shop of Horrors is an affectionate spoof of 1950s era B-movie sci-fi flicks. One of the longest-running Off-Broadway shows of all time, Little Shop of Horrors has become a house-hold name thanks to a highly successful film version and a lively Motown rock ‘n' roll score by the legendary songwriting team of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. The Gallery Players' production of Little Shop of Horrors runs October 22-November 13, 2011.

At home on Christmas Eve, Rachel is informed by her guilty husband that he has hired a hit man to kill her and she must flee for her life, which she does by scrambling out the kitchen window and into the snowy night. She then begins a series of picaresque escapades involving numerous psychiatrists, a TV game show and her own increasingly shaky sanity. Craig Lucas' Reckless was hailed as "a bittersweet Christmas fable for our time," by The New York Times. Reckless runs at The Gallery Players December 3-18, 2011.

2012 at The Gallery Players opens with a musical by the Tony Award®-winning team behind Ragtime, A Man of No Importance. Winner of the 2003 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, A Man of No Importance is a tender and beautifully woven tale of family, friendship and acceptance, teaching us that it really is a wonderful thing to "love who you love." A Man of No Importance, with Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, Music by Stephen Flaherty and Book by Terrence McNally, runs January 28-February 19, 2012.

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry comes to The Gallery Players in spring 2012. This groundbreaking play set on Chicago's South Side revolves around the divergent dreams and conflicts within three generations of the Younger family. The tensions and prejudice they face form the backbone of this seminal American drama about retaining one's dignity within a harsh and changing world. A Raisin in the Sun runs March 17-April 1, 2012.

Concert Review: Centro-matic and Sarah Jaffe give a Denton, Texas ...

The Centro-matic show at Off Broadway could have been a textbook example of an off-night in the life of a working band. Blame it on the fact that it was the day after a holiday, or that it was a school night, but the crowd was thin.

The band members, who recently came off a stint supporting Drive-By Truckers, looked uniformly haggard and rumpled from too much time crammed in the van. It wouldn’t have been surprising if Centro-matic plugged in, did an obligatory hour or so and made its way down the road to the next town on the schedule. But as soon as the band began to play, the rigors of the road and the musician’s life fell away, and the folks who made it out that night got a fine, full-on rock show.

The band leaned heavily on songs from its new release, Candidate Waltz , and the live treatment did them a world of good. Songs like “Estimate X 3″ and “Against the Line,” which have a tense restraint on record, really opened up when performed in front of an audience. Singer and guitarist Will Johnson’s voice between songs was no more than a raspy whisper at best, and more than once he seemed to lose his train of thought as he talked to the audience, but once the music began his focus sharpened and he dug into the songs with a passion. The band cut a wide swath through its catalog during the set. Highlights included a fierce version of “Calling Thermatico,” complete with staccato handclaps from the audience, and a stripped down take on “I See Through You,” both from the Fort Recovery record.