Theater Review - "Grease" Engeman Theater

THEATER REVIEW

“Grease!” - Produced by: John W. Engeman Theater– Northport

Reviewed by: Jeb Ladouceur

If nearly all the songs in the current Engeman production of ‘Grease’ sound the same, it’s because that’s the way most melodies were in the late 50’s. Tunes of the day seemed to have been produced by a musical cookie cutter. That said, give Director Paul Stancato and his cast of seventeen singers and dancers high marks for capturing the mood of teenage life and love at fictional Rydell High (based on the William Howard Taft  School) in 1958 suburban Chicago.

It was a time, of course, when most American kids nearing graduation snuck an alcoholic drink now and then … and everybody (but everybody!) … smoked cigarettes religiously. Indeed one of the more ironic lines in this musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey has a girl coaxing her classmate to go ahead and take a puff because, “…heck, it won’t kill ya’.”

If only we’d known then, what we know now.

Speaking of which … there’s a subliminal message that might be learned from this throwback show. Of all seventeen members of the cast, this reviewer spotted only two who bore tattoos (and even they appeared to have been the subjects of unsuccessful attempts to cover them). The caveat might effectively caution young actors who hope to bring authenticity to their interpretations of roles gone by … to lay off the ink. After all, they make those ‘wash-off’ kiddie tats if I’m not mistaken. The fact, however, is that mid-20^th Century high schoolers didn’t use tattoos … just as they didn’t wear torn jeans (we called them dungarees at Riverhead High, if I remember correctly.)

With ‘Grease,’ The Engeman continues a long string of more-than-satisfying musical revivals. On the distaff side, Laura Helm (as Marty) and Madeleine Barker (playing Rizzo) contribute most significantly to this production … while Sam Wolf (in the play’s demanding lead role) turns in a classic Danny Zuko.

Naturally, with the passing of years, fewer and fewer theatergoers will recognize the dance, ditty, and dialogue patterns that make creations like ‘Grease’ so familiar and appealing. Already, those patrons who have not yet reached the age of ‘three score and ten’ will be puzzled by many of the 1958 references written into this show. But even with the necessity of inferring a term, or a phrase’s meaning in lieu of actual recollection, a well-constructed show laced with capable players never loses its ability to entertain us.

Some things haven’t changed since Adam & Eve, and ‘Grease’ comes up with a surprise when Betty Rizzo announces hers … yep … the play’s pepperpot informs us she’s “…five days late, and in a family way.”

Oh, my! You’ll just have to see for yourself how that works out, but the situation pretty much verifies that what’s been hinted at throughout the musical, has indeed been going on (probably in the on-stage convertible named ‘Greased Lightning’ that the various couples seem to share … for a variety of activities.

It seemed to my companion and me last weekend that the costumes (by Matthew Solomon) while interesting, didn’t quite constitute the period garb we remembered … she in Queens in the 50’s … myself in Eastern Long Island during the same time frame. Then again, the locale for this show is the Chicago area, so those leather jackets and polka dot or flaring skirts could actually be spot on.

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Award-winning writer, Jeb Ladouceur is the author of a dozen novels, and his theater and book reviews appear in several major L.I. publications. His recent hit, THE GHOSTWRITERS, explores the bizarre relationship between the late Harper Lee and Truman Capote. Ladouceur’s newly completed thriller, THE SOUTHWICK INCIDENT, made its debut this month, and was introduced at the Smithtown Library on May 21st. The book involves a radicalized Yale student and his CIA pursuers. Mr. Ladouceur’s revealing website is www.JebsBooks.com

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - What's Going On At Stony Brook University?

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

What’s going on at Stony Brook University? The university has just suspended student admissions into its theatre arts, comparative literature and cinema arts departments, part of a series of cuts in liberal arts.  In May, hundreds of students joined in a demonstration on campus—a “March for the Humanities”—that culminated with a sit-in.

Stony Brook University is the largest single-site employer on Long Island. It has more than 25,000 undergraduate and graduate students and an operating budget for 2016-2017 of $2.7 billion. All Long Islanders have a stake in what happens at Stony Brook University.

What is going on now at Stony Brook is the kind of thing that has gone on at it for years: a de-emphasis in liberal arts and the humanities.

In its obituary in 2011 for Stony Brook’s long-time president, John S. Toll, The New York Times quoted another long-time Stony Brook president, John H. Marburger III, as saying that Governor Nelson Rockefeller “wanted Johnny Toll to make Stony Brook the Berkeley of the East.”

Indeed, that was the vision not only of Governor Rockefeller in the 1960s but of the State University of New York. Stony Brook, established in 1962 (morphing out of the State University College on Long Island set up in Oyster Bay in 1957) was to be a well-rounded “university center.” It was to be New York State’s equivalent of the University of California, Berkeley and other great American universities, such the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

But under the presidencies of Dr. Toll, a nuclear physicist, and his successor, Acting President T. Alexander Pond, also a nuclear physicist, and his successor, Dr. Marburger, a theoretical physicist, the overwhelming emphasis was on science and research.

Stony Brook ended looking in many respects more like Caltech—the private California Institute of Technology—than a well-rounded institution like Berkeley, Wisconsin, Michigan and so on. 

The one humanities-focused time came when Shirley Strum Kenny was Stony Brook’s president. She started out as an English professor, went on to become chair of the Department of English and provost of the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Maryland, and then president of Queens College. She led Stony Brook from 1994 to 2009 and tried to change its culture, to humanize it and get the school focused far more on its students and teaching.

She had no choice. She told me that the Middle States Commission on Higher Education threatened to lift Stony Brook’s accreditation unless it paid greater attention to teaching.

Dr. Kenny was succeeded by Dr. Samuel L. Stanley, Jr. who had been vice chancellor for research at Washington University in St. Louis. An M.D. long involved in research, he turned Stony Brook again to focusing on science and research. One of his first acts at Stony Brook president was ordering the virtual closing of the Stony Brook Southampton campus. founded as a teaching institution emphasizing the environment and sustainability. State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor complained that Dr. Stanley “is all about science and research” and didn’t appreciate what Stony Brook Southampton, formerly Southampton College, was about. 

Under Dr. Stanley, Stony Brook has made great advances in its medical component. I’ve been treated by Stony Brook doctors and will attest personally to Stony Brook Medicine being world-class. Its hospital and its medical, nursing and dentistry schools and other programs in health sciences, and its satellite clinics, are all fine.  

A pared down Stony Brook Southampton awaits newly Stony Brook-affiliated Southampton Hospital moving to the campus with linked health sciences programs for more use.

A major university should offer a broad education. Learning in literature, theatre, cultural studies—all of the liberal arts that the Stony Brook administration would cut into—are important to a student’s education, her or his understanding of the world. Meanwhile, another fine Stony Brook asset—integral to comprehending the environmental history of our area—Stony Brook’s Museum of Long Island Natural Sciences has also been eliminated.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, Stony Brook University was the scene of many anti-Vietnam War protests which I covered. I recall being with Dr. Toll late one night in his office as students demonstrated against Stony Brook participating in Project THEMIS, a Pentagon research program. “Don’t they understand,” Dr. Toll said to me, “that the academy has always done research for the military?” After World War II Navy service, he worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, set up to build atomic bombs, with the University of California its manager (and still today its lead manager). I explained that the Vietnam War was seen far, far differently than World War II and collaboration by universities in it was strongly opposed. Dr. Toll didn’t understand. In the wake of the protests, despite Dr. Toll’s advocacy of Project THEMIS it didn’t come to Stony Brook.

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.

Nesconset Woman Charged With 9 Counts Of Animal Cruelty

SUFFOLK COUNTY SPCA DETECTIVES CHARGE A 
NESCONSET WOMAN WITH 9 COUNTS OF ANIMAL CRUELTY

Vanessa Costello, 29 of  Nesconset, NY was charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty for failure to provide proper sustenance including veterinary care. 

The horses were being boarded at 239 Blake Avenue, Bohemia. Many were suffering from health issues and were emaciated. The 9 horses are presently being cared for at a local stable and are receiving much needed care. 

Anyone interested in contributing towards feed please contact Neptune Feed, 631 369-0965, 4195 Middle Country Rd. Calverton. 

If you are interested in donating for veterinary care please send donations to the Suffolk County SPCA, P.O. Box 6100, Hauppauge, NY 11788-0099 and specify for these specific horses. 

All donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Costello will appear in First District Court in Central Islip on August 31th, 2017.

Former SC Conservative Party Chairman Edward M. Walsh Sentenced To 24 Months In Prison

June 20, 2017 

Earlier today at the federal courthouse in Central Islip, New York, former Suffolk County Conservative Party Chairman Edward M. Walsh, Jr. was sentenced to 24 months in prison, 3 years of supervised release, $202,225 in restitution, and $245,811.21 in forfeiture. Walsh was convicted at trial in March 2016 on charges of theft of government funds and wire fraud in connection with his employment with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO). The sentencing proceeding was before United States District Judge Arthur D. Spatt.

The sentence was announced by Bridget M. Rohde, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and William F. Sweeney, Jr., Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI).

As proven at trial, from January 2011 to April 2014, Walsh, a SCSO Correction Officer III Investigator, falsely represented to the SCSO that he had worked certain regular and overtime hours when in fact, he did not work those hours. Contrary to his representations, Walsh was, among other things, playing golf, gambling at Foxwoods Casino, or performing work on behalf of the Suffolk County Conservative Party. In reliance on Walsh’s false representations, the SCSO paid Walsh wages for hours he did not work. Over the course of the indictment period, Walsh was paid more than $200,000 for regular and overtime hours he did not work.

“The defendant, Edward Walsh, Jr., engaged in sports gambling and politics on the taxpayer’s dime to the tune of $200,000,” stated Acting United States Attorney Rohde. “We will continue to ensure that public officials who abuse their positions will be brought to justice.” Ms. Rohde extended her grateful appreciation to the FBI New York Office for its excellent work in the investigation that lead to Walsh’s trial conviction and the SCSO for its important assistance with the investigation.

“What Walsh did was steal taxpayer money, plain and simple. He misrepresented the hours he worked with the intent of deceiving his employer, the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office, which in turn netted him more than $200,000,” stated FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Sweeney. “We certainly expect more from our public servants. Today’s sentence should remind the public that nobody gets a free pass.” 

The government’s case is being handled by the Office’s Long Island Criminal Division. Assistant United States Attorneys Raymond A. Tierney, Catherine M. Mirabile, and Madeline O’Connor are in charge of the 

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - 1974 Eleanor Eckman Fights For Equality In Sports

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Title IX, subsequently renamed the Patsy Mink Equal Opportunity Education Act, was signed into law by President Richard Nixon 45 years ago—on June 23, 1972. Among the areas of discrimination in the United States that it changed was the downplaying of women’s sports at educational institutions. 

Eleanor A. EckmanA pioneer in Suffolk County in getting Title IX applied to sports for girls in schools was Eleanor A. Eckman, a physical education teacher at Bay Shore High School. 

Now retired after 31 years of teaching, Ms. Eckman, speaking from her home in Patchogue, was recounting the other day how school sports for females were minimized while male sports were being highlighted. “Not only highlighted but given more financial support,” she said.

“There was inequity,” said Ms. Eckman. “We had pitiful uniforms and pitiful time in the gym or on the field.” Moreover, there was more time for play for boys. “There were four shorter seasons for girls. Way back then they didn’t think girls could last as long as boys. It was thought that females didn’t have the physical capabilities.”

Further, at her school there was only one coach each for most girls’ sports while there were both coaches and assistant coaches for many boys’ sports.

“I was the first person in Suffolk County to bring the situation to the New York State Division of Human Rights,” said Ms. Eckman. She brought the action in 1974 at the Suffolk office of the division in Hauppauge, headed by Vera Parisi, formerly assistant director of the Suffolk County Human Rights Commission. The division “found that the school district was not in compliance” with Title IX. And the district began making changes. “They didn’t have a choice. Either that or their having to go to court,” she said.

Helpful on the issue, said Susan Barbash of Bay Shore, was a protest at a school board meeting. Girls in their athletic uniforms came to the meeting. Ms. Barbash, now a retired real estate developer, said “the story become legend. The girl athletes appeared in their uniforms to protest the inequitable funding” between boys’ and girls’ sports.  “There was theatre involved.”

Title IX, added Ms. Barbash, “was not just about playing sports, but access to college, as well. It has been so important.” Ms. Barbash went on from Bay Shore High School to Radcliffe College, which then merged into its parent institution, Harvard, with Harvard after centuries no longer having an all-male student body. 

Today as for sports in school for girls, “everything is much more equal,” said Ms. Eckman. However, there are still, she notes, areas of sports where a different situation exists for women. For example, “in major competitions in tennis, the men’s game is best of three-out-of-five while for women it’s two-out-of-three.” Apparently there’s still belief that women can’t last as long as men in sports contests.

I reached out to current women physical education teachers—Ms. Eckman retired in 1999—regarding their views on the state of girls and boys sports at schools now.

Jen Ackerman, a phys ed teacher in the Eastport-South Manor Central School District. Today, said that indeed, girls and boys sports are now treated as “equivalent.” A phys ed teacher for 19 years, Ms. Ackerman, of Manorville, said: “It’s come a long way.” 

There “absolutely is equity” now in boys and girls sports in schools, said Shannon Judge of Southold, going into her 12^th year as a physical education teacher in the Sag Harbor School District.   Ms. Judge, who went to Centereach High School, noted she is 36 years old and thus in this post-Title IX time, fortunately “I didn’t experience anything” along the lines of girl sports being second-rated. Boys and girls school sports have become to be “balanced completely.”

The legislation creating Title IX was sponsored in the U.S. Senate by Birch Bayh of Indiana while Patsy Mink of Hawaii was its sponsor in the House of Representatives. The law was renamed for Ms. Mink  in 2002 after her death that year. 

On the Senate floor, in advocating for Title IX, Mr. Bayh declared: “We are all familiar with the stereotype of women as pretty things who go to college to find a husband…and finally marry [and] have children….But the facts absolutely contradict these myths about the ‘weaker sex’ and it is time to change our operating assumptions.”

Title IX covers educational institutions receiving federal financial assistance. The U.S. Department of Education standards include “whether the selection of sports and levels of competition effectively accommodate the interests and abilities of members of both sexes; the provision of equipment and supplies; scheduling of games and practice times; provision of locker rooms, practice and competitive facilities.”

For schools that do not receive federal aid, a third of states—including New York—have enacted parallel statutes similar to Title IX covering them. But that’s only a third.

As to more that should be done now regarding women and sports, Ms. Eckman, who retired in 1999, said that “in professional sports, women are still not paid at the same level as men.” Also, “I don’t think coverage by TV, newspapers and the rest of media is at the same level. It’s getting there.” And, “in most sports they always have the finals of the men as the last event. The finals for women are the day before. The highlight is the men’s finals.”

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.