Dobbs Ferry High School Presents David Ives' 'All in the Timing'

Dobbs Ferry High School’s Theatre Arts students are performing David Ives’ comedy “All in the Timing,” on Saturday, March 7, at 7:00 p.m ($5 suggested donation), the school announced.

Now in its third year and taught by Vocal Music & Theatre Director Georgia DeFalco, the class boasts two sections with 31 students (grades 9-12). Previously, the class performed in “The Laramie Project” and “Our Town.”

“All in the Timing” is a collection of six one-act plays (the updated collection contains 14) that were written between 1987-1993. The Dobbs Ferry students will be performing the six original one-acts plus a seventh later addition.

Vincent Canby of The New York Times, who reviewed the original production said “Ives is wizardly…magical and funny…a master of language.”

From a school press release about the production:

THE STORIES:

• • SURE THING is a classic of contemporary comedy: Two people meet in a cafe and find their way through a conversational minefield as an offstage bell interrupts their false starts, gaffes, and faux pas on the way to falling in love.
  • WORDS, WORDS, WORDS recalls the philosophical adage that three monkeys typing into infinity will sooner or later produce HAMLET and asks: What would monkeys talk about at their typewriters?
  • THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE brings together Dawn, a young woman with a stutter, and Don, the creator and teacher of Unamunda, a wild comic language. Their lesson sends them off into a dazzling display of hysterical verbal pyrotechnics—and, of course, true love.
  • PHILIP GLASS BUYS A LOAF OF BREAD is a parodic musical vignette in trademark Glassian style, with the celebrated composer having a moment of existential crisis in a bakery.
  • THE PHILADELPHIA presents a young man in a restaurant who has fallen into “a Philadelphia,” a Twilight Zone-like state in which he cannot get anything he asks for. His only way out of the dilemma? To ask for the opposite of what he wants.
  • VARIATIONS ON THE DEATH OF TROTSKY shows us the Russian revolutionary on the day of his demise, desperately trying to cope with the mountain-climber’s axe he’s discovered in his head.
  • SEVEN MENUS features seven dinners at the same restaurant, showing the evolution of one circle of friends.

“This show is such fun,” said Ms. DeFalco in a statement. “It combines satire, wit and humor, yet each play has a deeper meaning and message. The students were drawn to this contemporary comedy because it is so rich in language and simultaneously hilarious.” A review in Time Magazine raved, “Theatre that aerobicizes the brain and tickles the heart. Ives is a mordant comic who has put the play back in playwright…A wondrous wordmaster.”

The Dobbs Ferry High School cast includes:

The Sure Thing

Bill: Hudson Trader

Bettie: Nuala Vizard

Words, Words, Words

Swift: Sydney Schriever

Milton: Tiko Mkheidze

Kafka: Nisha Mathur

The Universal Language

Dawn: Beth Feldberg

Don: Sandro Gerber

Young Person: Jason Balsan

Seven Menus

Paul: Bernie McGoey

Hazel: Shelby Luria

Ruth: Saylor Abel

Jack: Sacha Orlowski

Barry- Crystal Gao

Fluff: Gareth Moores

Dawn: Ilda

Phyllis: Elena LaPlante

Variations on the Death of Trotsky

Mrs. Trotsky – Kiersten McGovern

Trotsky- Ryan Mitchell

Ramon- Ryan Flynn

Trotsky: Ethan Sipe

Mrs. Trotsky- Lisandra Frroku

Ramon- Madison Hinksmon

The Philadelphia

Al: Jake Biale

Mark: Ryan Fessler

Waitress: Megan McDade

Phillip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread

First Woman: Alisha Pandya

Second Woman: Lindsay Honigman

Bakers: Julia Hartheimer & Eliza Fry

Philip Glass: John Sullivan

Thank you to Niamh Deane and Meagan Carota for their invaluable backstage help, as well as the Rat Pack who are responsible for orchestrating the lights and sound, under the direction of Tsha Gregory.

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