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Bandstand Shakespeare group cancel performances after local pub goers hurl abuse during show 

An open air theatre group has cancelled its shows in Tunbridge Wells after groups of drunks hurled a 'barrage of abuse' at the actors - saying they 'looked gay' in Shakespeare garb.

The Pantiles Players, which were set up to provide entertainment to people during World War Two, decided to pull out of the open air gigs this week after boozers shouted and swore during the performances of Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Robert Chesterton, chairman of the group, said: 'Thirty years ago this was a very quiet place. . . .

'This year the noise from the bars was intolerable - actors were subject to appalling abuse and so we have reluctantly decided we can no longer mount productions on the Pantiles bandstand.'

The Pantiles, an up-market parade of shops built in the 1680s, is host to a number of bars - where many stand outside since the smoking ban.

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The Last Smoker in America 

The Last Smoker in America will be presented at the New York Musical Theatre Festival this October! For TICKETS, click the GET TICKETS button below, or for more information, CLICK HERE. Due to popular demand, The Last Smoker in America has been extended with two additional performances in NYMF. Some performances are already sold out, so get your tickets now!

For questions, please contact: info@lastsmoker.com. . . .

The Show:

With book and lyrics by Tony nominee Bill Russell (Side Show) and music by Drama Desk nominee Peter Melnick (Adrift in Macao), The Last Smoker in America is an original, four-character musical comedy about a dysfunctional family struggling to survive in a world where smoking has recently been outlawed. Pam, an English lit professor at a small college, is having an impossible time trying to quit smoking. Her husband Ernie dreams of being a rock star and relentlessly practices his electric guitar in the basement. Their teenage son Jimmy listens to so much rap music he’s convinced he’s black. Their nosy, anti-smoking zealot neighbor Phyllis lurks around trying to catch transgressors mid-puff. Will Pam kick the habit or fight for the right to light up as The Last Smoker in America?

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30 Days Of NYMF: Day 26 THE LAST SMOKER IN AMERICA 

the ASPHYXIA (Anti-Smoking Help You Xpect In America) Box which keeps people up-to-date on the latest smoking penalties, a teenage boy who listens to so much rap music he thinks he's black, a righteous neighbor who found giving up cigarettes easier than giving up affairs with married men, prison time for smokers who can't quit, and execution for the manufacturers. Oh! And a sing-along to support everyone's lungs, blackened or not!

We already have a killer cast and creative staff, hot director and great producer, so all that's missing now is you.

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Photo Flash: NYMF's THE LAST SMOKER IN AMERICA 

The limited 8-performance engagement begins tonight Monday, October 12, 2009 and will continue through Sunday, October 18, 2009 at the 45th Street Theater (354 West 45th Street).

The Last Smoker in America is an original, four-character musical comedy about a dysfunctional family struggling to survive in a world where smoking has recently been outlawed. Pam, an English lit professor at a small college, is having an impossible time trying to quit smoking. Her husband Ernie dreams of being a rock star and relentlessly practices his electric guitar in the basement. Their teenage son Jimmy listens to so much rap music he's convinced he's black. Their nosy, anti-smoking zealot neighbor Phyllis lurks around trying to catch transgressors mid-puff. Will Pam kick the habit or fight for the right to light up as The Last Smoker in America?

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The Last Smoker in America Lights Up at NYMF Oct. 12 

The New York Musical Theatre Festival production of the Bill Russell-Peter Melnick musical The Last Smoker in America, starring Felicia Finley and Natalie Venetia Belcon, begins performances Oct. 12.

Sheryl Kaller, who will stage Geoffrey Nauffts' Next Fall on Broadway in early 2010, directs the NYMF engagement that runs through Oct. 18 at the 45th Street Theatre.

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• Five Questions About ‘The Last Smoker in America’  

Yes, disgruntled smokers, there is a new musical for you.

“The Last Smoker in America” is making its premiere as a full stage production on Monday at the 45th Street Theater as part of the New York Musical Theater Festival.

The show's book and lyrics are by Bill Russell, who was nominated for a Tony Award for his book of the 1997 musical “Side Show,” and the composer Peter Melnick (“Adrift in Macao”), a grandson of Richard Rodgers.

During a break in rehearsals, Mr. Russell shared his thoughts on smoking in the 21st century, his passion for outsiders and the legacy of “Side Show.” Following are excerpts from his conversation. . . .

What’s ironic is that the theater we’re performing in used to be called the No Smoking Playhouse, at least 20 years ago. I remember that vividly.

Q.

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Stage set for smoking ban  

The City Council voted unanimously last night to petition the city's Statehouse delegation to change the law that allows performers to smoke on stage during performances.

The motion was made by City Councilor Rita Mercier at the behest of Pawtucketville resident Dick Sousa.

Sousa explained that he has attended plays at the Merrimack Repertory Theater for several years. Last year, there was one play during which the actors smoked on stage. This year there were two.

He said he has serious medical conditions and cannot be in an enclosed space where there is cigarette smoke. Therefore, he has been forced to end his subscription.

"I'm thinking of the word prop," said Mercier. "There are electric cigarettes that can do the job just fine. Use a prop and save a lung."

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Heffron does not (heart) cigarettes 

Put John Heffron at the top of the list of comedians who've smelled enough cigarette smoke for a shortened lifetime.

Heffron, 39, started out in stand-up at age 19 in Ann Arbor . . .

"I just went and got a full Mack Daddy physical," says Heffron, who now lives in Southern California. The workup included a heart evaluation, and a frowning doctor looked at the results and asked, "How long have you been smoking?"

"I've maybe had two cigarettes in my hand my entire life," Heffron says. But he's spent two decades in hazy lounges and nightclubs.

As far as he's concerned, "people can smoke in their cars."

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Chinese tobacco control expert calls for smoking ban in TV, film 

A Chinese tobacco-control expert has called for screens to be free of smoking scenes so as to better protect viewers, particularly the minors.

Currently, both home-made and imported TV series and films contain smoking scenes, which had a negative impact on viewers, especially minors as they tend to follow and mirror others, Xu Guihua, deputy director of the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control(CATC) was quoted by Thursday's China Daily as saying.

Study shows that young people aged between 13 to 18, who often see smoking scenes in movies and TVs, are 16 times more likely to become smokers than their counterparts.

Among 144 box-office hit movies from 2004 to 2009, of which 66 were imported, about 69 percent contain tobacco-related scenes such as people smoking a cigarette or cigar, with ash tray or lighters in the background, a study jointly launched by CATC and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found.

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Looney Bloomy: Mayor Bloomberg will get cartoon treatment in animated satire 'Smoking Bloomberg' 

Voters can look forward to seeing a cartoon version of Mayor Bloomberg on the big screen now that the award-winning musical satire "Smoking Bloomberg" is being adapted into an animated film.

While no voice talent has been announced yet, the stage production that took the "Best of the Fes

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Synopsis 

Kim Park, an up-to-now successful Korean dry cleaner, can’t figure out why her business has suddenly tanked. Determined to find the cause, she boldly leaves the confines of her shop, whereupon she unwittingly gets herself arrested amid a bar skirmish between smokers and non-smokers.

In jail, Kim meets Alif, an Arab-American under arrest yet again for being, well, Arab-American. He informs Kim that Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s smoking ban is the source of her financial ruin. As Kim questions the ban’s constitutionality, Alif is carted off to Guantanamo Bay. Luckily, Kim escapes captivity and soon meets Kim-Kim, a fellow Korean dry cleaner gone bust. They fall in love instantly, but after a passionate night of dry cleaning, Kim rejects him, disgusted to learn he now supports himself as a prostitute.

Still determined to get her shop back, Kim whips up a petition to overturn the smoking ban. However, her attempts to get signatures are met only with apathy and ridicule. Eventually, with the help of temporarily forgiven Kim-Kim, she rounds up a throng of Korean dry-cleaners-turned-prostitutes to deliver her petition to City Hall. En route, she dumps Kim-Kim yet again after she learns his clients are men.

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Will Musical Satire Smoking Bloomberg Have an Animated Future? 

Smoking Bloomberg, the topical musical comedy about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban on smoking tobacco in public places, is being developed as an animated project.

New Core Prods. and Silver Lining Film Group are seeking investment partners for the project, based on the stage musical by David Cornue, Sam Holtzapple, Warren Loy and Chris Todd. The satire was seen in a staging in the New York Musical Theatre Festival. The musical had a recent Manhattan reading April 22 presented by Transport Group and producer Jennifer Maloney in TG's Dark Night Series. . . .

Smoking Bloomberg is billed as "a hilarious new musical satire about a Korean dry cleaner who seeks her revenge on Mayor Bloomberg when his smoking ban ruins her business." The "highly irreverent show explores the loss of personal freedoms in modern-day America, targeting the Left, the Right, and everyone in between."

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LILEKS: Is it Art? The courts say no, but who makes up these rules? 

The Appeals Court has settled the issue for good with a decision you can sum up thusly: Oh, c'mon.

It's obvious the bar's managers were trying to get around the law, right? They weren't making a grand philosophical point about the nature of Art. They just wanted to let consenting adults light up a nail indoors without standing outside where the winter wind flays faces to the bone. But if they said it's art, well ... isn't it? . . .

But this goes against everything we've been told about Art for the past 50 years. Art is not a matter of conforming to academic rules set down by stern, gray-haired men in frock coats and watch chains; Art is what you say it is. . . .

If the bar folks filmed the event as part of a 19-hour-long video installation, they would have had a better case. If they'd had a grant, even better. But no. Here we are: It's not art if the court says it isn't, and that's the part that ought to rankle.

On the other hand, on behalf of everyone who has paid admission to a gallery only to find big canvases covered in black paint and Lucky Charms -- let the lawsuits begin!

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EDITORIAL: Editor: Bar owner deserves answer 

What is the definition of a theatrical production?

That’s the question Tom Marinaro, owner of Tank’s Bar in Babbitt, wanted the Minnesota Court of Appeals to answer.

While it is clear to anyone that if a bar holds a “theater night” with patrons wearing badges that say “actor” would seem a violation of the state ban on smoking in workplaces, how does the law delineate what is a real theater production and what isn’t? It is a speech question that can be hard to pin down.

The bar owner deserves a clarification on this question — mostly so another bar doesn’t try it again.

It is poor jurisprudence to sidestep the heart of an argument in an appeal and simply rule against Tank’s Bar. It’s like a parent saying “Because I said so.” . . .

Now judges across the state are left to determine what is and what isn’t theater. Good luck.

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Court denies bar’s ‘Gunsmoke’ appeal  

Smokers at a Babbitt bar were not engaged in a “theatrical performance” and consequently the district court made the right call when it found the owner of the bar guilty of smoking in a public place in violation of Minnesota law, the state Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.

Tom Marinaro, owner of Tank’s Bar, was accused of violating the state’s Freedom to Breathe act . . .

Marinaro contended that Gun SMOKE Monologues was a form of improvisational theater in which actors performed without a script.

“There was no discernable evidence of a theatrical production,” 6th Judicial District Judge James Florey wrote in a memorandum to his decision. “The mere addition of wearing a badge that says ‘Actor’ does not create a theatrical production. The Gun SMOKE Monologues has no costumes, script, director, doesn’t take place on a stage or set apart from the general bar area and according to testimony is indiscernible from the general activities taking place in Tank’s Bar before the smoking ban went into effect, but for the ‘Actor’ name tags.”

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