And Yo - "New Jersey!"

"Once Upon A Time In New Jersey" is getting its first Jersey production at the newly refurbished Surflight Theater in Long Beach Island, New Jersey in August.

Very funny coincidence: my daugher Marla's first real "job" was being a singing Broadway waitress at Showplace down in LBI when she was a junior in high school. She auditioned for the job and was accepted to stay down at Showplace where the waiters and waitresses all were housed together and lived at the beach all summer. They worked their tails off serving ice cream, singing parodies of show tunes with ice cream titles and lyrics and getting the customers involved. It is a hugely popular place in the summer. Right next door is Surflight Theater.

Enter a wonderful producer who came to see Prospect Theater's 2010 production of "New Jersey" in the city and apparently he loved the show. In the meantime, he takes the bankrupt Surflight Theater and buys the theater, takes it out of bankruptcy and gives the theater a whole new lease on life.

So "New Jersey", this crazy show that keeps on coming back, is indeed back on track and we'll see where this production this coming summer takes us. Audiences have always taken to this sweet, simple show. We have our critical detractors for sure, but we also had some glowing reviews over the years too, most recently a handful of complimentary reviews in NYC. This is not just writers hype. It broke house records at The Village Theater, Muhlenberg Summer Music Theater, Prospect Theater in NYC and at the Marriott Lincolnshire Theater. Oh yes, it was loved at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama did the show and then at The Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts in England. The show has been around and is a pretty tight running machine at this point. It feels fitting that we are finally going Jersey - Central Jersey for that fact. As a "Jersey boy" myself (I spent my adolescence in Old Bridge, NJ, and graduated from Cedar Ridge High School in Old Bridge, right off of Route 516 - as New Jersey as it gets). I spent my summers at Asbury Park, Keansburg, island Beach State Park and had my Senior Prom overlooking Route 18 and the Jersey Turnpike in East Brunswick, New Jersey. So for me, doing "New Jersey" in New Jersey is a sweet homecoming.

Check out The Surglight Theater website at http://www.surflight.org/.