Theater Review / Final 4 performances of David Mamet’s A LIFE IN THE THEATRE 

The historic Waterfront Playhouse on Mallory Square will play the final 4 performances of  the David Mamet comedy A Life in the Theatre  at 8pm Wednesday through Saturday evening. Tickets are available by going to www.waterfrontplayhouse.org or call 305-294-5015.  

Called a “masterclass in acting…”, this is one of Mamet’s earliest and gentlest plays. A sardonic love letter to theatre following the shifting power balance between two actors as they engage in backstage banter and play parodic scenes from rep warhorses:  a sub-Chekhovian comedy, a shipwreck melodrama, and a revolutionary epic, satirizing a vanished world. Mamet’s play examines our changing roles in life through the metaphor of the theatre’s never-ending demand for new roles.

Directed by Waterfront Artistic Director Tom Thayer, with set design by Michael Boyer, lighting design by Kris Hodge and stage managed by Trish Manley with Andrew Theede assisting this production will star John McDonald and Mathias Maloff.

John made his New York debut at the Old Met in Il Trovator with Gabriella Tucci and Robert Merrill (as a supernumerary). He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts with a scholarship from the American Broadcasting Company. Graduating with distinction he later taught and directed for the school. His Broadway acting credits include: New York Shakespeare Festival (Macbeth with James Earl Jones); Off-Broadway: (Promenade with Madeline Kahn), Regional Theatre: Long Wharf Theatre (The Lion in Winter with Ralph Waite) as well as The Huntington Performing Arts Center and the Front Street Theatre. 

He directed Bah Humbug! on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre for the Robert F Kennedy Theatre for Children and on television he was a puppeteer for All Aboard with Mr. B for PBS and had roles on Love of Life, Guiding Light and Search for Tomorrow.

In 1964 he was awarded Best Actor for his portrayal of Shylock a role he recently portrayed in the Waterfront Playhouse’s Something Rotten! Key West roles have included: Professor Plum in Clue, Inspector Kemp in the hit musical Young Frankenstein, Sidney Carlton in Inspecting Carol, Peter and the Starcatcher and Col. McKean in 1776 the Musical at the Waterfront Playhouse. He debuted in Alice’s Parlor, appeared in Romeo and Juliet, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for Theatre XP, Twice Told Tales and Key Largo for WLRN Radio.

Mathias Maloff will direct the reading of Ernest Hemmingway’s The Fifth Column to be performed at the Waterfront. This season alone Mathias has appeared in All is Calm, Matilda the Musical, Clue and most recently Something Rotten.

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