Link To Article & Photo:      NorthJersey.com:  Apartment 3A

Thursday, June 10, 2010

BY MIKE KERWICK

The Record

STAFF WRITER

WHAT: "Apartment 3A."

WHEN: 7 p.m. Saturday and June 19 and 26; 3:30 p.m. Sunday and June 20 and 27.

WHERE: Hackensack Cultural Arts Center, 39 Broadway, Hackensack.

HOW MUCH: $18.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: theatrecompany.biz.

The play landed in his hands. He doesn't remember who passed it to him or when he first leafed through it or why someone thought he might enjoy it.

Well, Lou Scarpati loved it. He found it laden with the perfect mix of heart and humor, a mature show that possessed the unexpected bonus of a celebrity author. So maybe you have never heard of "Apartment 3A."

But you probably have heard of Jeff Daniels.

"I didn't even know he was a playwright," Scarpati said before a recent rehearsal at the New Jersey School of Dramatic Arts in Bloomfield. "I had no idea."

"I remember him from 'Speed' and 'Dumb and Dumber,' " said Andrea Prendamano, the show's female lead. "But also you remember him from 'Terms of Endearment.' You know that he's got the chops."

Prendamano, a young Dumont actress, plays Annie Wilson, a woman who learns that "the love of her life has cheated on her."

"And so she's now in this state of flux where she doesn't know exactly what's going to happen as far as her life, as far as her relationships," Prendamano said. "She's not really trusting entering [one] this time. She decides to move into a new apartment and the guy who lives across the hall befriends her and starts challenging her to get back into the dating game."

The role promises to stretch Prendamano to the edge of her acting talents. She has four monologues – "one of them is hilariously funny, one of them is touching and sad" – and Prendamano uncovered an interesting way to commit those monologues to memory. She captured all four pieces on a digital recorder. Prendamano listens to them on her commute into Manhattan, where she works as a graphic designer.

"When your dialogue flows really well, it's a lot easier to memorize," Prendamano said. "And that's the way he writes. I'm finding it really conversational and really easy to sort of keep going with it. He really writes in a way that makes it easy for actors to relate to and memorize."

Scarpati, the show's artistic director, knows having Daniels' name on the program will help sell tickets. The name may draw bodies into the seats, but the play's content will keep them there.

"It's a romantic comedy," Scarpati said, "but it has a lot of twists and turns in it. And the end is definitely something you're not going to expect."

David A. Green, a Jersey City actor who plays Wilson's landlord Dal, was one of the few members of the production familiar with Daniels' writing. On a recent visit to his sister's home in Pinckney, Mich., Green brought a copy of the postcard advertising their production. He visited the Purple Rose Theater in Chelsea, Mich. – Daniels' home stage – and dropped off the postcard at the box office.

Is he anticipating a reply from Daniels?

"You never know," Green said. "You don't expect things like that. I thought he'd get a kick out of seeing one of his plays was being done in this area."

"We're hoping he'll show up," joked Prendamano.