ELECTRONIC LINK JOURNEY - NEWS
                       NEW AND NOTEWORTHY
         Tangent Theatre Company: No Frivolity, Please
                                
In the ever-expanding New York theater world comes a breath of fresh air.  Tangent
Theatre Company, co-founded by Keith Teller (co-artistic director), Michael Rhodes 
(co-artistic director) and Andrea Miller (producer/general manager),  has a mission to
"produce plays that matter."  A subsidiary of Hudson Valley's Apple Blossom
Productions, which was founded by Mr. Teller in 1986, Tangent is more specific to 
Off-Off-Broadway in NYC.  
The group began production of their first original work,
WANDERERS, penned by founding member  Michael Rhodes, on September 8, 2000. 
Truly a hands on trio (Teller is the director, and Miller the producer of the play), they
are already industry veterans.  

In this bustling theater community, new companies seem to pop up nearly as often as
do new shows.  Tangent is one of the newest additions.  With a mission to produce
independent, yet serious works, this group of devotees has not allowed the recent trend
toward deliberate weirdness to cloud their goals.  Opting to be original, rather than
experimental is an important distinction.  Often, the greatest resonance, and in fact,
novelty, can be rendered by works which are trying to encompass no more than their
own slice of space.  When faced with the burden to be different for the sake of
difference, many playwrights, actors, and theater companies themselves sacrifice the
audience and the quality of their work in the process. 
For Tangent's first production of an original work, the sober choice to mount
WANDERERS, which is also author Rhodes' first play, a romantic comedy that has
both feet firmly set in reality, is evidence of the three founders artistic insight. Not eerie,
odd or ludicrous, this is a comfortable play that never attempts to shock, appall or thwart
the audience.  It is your basic love story.  The difference here is that this one is written,
produced and performed by ambitious artists, who have already contributed to the stage
with their drive and creativity.  If this is any indication, we should be able to look
forward to many more well-produced shows that go down easy.

                      - Kessa De Santis - 
Read the review of WANDERERS on our Entertainment/Off-Broadway page.

Learn more about tangent theatre company at www.tangentco.org.

Return:NANW