<\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfad NEW! Connecticut Theatre Newsletter<\/p>\n
Pantochino Productions Inc. will debut its new musical panto \u201cA Lad in Manhattan\u201d Friday, April 24 at the Milford Arts Council, The Mac in Downtown Milford. The family-friendly, all ages musical plays through May 10.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA Lad in Manhattan,\u201d featuring book and lyrics by Bert Bernardi<\/a> and music by Justin Rugg<\/a>, takes the familiar story of Aladdin and reimagines it set in Times Square, the heart of New York City during the 1970’s. Here, a young man from Long Island journeys to the big apple to find fame and fortune and, to a decidedly disco beat, gets all that and more with the help of some colorful characters and outrageous situations.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGiving new life to a familiar story is our passion,\u201d says writer\/director Bernardi. \u201cSetting the story in the big city has truly created a \u2018whole new world’ for the adventure and magic of Aladdin to live and breathe,\u201d he added. Bernardi continues \u201cIts fast, funny, campy and is great entertainment for children who will be dazzled and delighted, and adult audiences who will get humor beneath the humor\u2014now that is Pantochino!\u201d<\/p>\n The cast includes company members Mary Mannix<\/a>, Shelley Marsh<\/a> Poggio, Rachelle Ianniello, Valerie Solli<\/a>, Justin Rugg<\/a>, Jimmy Johansmeyer<\/a> and in the title role, Chad Celini who has appeared in Pantochino’s \u201cWhat Now Voyager\u201d and \u201cDorothy’s Christmas in Oz.\u201d Special guest star for this production is Victoria Sautee. Known as the comical \u201cQuintessence of Effervescence\u201d Sautee has been called \u201cRemarkable and Hysterical\u201d by the Hartford Courant.\u00a0 The new musical features setting by Von Del Mar, costumes by Johansmeyer, lighting by Jakob Kelsey, musical direction by Rugg and stage management by T. Gadomski.<\/p>\n Now in its sixteenth season, Pantochino Productions, a 501c3 not for profit organization,\u00a0 is widely acclaimed for its innovative, original musical theatre offerings, Summer Theatre Camps, Classes, After School Drama programs and Teen Theatre. The multi Award winning company is recipient of several \u201cBest of Milford\u201d Awards, many Broadway World Connecticut Awards and the Cultural Contribution Award presented by the Milford Regional Chamber of Commerce. The 2025-26 Pantochino season is sponsored by Dennis Beirne of William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty.\u00a0 This production of \u201cA Lad in Manhattan\u201d is sponsored by Metro Star Apartments and North Star Design Studio.\u00a0<\/p>\n Performances of \u201cA Lad in Manhattan\u201d are Fridays at 7:30pm, Saturdays at 2pm and 5:30pm, and Sundays at 2pm. Seating is cabaret-style and audiences are invited to bring their own food and drink to enjoy during the show. The Milford Arts Council, The MAC is located at 40 Railroad Avenue in Milford. Parking is free at showtime in all train station lots.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\ud83c\udfad NEW! Connecticut Theatre Newsletter Get all the top news & discounts for Connecticut & beyond. Pantochino Productions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-172079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}