By Myra Chanin . . .
Right now, Bonnie Logan may be the happiest woman in South Florida, Keinehora, pooh, pooh, pooh! That’s the Yiddish incantation to protect her from catching the evil eye from passing Stregas. But since the universe seems to demand humans recompense it by suffering misery for any past or present bliss, Bonnie prepaid for her current joy by a year of intensive distress. In 2017, she was an accomplished, successful, entrepreneurial Boca Snowbird from Arlington, VA who worked in organizational development at the family business, a thriving sausage firm. Their sons had recently taken over its operation, which let Mom and Dad extend their present Boca visit so the Mister could get in a few more rounds of golf. As they were leaving a restaurant after dinner, Bonnie stepped into a handicapped area, never imagining the sign was a warning rather than an invitation. She slipped, fell and broke her femur into 40 pieces. Her recovery required her to spend the following year pretty much bedbound in Boca.
Fortunately, her close friends, Karen and Richard Peshkin, also Boca residents, were among her first visitors. Richard, a retired physician with an extensive musical background, realized Bonnie faced a long recuperation period and would need intellectual stimulation. Fortunately, he’d brought along some of his original songs and suggested she look them over and see if she could come up with a storyline to accompany his words and music. Richard knew Bonnie had a great sense of humor but was shocked to discover she was an amazing storyteller with a great ear for dialog. Logan had written business management and organizational development plans but had never considered writing for the theater, let alone writing the book for a musical.
The result of this accidental Logan/Peshkin collaboration was Boca Bound, a musical which played full houses at the Wick Theater in September of 2019. About a successful New York Attorney who learned to adapt and reassess her options when life threw her a curve ball, like the one thrown by life at Bonnie, Boca Bound was a hit. Audiences loved and laughed at the humor as they recognized all of their neighbors … never themselves … as prototypes for the performers on stage.
However, an offshoot of being bedbound in Boca allowed Bonnie to delve deeper into her own psyche and she soon found herself considering elements of a more meaningful and emotional script. Time Stops celebrates the bonds of love and the strength of the human spirit when playwright Emma Portman’s life is shattered by her daughters death at age 16. Charlie, Emma’s restaurateur husband, is able to keep going, but Emma moves forward by moving backwards. She retreats into an imaginary world and channels her grief by creating a musical within a musical about the life her daughter might have experienced had she’d lived which includes six other characters in Emma’s life, who work with her in theater, and just like she, find themselves at their own crossroads. Like Steven, a songwriter and the husband of Ben who wants a child and Gayle, a theatrical director and her husband Evan, a theater owner. As they question their relationships, reality and fantasy began to merge.
Time Stops is led by an award-winning creative team, director Chad Larabee, the Head of Performance at The University at Albany, has also directed the critically acclaimed off-Broadway production of Garson Kanin’s classic, Dreyfus in Rehearsal., as well as the London world-premiere of a new musical, Ain’t We Got Fun. Composer/lyricist Brett Boles has supplied the score for four musicals including Foreverman and Benjamin Button, writes wonderful old-fashioned melodies and has 1 million new-fangled followers on his TikTok Friday night show. Musical supervision is supplied by Michael J. Moritz Jr., the Tony and Emmy Award Winning Broadway producer of Hadestown and Beautiful.
Methinks, Time Stops is Broadway bound but makes its debut at South Florida’s premier regional venue, Kravis Center’s Rinker Playhouse July 15 – 17, 2022. Showtimes are Friday, July 15 through Sunday, July 17 at 8 pm. Matinee performances are Saturday and Sunday at 2 pm. Tickets start at $45 and may be purchased online at the Official Kravis Center Website kravis.org, or by calling the box office at 561.832.7469. The Box Office hours are Monday through Saturday 12 pm – 5pm.
Lead Photo: Bonnie Logan
