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When Phyllis Papa, artistic director of the Atlantic City Ballet, goes to Cancun, Mexico, in January, she always meets up with two friends from East Hampton, Diana Plitt and Marie Rosso, both artists. When they get together, they talk about their interest in art and literature—and ballet.
A couple of years ago, Ms. Papa suggested to the two women that if they were ever to hold a fund-raiser, she’d like her ballet company to be the entertainment.
The fund-raiser never came to pass, but, the next year, she mentioned to the women that she’d like the ballet company to perform at Guild Hall, which she had seen during a visit to East Hampton.
Ms. Papa approached both the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall and the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center, and, last summer, the 27-year-old international company, made up of 22 professional ballet dancers mostly in their 20s, performed in both venues.
This year, they are coming back to Guild Hall, with a performance, the first of their fall season, slated for Tuesday, August 31, at 8 p.m. “It will be an exciting season with new works and new choreographers, which will take the company to a whole new level,” said Ms. Papa, a former ballerina who teaches, conducts rehearsals with the company and choreographs many of their routines.
The program this year, “An Evening with the Atlantic City Ballet,” is a repertoire program of four different short ballets that range from drama to comedy. The ballets include “Pas de Dix,” which is classical; “Mountain Legend,” a drama set to the music of “Appalachian Spring”; “Les Patineurs,” a program of simulated skating; and “Impressions,” a comedy set to Beatles music.
“This is a very professional dance company,” said Ms. Plitt, who called Ms. Papa an “entrepreneur extraordinaire” in the way she operates her company. “I was really gratified to see these young dancers perform.”
Last year, Ms. Plitt and Ms. Rosso played “supporting roles” in the ballet company’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” They helped arrange overnight accommodations at Blue Bay, a Girl Scout camp, and Ms. Rosso served them an impromptu spaghetti dinner at her home in Maidstone Park at midnight the night they arrived. This year, they are driving to East Hampton and leaving right after the performance. “Phyllis even drives the truck,” Ms. Plitt said.
The performance last year was hailed as a success by attendees, but the turnout was low, Ms. Papa said, due to a lack of advertising and publicity, and the company lost money.
“We rent the theater, pay the professional dancers, have travel expenses, crew and lighting expenses and the printing of tickets and posters. If we sold the house out this year, we would break even,” she said.
Ticket prices for the ballet are $35 general admission, $30 for seniors, and $15 for children. The ACB is a 501 c (3) non-profit organizations and all donations are tax deductible. To purchase tickets, go to the ACB website, acballet.org, e-mail the company at acbt@abct.org or call 609-804-1995. Tickets will also be available at the Guild Hall box office the day of the performance.
“We do know that the people who went last year are coming back this year,” Ms. Papa said. “With all the artists in East Hampton, I think they will come out and support us and see something of beauty. You do not have a professional ballet company in East Hampton and we would like to make the town one of our homes.”
John Drew Theater Artistic Director John Gladstone said last week that he welcomed the ACB to the stage again this year. “They’ve been around for a number of years and we rented the space to them at a reduced rate to help support them,” he said. The theater co-produces or hosts several dance shows a year, and just hosted the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Ailey II company.
Dancers in the Atlantic City Ballet range in age from 19 to 29 and, in addition to the United States, come from several countries, including Spain, Italy, Latvia, Israel, Japan, Canada, Korea and Australia.
Gal Mahzaii, 19, from Tel Aviv, said the ACB is his first professional ballet job in the United States. He played Bottom in last year’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” and this year will dance in all of the short repertory ballets in the program. “Last year I was an apprentice and this year I was promoted to being part of the company,” he said.
“In this performance in East Hampton, the audience will see every way of doing ballet, all in one night, with very talented members of the company,” Mr. Mahzaii said. “This is very energetic ballet.”
Sarah Lonngren, 28, of Philadelphia, another dancer who performed in last year’s production, said she loves to travel with the ballet company.
“We performed this ballet we’re doing in East Hampton last April at Cape May and Collingsworth, New Jersey,” she said. “In this production, we are introducing new dancers and it’s exciting to be performing a program of lots of different stuff.”
on Aug 23, 2010