A sold-out crowd of around 40 people packed the Sea Cliff Arts Council on Roslyn Avenue for another iteration of "Twisted Shorts," a series of one-act shows performed throughout the community for over 10 years.
Fred Stroppel, a career playwright and resident of Glen Cove, has been gathering local actors and to perform his one-act plays for the community over the last several years, performing in places such as St. Luke's Church in Sea Cliff and, most recently, the Sea Cliff Arts Council. The shows have been performed for more than a decade.
The evening consisted of eight one-act plays featuring local and professional actors who each came to perform a different show.
Stroppel said he was delighted with how the May 10 performance went.
"It went great. I don't think it could have gone better, I thought the actors were sensational," he said. "When you rehearse something, you don't really know how it will come across in front of an audience. And I thought the actors all stepped up their game and came up with all kinds of new stuff while on stage. And the audience seemed to love it."
Stroppel's son, Joe, made his acting debut in his father's production. He played the youngest member of an umpiring crew named Joe alongside Peter Plano and Paul Marchese in "Judgement Call
The play portrays Marchese's character, Frank, as he grapples with doubts about whether to continue his career as an umpire, driven by existential questions about life beyond umpiring and anxieties about the state of the world.
Meanwhile, Joe and Plano's character, Hank try to encourage Frank to push forward and continue officiating. It is revealed halfway through the play that this is because of a call that he blew towards the end of the previous season, which caused the relief pitcher on the mound to commit suicide in the off-season.
"It sounds very dramatic," Joe said. "But somehow it ends up being very funny." In addition, Joe also sang "You'll Be Back" from the megahit Broadway musical "Hamilton"
Carol Vogt, a Sea Cliff resident and audience member, said she makes sure she goes to every Twisted Shorts event, adding that Stroppel and his actors bring Broadway-level entertainment to Sea Cliff.
"It was outstanding. It's hard to choose a favorite performance because all of them were so good," she said. "The skits were hilarious, and each one also had a message."
Stroppel, a longtime playwright, has been writing shows since the 1980s, working for theaters such as Theater 22, The Actors Playhouse, and The Courtyard Playhouse, among others. He has also done comedy in the past, working as the head writer for Third Rail Comedy, which performed in various places in New York City.
Stroppel added that inspiration for the pieces can vary; in some instances, an idea will come to him out of nowhere, other times it can be suggested, or he'll observe something occurring in everyday life.
"Sometimes it all comes to you at once," he said. "Sometimes you work through it, and you get to the ending and realize, oh, now I understand how it should start, and then have to go back and rewrite it."
Stroppel's comedic inspirations include sketch comedy acts like Abbott and Costello, filmmakers such as Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges, and comedians such as W.C. Fields and the Marx Brothers.
Married couple Ann and Dan DiPietro were two of the performers who appeared during the production. Ann appeared in "It Takes a Village" and played a witch who was having trouble committing dastardly acts in Sea Cliff because everyone was so lovely and accepting.
The DiPietros appeared together in "Mulberries" an explicit play featuring tales of porn stars, drug deals and sexual escapades. Ann, president of the Sea Cliff Civic Association, said she was nervous performing such crass material but added that the acting became easier as the audience's laughter grew.
Dan praised "the twisted genius of Fred, knowing that the word, the words, in and of themselves, are funny, but having them delivered by a straight down the middle couple, you know, added to the humor."
Stroppel said that performances will continue in the future and added that he was thrilled with how everything fell into place during the evening.
"Everybody did a great job," he said. "The audience was with it every step of the way. So, I think every, every act worked as well as I would hope for it to work. It doesn’t always happen, but it happened on Saturday night."
