“Over The Tavern” Reviewed by Frank Meccia

Highly Recommended **** The baby boom generation started in 1946 to 1964, It started after WWII, when America was on the road to great new discoveries. Imagine being a Polish 12-year-old in 1959, living in a Polish neighborhood in Buffalo New York going to St. Casimir’s Parochial School and getting ready to make your Confirmation , and instead of just memorizing the Catechism book so that you can get confirmed, you instead, question everything out there, and imagine what that old school nun must be thinking. This comic semi-autobiographical play is about the life lessons from both the classroom of a Catholic school to the family dinner table of the late 1950’s. It’s a wonderful tribute to all the baby boomers out there who went to private school, and how we dealt with a changing world.

The play show’s how Rudy Pazinski played by the talented Logan Baffico deals with trying to grow up and be a comic and an announcer like his idol Ed Sullivan and using that comic timing with his family and the difficult and stern Sister Clasissa played by Janet Ulrich-Brooks. Rudy wants answers to life’s meanings and doesn’t want the answers that the Baltimore Catechism book gives. The timing between these two actors makes the whole show work. The family owns a bar, and they live above the bar, hence the name. His parents are played by Cory Goodrich, a mother who left the life of a farm girl to marry and have a family in Buffalo, who understands changes, and wants the best for her children, and Eric Slater who plays Chet Pazinski, the father who provides for his family who also went to the same school that his children go to, and had the same nun teach him. But Chet has his own problems, taking care of his alcoholic father, and still be there for his wife and children. Rudy being the middle child has to step out and be his own person, different from his brother and sister played by Isabella Roberts and Seth Steinberg, or his handicapped younger brother played by Julian Solis, who was so believable in the role, and finds that special way to make you laugh and love him.

Theatre at the Center is in Munster Indiana, a 45-minute drive from the city, and hour from the north suburbs, when you get here fill up the car, gas is only $2.95. I love this theatre for many reasons, free parking, all seats give a perfect view of the stage, and the most leg room of any large theatre. And all their productions are top quality, the same caliber that you find at Drury Lane or Marriott Lincolnshire. Ericka Mac directs an outstanding cast, and the set design by Angela Weber Miller was very original and the best I have seen for this play.

“Over The Tavern” will continue through August 11th

Performances are:

2 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays

7:30 p.m. Fridays

3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays

2:30 p.m. on Sundays

Individual ticket prices range from $42-$46. To purchase individual tickets, call the Box Office at 219-836-3255 or Tickets.com at 800-511-1532. Group discounts are available for groups of 11 or more. Student tickets are $20 and gift certificates are also available. For more information on Theatre at the Center, visit www.TheatreAtTheCenter.com. 

To see what others are saying, visit www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click at “Over The Tavern”.

If you get to Munster early ( and hungry for something sweet, Munster Donuts is a treasure, so do not pass it by!