Cafe Theatre Brings Off-Broadway Short Plays To Summit

No need to travel to New York City to satisfy your broadway craving now that an off-broadway style theatre is here to stay in Summit.

The Café Theatre at MONDO Summit’s Brownstone Theatre concludes its inaugural six-day season on Saturday night with “SUMMER SHORTS,” a collection of eight short comedies. 

Café Theatre’s Artistic Director David Hoffman and MONDO creater Annette Dwyer teamed up to offer short comedic plays with a side of food and beverages from Marigolds Café and Ahrre’s Coffee Roastery, which are both housed in MONDO Summit.

Director by Mike Driscoll, John A.C. Kennedy and Brian Remo, the cast includes Café Theatre veterans Scott Cagney and Matt McCarthy who are joined by Dave Duncan, Kristina Hernandez, Leslie Williams Reagoso, and Morgan Vasquez.

“Our initial program SUMMER SHORTS has been an artistic and financial success,” Hoffman says. “Audiences love the short play format and enjoy how we use the whole room as a stage. The program features plays by Jenny Lyn Bader, Ben Clawson, Greg Scot Mihalik, Ian August, and Dan Ho.”

Melissa Lowver, a Café Theatre spokeswoman, said the feedback has been very positive so far.

“Opening night was about 3/4 full, and Friday and Saturday nights were sold out,” Lowver told Patch. 

Hoffman said Café Theatre originated from 12 Miles West Theatre in Montclair in the early 1990s when the company was called “The Montclair Theatre Project.”

“Periodically, we would run evenings of scenes from plays. The purpose was to get company actors working and keeping their skills fresh. The venue was Tierney's Tavern in Montclair — the evenings were simply called 'Tierney's Nights,'” Hoffman told Patch. “For me, this was theatre at its most intimate; no sets, curtains, blackouts, special effects — just good acting with an appreciative audience — almost like a theatre party with the audience as guests” 

Hoffman says when the company moved to a new space in the Claridge Movie Theatre building, the company name was changed to “12 Miles West Theatre” and the scene nights were called Theatre Cafes.

But when theatre management changed and the scene nights were dropped, Hoffman decided to form his own company and call it "Cafe Theatre."

The initial Café Theatre production was at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick during the summer of 2002 where the company produced two programs of 10-minute plays, ON THE EDGE and CLOSE SHAVE.

“The plays were from different playwrights, some published, but most were original productions,” Hoffman told Patch. “Most of the actors and directors were from Mason Gross [School of the Arts at Rutgers University] and the results were fantastic. Unfortunately, George Street Playhouse was extremely expensive to rent, and New Brunswick during the summer was virtually a ghost town.”

Between 2005 and 2008, Hoffman moved Café Theatre back to Montclair and Tierney’s Tavern where he became a decade earlier.

“During these years, we produced three programs a year and developed steady audiences. Still, we were in tavern with its limitations,” Hoffman said.

Hoffman met Annette Dwyer in 2011 after she and her husband had bought a building in Summit with the goal of transforming it into a space where people could eat, shop and play.

“Cafe Theatre's style of intimate theatre definitely fit the ‘play’ role,” Hoffman told Patch. “The renovations were completed in 2013 and the building was named MONDO. On the third floor, there is a high ceiling ‘loft’ style space that reminded me of small theatres I had been to in SoHo. This fit perfectly with Annette's goal to bring a little off-broadway style theatre to Summit — or as we now say, ‘a little SoHo in Summit.’”

Lowver says Hoffman is fulfilling his dream to bring theater to his hometown of Summit. 

Hoffman and Lowver say the plan is for Cafe Theatre to be “in residence” at MONDO and produce four programs a year. The next one is slated for October. Hoffman says those plays will be about Halloween and baseball, which he may call “BATS & BALLS.”

For now, there’s just one night of SUMMER SHORTS left. Tickets are $15 for the Saturday show. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. and curtain is 8 p.m. Visit http://www.cafetheatre.org/ for ticket information.