FEBRUARY 4TH AT 7:00 PM
http://www.adelaidemestre.com
SARASOTA, FL – “TOP DRAWER: Dysfunction and Redemption from Park Avenue to Havana,” was first produced in the 2011 New York International Fringe Festival, and is writer and performer Adelaide Mestre’s autobiographical story of her journey to Cuba to seek out her deceased father’s piano, left behind when her family fled in 1960. The show takes place in both the past and present, as the audience follows her on her quest to reclaim her family’s heritage. In flashbacks, she chronicles her life growing up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side with her mother, a thrice married, opera-singing socialite with impossible top-drawer standards, and her father, a gay, Cuban, manic-depressive concert pianist. In story and song, she recalls memories about her parent’s doomed love affair, her father’s struggle with his homosexuality, and his eventual tragic suicide. On her journey, she learns of a famous speech her grandfather gave against Castro and recovers old recordings of her father playing the piano with an orchestra in Havana in 1954. With sentiment and humor she spins a tale of dysfunction and redemption and, ultimately, shares her discovery that art can be a kind of alchemy that transmutes loss and abandonment into freedom. TOP DRAWER will make you laugh, cry, and maybe even… sing.
Liz Smith called TOP DRAWER,” One of the more fascinating events in Manhattan” and NYTheatre.com wrote, “Top Drawer is sincere, sad and yet triumphant…. watching Mestre discover her value and her calling as a performer is inspiring to any artist who has struggled with both the professional and personal ups and downs implicit in the artist’s life.” TOP DRAWER has enjoyed multiple, return engagements at NYC’s TRIAD THEATRE. In 2013 it was presented, in sold out shows, at New York’s Symphony Space by The Cuban Cultural Center of New York and in Miami by the Cuban Museum. Top Drawer was also produced in Boston for Friends of Caritas Cubana and most recently to standing ovations at East Hampton’s Guild Hall.
Adelaide Mestre is an actress, singer, writer and solo show performer. In her work, she mines the autobiographical material of her childhood and family history, chronicling the trials and tribulations of growing up in an eccentric family among artists and other eccentric personalities. She has performed in numerous theatrical productions, musicals, cabarets, and films including Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives. Adelaide has written and performed several solo shows including: Dead Mosquito at Emerging Artists Theatre’s One Woman Standing Festival and Out of Step at Where Eagles Dare Theatre. Her ten-minute play, It’s My Amygdala was produced at the Estrogenius Festival and the SoHo Playhouse. Top Drawer premiered in the 2011 New York International Fringe Festival and has since enjoyed multiple
TOP DRAWER is written and performed by Adelaide Mestre, with Doug Oberhamer at the piano, and is directed by Coco Cohn.
TOP DRAWER will run for one performance on February 4th at 7:00pm at Crocker Memorial Church, located at 1260 12th Street in Sarasota. Tickets are $15 for general admission and can be purchased online at www.sarasolo.org.
The SARASOLO THEATER FESTIVAL is an annual theater festival celebrating solo performers held in Sarasota, FL. Through a variety of one-person shows, the festival explores and celebrates the uniqueness of the individual.
