(Posted March 11, 2013)

"Café Variations" will be presented at Juniata College at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, March 23, in Rosenberger Auditorium in the Halbritter Center for the Performing Arts.
"Café Variations" will be presented at Juniata College at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, March 23, in Rosenberger Auditorium in the Halbritter Center for the Performing Arts.

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- The dapper, agile waiter delivers drinks, dinner and acts as an onstage director of sorts as a theatrical comedy-drama-musical emerges from the stories of the different diners at the restaurant in "Café Variations," presented at Juniata College at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, March 23, in Rosenberger Auditorium in the Halbritter Center for the Performing Arts.

For tickets and information about the Juniata College Presents series, please call (814) 641-JTIX (5849). General admission tickets for single performances are $20, except where otherwise noted. Single-show tickets for seniors over age 65 and children age 18 and under are $12. Juniata College students are admitted free with a student ID.

"Café Variations" is staged by SITI Company, a self-contained theatre collective that uses an ensemble of 10 actors, four designers and a playwright to generate plays that can be performed at concert venues or be used to train artists at residencies across the United States.

The focus of the play is on the production's waiter, who acts as a guide and a master of ceremonies of sorts through which the play evolves. The play takes place throughout the day and even reveals the overnight life of the café.

The production combines scenes of comedy, pathos and music, interwoven with introductions by the ever-present waiter. Some of the small scenes that spring up through the performance are taken from plays by SITI Company's resident playwright Charles Mee. Such plays as "A Walk in the Park, "Café Le Monde," "Memory Palace" and "Night and Day," all staged by SITI, will be excerpted to stand on their own as theatre pieces.

The focus of the play is on the production's waiter, who acts as a guide and a master of ceremonies of sorts through which the play evolves.

Music used in the production will be from George Gershwin.

The company, based in New York City features 10 actors, including Akiko Alzawa, J. Ed Araiza, Will Bond, Gian-Murray Gianino, Leon Ingulsrud, Ellen Lauren, Kelly Maurer, Tom Nelis, Barney O'Hanlon and Stephen Webber.

Charles Mee has created many plays solely for SITI, including "Orestes 2.0," "bobrauschenbergamerica," "Hotel Casseopeia," and "soot and spit (the musical)." He also has received acclaim for such productions as "Vienna: Lusthaus" and "A Perfect Wedding." He also specializes in productions inspired by Greek plays, such as "Big Love" and "True Love."

SITI company was founded in 1992 and co-founder Anne Bogart remains the company's artistic director. It's recent productions include "Death and the Ploughman," "Bob, Room, Score," "systems/layers," and "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.