You've got to wonder why CAST has been hiding its light under a bushel for two years. The professional acting school finally gave its first public performance, spotlighting 19 of teacher/director Ed Gilweit's students. After seeing the half dozen sketches of David Ives's All in the Timing, teacher must be proud. Starting off, David Randal and Beth Burney give a nearly A+ rendition of Sure Thing. Rapidfire pacing, faultless contouring of characters, and impeccable timing make this wild succession of variants on boy-meets-girl a scream.
Words, Words, Words is even wilder. Bounding before us are three lab chimps whose lives are dedicated to the famed proposition that, given the chance to bang on typewriters forever, they will eventually produce Hamlet. Animal sounds and flying bananas punctuate Gilweit's engaging direction. Spiros Kyritsis and William Boyer are particularly rambunctious as Milton and Swift -- and artistically temperamental! Boyer returns after intermission to put a nice neurotic edge on The Philadelphia.
Randal teams with Shea Broom to get Foreplay off to a fine start, but I've never seen a version of this miniature golf fugue that hasn't collapsed along the way. Broom was marvelous as the emcee of Speed-the-Play, a loving, lightning-quick sendup of four David Mamet plays. Boyer and John Charles Baker were particularly on-target in the American Buffalo segment. The slickly-refurbished CAST warehouse theater instantly takes its place among the coolest theater venues in Charlotte. Cross the railroad tracks on 36th Street of NoDa, Charlotte's new Bohemia, and take a left at Cullman. You can't miss it, and you shouldn't.
