Can You Keanu? Point Break LIVE!, Unique Stage Take on Film, Comes to NYC
By Ernio Hernandez
25 Jan 2007
Audience members will answer the call to star in the Keanu Reeves role for Point Break LIVE!, a stage adaptation of the 1991 film.
James Hook directs the new non-Equity Manhattan run of the work — previously seen in Seattle, Minneapolis and Brooklyn — starting Jan. 25 at the La Tea Theater. The limited engagement plays through Feb. 24.
Point Break LIVE! follows the story in the Hollywood film that "revolves around Johnny Utah, former college football star turned FBI Agent who must go undercover to infiltrate a gang of bankrobbing surfers."
What is unique about the stage take is that the role of Utah (played by Reeves in the film) is played by an audience member (selected at random each night) who is thrust upon the stage (guided by a PA — who also serves as stunt double) and given his/her lines on cue-cards. "Keanu Reeves roles demand a special kind of acting," explains director Hook, on the show's conceit. "Essentially, in every scene, you have to look like you've just been dropped into a room and you have no idea what's going on."
The cast features Topher Mikels (as Bodhi), Thomas Blake (Roach), George Spielvogel (Angelo Pappas), Ben Robertson (Ben Harp), Izzy Abeyta (Tyler Ann Endicott), Scout Durwood (Kathryn Bigelow), Amber Hubert (PA), Mike Kash (Cameraman), Jonathan Evan Stern, Adam Morris and Conor Tansy.
According to production notes, the play "features copious amounts of fake blood, extended fight choreography, and an indoor monsoon." The work premiered at Seattle's Little Theatre and subsequently toured throughout the Pacific Northwest before playing runs in Minneapolis and Brooklyn.
Tickets to Point Break LIVE! at the La Tea Theatre, in the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center at 107 Suffolk Street (between Delancey and Rivington St.) are available by calling (212) 352-3101.
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