Dolce Vita, Bridgeport – November 2011

516 DeKalb Street, Bridgeport, PA 19405

610.279.1795, www.DolceVitaRest.com

On a rainy evening when everything feels dank and chill, there’s nothing quite like good, stick-to-the-ribs Italian comfort food. So on one such night Bob and Pat decided to head over to Bridgeport’s Dolce Vita restaurant with Bob’s sister Mary Jane and brother-in-law Gene. Even though the evening was dark and dreary, the restaurant was easy to find due to the large, colorful mural painted on the side wall. In more clement weather we would have enjoyed dining on the terrace, but the rain drove us indoors into the homey décor of the house-turned-restaurant. Soft guitar music added to the coziness of the atmosphere.

For appetizers we shared nicely piccante crab stuffed mushrooms, along with warm Italian bread served with butter and roasted red peppers. Pat’s entrée was three large macaroni shells stuffed with five cheeses and covered with marinara sauce. Bob, always one to enjoy what he calls “fun food,” ordered veal parmagiana, which came with a garden salad dressed in a classic Italian vinaigrette. Gene ordered chicken cacciatore with a side of spaghetti. Mary Jane had the veal scallopini, which was accompanied by carrots and green beans cooked nicely al dente. The entrees were exceedingly generous and came piping hot right out of the oven.

Amazingly enough, we had room for desert and happily shared amply portioned servings of tiramisu, bread pudding with vanilla ice cream, and cannellonis. Not exactly diet food, but well worth the indulgence.

Dolce Vita is clearly a family-oriented, neighborhood restaurant with hearty food at reasonable prices. In addition to its signature Italian menu, it also does catering, private parties, and on weekends expands its menu to include authentic Mexican cuisine. We definitely intend to go back to sample the Mexican specialties.

- Pat and Bob Fogal

Past Reviews

Hyatt at the Bellevue – September 2011

Creed’s, King of Prussia – August 2011

Radice, Blue Bell – July 2011

Stella Blu, West Conshohocken – June 2011

Nonprofit awarded grant to join Norristown’s economic revitalization movement

Norristown, PA (Dec 6, 2011) – Theatre Horizon, Norristown’s professional nonprofit theatre company, will announce plans for the construction and grand opening of a new theatre slated for the Fall 2012. Company Co-Founders Erin Reilly and Matthew Decker will lead the formal announcement and rendering preview to the public at the Voices of Christmas opening night performance on December 16 at 7:45pm.

The former Bell Telelphone building at 401 DeKalb Street will be home to the nonprofit’s new performing arts center. Theatre Horizon was awarded a $200,000 grant in Montgomery County and Borough of Norristown revitalization funds to assist with the move. Additional proceeds were raised through annual performances and private donations.

“After years of planning and fundraising, we are excited to welcome the community to our Voices of Christmas opening night and invite them to experience all that our brand-new theatre will have to offer,” said Erin Reilly, Co-Founder and Artistic Director. “The new space will allow Theatre Horizon to serve our supporters and the Norristown community in a greater capacity than ever before.”

Theatre Horizon is currently renting space for performances and educational programs at the Centre Theater in Norristown, where two small professional theatres also reside. The nonprofit has performed in seven different venues since the organization emerged in 2005.

“Norristown has a rich tradition of performing arts, and it’s very important that Theatre Horizon reflects and augments Norristown’s already vibrant arts community,” said Matthew Decker, Co-Founder and Resident Director. “This expansion will provide more opportunity — both for our artistic direction and for local business growth.”

In the first five years at the Bell Telephone building, the organization anticipates more than $65,000 will be returned annually to the Borough of Norristown through the economic impact of dining and parking related to Theatre horizon’s performances.

To illustrate the announcement, Reilly and Decker will unveil a never-before-seen rendering of the future structure to the audience. The space will encompass a modern 120-seat theater, ground-floor office facility, multi-use lobby space for artistic and audience engagement programs, upgraded lighting, sound system equipment, technical and storage space, dressing rooms, and classrooms.

The ground plan was designed by Doug Seiler of Seiler + Drury Architecture. Construction bids have been submitted and will be announced in February 2012.

XIX, Hyatt at the Bellevue – September 2011

Hyatt at The Bellevue, 19th floor, Broad and Walnut Streets, Philadelphia, PA 19102

215.790.1919, http://www.hyatt.com/gallery/nineteen/xix.html

Even if all you want is a cup of coffee, you should definitely pay XIX a visit. Occupying the 19th floor (hence the name “XIX”) of the Hyatt at The Bellevue, this elegant restaurant provides a stylish combination of French Renaissance architecture with modern interior décor. Diners emerge from the elevator into the main dining area, a huge rotunda with floor-to-ceiling windows that offer a stunning view of Center City. Additional dining areas include a large meeting room, an elegantly appointed bar, and another smaller rotunda. The ambiance is one of quiet elegance, with not-too-obtrusive background music sounding rather like Brazilian pop. “They don’t make them like this any more” (quote from Bob).

As Philadelphia’s “highest restaurant,” XIX styles its cuisine “seafood centric” American. We were served warm individual French style rolls with a large round pat of molded butter sprinkled with kosher or sea salt. Pat began her meal with littleneck clams on the half shell from the raw bar. The clams were presented with shaved ice heaped on an elevated metal platter along with lemon wedges, cocktail sauce, and extra horseradish and balsamic vinegar to doctor the cocktail sauce to taste. Pat’s entré was steak frite, a nicely rare flatiron cut with a butter-mustard-shallots-wine sauce. Accompanying the steak was a huge pile of fabulous shoestring potatoes (which we shared).

Bob’s gazpacho was served in a long white oval bowl containing shrimp, olives, watercress and sourdough croutons over which the waiter poured the tomato-based vegetable puree. Instead of an entré, Bob chose two appetizers: lump crab cake served with red pepper jelly, and the XIX salad which featured greens, walnuts, bleu cheese, and mango slices with a delicate citrus vinagrette.

After all the shoestring potatoes, we amazingly had room for coffee and desert. We shared a refreshing trio of homemade raspberry, cherry, and mango sorbets, accompanied by two decaf Starbucks cappuccinos.

The setting was elegant, the wait staff attentive, and the food was delicious. As if that wasn’t enough to delight the senses, Mother Nature added her bit by bringing in thunderclouds and rain to the west, which we could easily see from the tremendous rotunda windows. The maitre d’ said that the previous week the diners and staff were treated to the experience of a thunderstorm sitting right on top of the restaurant! Our show wasn’t that dramatic but it was still fun to see the billows of cloud and rain over the city, and we didn’t mind in the least that we got soaked on the way back to Suburban Station.

- Pat and Bob Fogal

Past reviews:

Creed’s, King of Prussia – August 2011

Radice, Blue Bell – July 2011

Stella Blu, West Conshohocken – June 2011

In November, Nordstrom let customers know they wouldn’ t see Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving because the store likes to celebrate “one holiday at a time”. Normally, I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. This year however, we here at Theatre Horizon have been thinking of Christmas for months. The Voices of Christmas cast is now in their third week of rehearsal, working through material that the creative team has been gathering since August.

Cast and crew watches holiday YouTube clips for inspiration

It has been both exciting and a little terrifying to gather material for a show in which there are no rules. We wanted to create something unique for this time of year, an alternative to the many productions of A Christmas Carol and The Nutcracker. Something that spoke to our common experiences during the holidays and made us think (and maybe offered us an opportunity to sing along or dance in our seats a bit). Cast, staff and crew have pulled poems, newspaper articles, sermons, radio interviews–they’ve even written stories of their own. We’ve learned well and lesser known carols, and even pulled some things from our iPods that you may never have considered offering a message for Christmas.

In order to keep track of our many options we have dedicated a wall of our rehearsal room to a giant collection of color coded index cards: pink for songs, blue for stories. Looking at a wall COVERED in index cards on the first day of rehearsal, we realized that without some trimming the show would be about four hours long! We’ve had to part with some favorites along the way (slideshow of terrible Christmas family photos? Out. Excellent parody of The Twelve Days of Christmas? Still in). At some point during rehearsal everyone sneaks to the index card wall to peek at how the order of the show has changed and what has migrated to the “maybe” and “cut” piles.  I finally recovered from a necessary cutting of “Winter Song” and one day Carl Clemons-Hopkins will forgive us for taking out “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”.

Voices of Christmas storyboard

The cast has been amazing; learning and perfecting songs for us to try out that we’ve later decided didn’t help us reach the greater goal for the show. We want to provide you with something smart and fun that offers an interesting and fresh take on the holiday experience. We all came to the table with stories and songs we were passionate about and each step of this process has required careful consideration regarding what to keep. We have some trimming yet to do and a few more index cards that will have to move to the “cut” pile but each day of rehearsal is exciting as we continue to shape and create as an ensemble. Our small but mighty group of performers is helping to turn the ideas we all had in August into a fantastic hour and half of theatre. We look forward to sharing our finished product soon. In the meantime, if you need us, we’ll be in the rehearsal room perfecting our harmonies, blocking our stories, and reviewing our wall of color-coded cards.

- Erin Read, Asst Director/Dramaturg for Voices of Christmas

“In the summer of 1999, the idea that was to become Theatre Horizon was born. Sitting in the Reilly’s basement, almost on a lark, Matt Decker and Erin Reilly challenged me and a few other friends to play improvisational games that eventually spawned a short play called Horizons.  The show was about growing up and making difficult decisions. The tag-line was ‘make a decision and move on.’ Turned out to be a powerful message for a group of college kids with optimism galore and yet unclear visions about their respective futures.  The show helped shape who I was as a young man.  Right or wrong, I made decisions with confidence and moved on in my journey.  Meanwhile, Erin and Matt started formulating their vision of Theatre Horizon. Twelve years later, Matt and Erin continue to demonstrate the power of theater to inspire.”

“I was in high school when Theatre Horizon started, and Erin Reilly was directing my high school productions.  I’ll never forget when she sat me down and encouraged me to really consider Theatre as a viable future for myself as I faced my college career.  My friends and I used to go to support Erin and see the small shows that Theatre Horizon was producing in a park in Upper Merion.  Now, 7 years later, I am astounded at how far the company has grown from those early shows to the artistically thriving, Barrymore-award-winning, up-and-coming professional company that it is!  And I’m so proud to be a part of that now as a member of our small but mighty staff.  Happy Birthday, Theatre Horizon!”

For proof, here’s a photo of high-school Maura being a Theatre Horizon superfan at one of those early performances.  As if this wasn’t ‘small world’ enough for you, Maura is pictured with Caroline Dooner, who will be performing in our upcoming show, Voices of Christmas!