About Us
I have been involved in theatre for over 30 years. I have designed, painted and built sets, run lighting & sound boards, managed props, stage managed, written for theatre, produced, directed, acted and have costumed at most theatres on Long Island. I have performed regionally and Off-Broadway. I have starred in the world premieres of many shows as well as the Long Island premieres of such shows as "Breaking Legs", "Sylvia", "Catholic School Girls" and "The Convertible Girl" to name a few...
My husband, Ted, has been involved in magic and theatre for over 30 years. He, also, has stage managed, designed sets, has written and produced for Long Island Theatre. He has also starred in the Long Island premieres of "Greetings" and "Ragtime". His "Storytime Magic" and "The Magic of Thaddeus" has been featured in LI Parenting and Good Times magazines and he builds many of the illusions you see in his shows.
Together, we operate "Partners in Crime", our own murder mystery company for private events and restaurants in the tri-state area.
On a personal note...Over the years we have had the pleasure and privilege of meeting, learning and experiencing theatre from some of the best actors in NYC and on Long Island...In our 'Pay it Forward' attitude, we provide low cost benefit performances and theatre experiences for children and adults...
It is this passion that we take into every show we do. Exciting the children into performing their best or doing a show for adults and bringing them into another world for just a little while. This is what gives us our greatest joy.... and we hope to share that with you....
Life is good! <3
Our Charities:
March of Dimes
Strength for Life
West Babylon JHS Drama Club
The KG Foundation
Deer Park HS Drama Club
MS Views & News
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
American Cancer Society - Relay for Life
The Morgan Center
Babylon United Methodist Church
St. Joseph's Church - Babylon
First Presbyterian Church - Babylon
Boy Scouts Troop 104 - West Babylon
Wounded Warriors Project
What People are Saying:
Debbie and I would like to thank you so very much for the generous donation made to Strength for Life in memory of Evelyn Knapp. We are always thrilled to learn about the talents that Julia, Natalie, Isabella and Martin Knapp share in this arena, and I trust “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” was another huge success. Strength for Life is our answer to Evelyn’s vision, to help others living with cancer live their optimal life and we are honored that you chose our charity to benefit from this show and help keep Evelyn’s memory in the forefront.
~Jacqueline Errico, Strength for Life
The World of WonderDeb's Web - The LI Theater Buddy Newsletter 2/3/2011
ed. at Dix Hills Performing Arts Center
We had no idea that Ted Plezia is a magician. AND not only a magician but one of the top magicians on LI. We know Ted as Debbie Cascio's husband and a local actor. We've been to their home on many occasions. AND we know Debbie as a LI Performer/Director and costumer (she costumes all my shows at Longwood). As THADDEUS, Ted, a past president of the Suffolk Co Chapter of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, a highly decorated Nassau Co Police Officer, medic and helicopter pilot, delighted his sold out crowd. It was a one-night only event, but I'm sure he'll be back again next year and you shouldn't miss your opportunity to see an entertaining actor/magician at work. Thaddeus draws the audience in by using a story-telling approach and by inviting many volunteers onto the stage to "help." The squeals and laughter from the audience were non-stop throughout. Of all the illusions he performed, I was at a loss to figure all but one of them out and I've seen lots of magicians perform. As a fellow audience member commented, "I come back every year with the kids - it's always different. He always adds something new." It was a fun-filled afternoon and one I would highly recommend.
Want to see more of Thaddeus?
N. Y. TIMES THEATER REVIEW:
How to Make a Killing in Show Business, Sort Of
By LEAH D. FRANK
Published: February 6, 1994, Sunday
FOR a sidesplitting evening in the theater, "Breaking Legs," a comedy by Tom Dulak at the Arena Players Repertory Theater in East Farmingdale, fills the bill.
If arguments might be made over the quality of the script or the talent of the actors, they do not matter. This production is outrageously funny.
It is overacted, overdirected and overwritten to a degree that would, with a lesser-artistic team than this one, turn it into an overdone turkey. Here the end result is an evening that will keep you laughing all the way home.
The plot winds around an English professor and the lengths to which he will go to raise the money he needs to produce a play he has written. Having exhausted the donations of all his friends and family members, this naive, straight-laced, intellectual professor turns to the father of Angie Graziano, a former student.
Lou Graziano and his daughter own an Italian restaurant, and the play's action is in the private back room, where the Graziano family does its serious business with members of some of the other families in the neighborhood.
A professor hoping to raise money from an organized-crime family to produce an experimental play Off Broadway is a preposterous concept. But toss in a beautiful woman who manipulates the powerful men around her with the same ease that she winds spaghetti around her fork, a father who would flatten the earth to please her and a couple of intense "uncles," and you have a plot that would be unbelievable.
As Mr. Dulak has written it, however, "Breaking Legs" takes on its own internal logic, and the audience quickly settles into a willing suspension of disbelief.
Angie is a young woman who thinks that if something feels good, it is therefore good. In her devotion to her own pleasure principles, she decides that she wants to add the professor, Terence O'Keefe, to her collection of life experiences.
In short order she persuades her father and his "partners" to invest in the play. As it happens, it is about murder, but it is not a mystery thriller or anything else so pedestrian. It is, rather, an intellectual investigation of the emotional experience of killing another human being.
What makes "Breaking Legs" so funny is the juxtaposition of ideals and goals between the sheltered intellectual and the pragmatic "family." To say any more would spoil the fun of watching the professor become a fly in the web of art, lust and "family business."
The Arena production has been deftly directed by Frederic De Feis, who piles one ridiculous situation on top of another while keeping everything light, frothy and unpredictable. He has also cast the play with a couple of actors who must have studied hours of tapes of the John Gotti trials and other available information about crime families to make the characters come alive with such sharpness.
Don Frame is a delight as he turns the professor into an air bag who waffles between sheer fear, intellectual superiority and moral equivocation. Louis A. Lagalante gives a brilliant performance as the tough head of the family. Dapper and genial on the surface, Mr. Lagalante can flip his character into an amoral killer and back again to a loving, concerned father-figure without mussing a hair of credibility.
The core of the play or, more aptly, the spider in the center of the Grazianos' widespread web is Angie. Here, Deborah Cascio is a shimmying seductress one moment and a hard-nosed businesswoman the next. Ms. Cascio's delightfully energetic and subtle performance leaves no room for doubt that Angie is the true head of the family.
Tony Bellucci as Angie's father and Lou Nargi as one of Angie's "uncles" manage to personify a code of ethics that makes sense only within a select group. The one weak cast member is a character who owes too much money to the wrong people and is consequently on stage for a very short period in the first act.
"Breaking Legs," which will be at the Arena through Feb. 13, is a comedy about morals and values and the nature and purpose of art. It is also very, very funny.
What Our Kids Think:
A Poem ~~~~
Scared silly, standing still-
Heart beating as fast as a drum-
Anticipation building up inside waiting to explode-
Second guessing-
Stomach turning-
Fingers tingling, time is ticking-
Ready, no? lets go-
Standing in the spotlight, stealing the show-
Hearing cheers -
Standing tall-
This is what I am meant to do-
To show them all---
That this is my spotlight!
Written By:Nikki Wieman and Mary-Grace Seward
