More Paula Danziger Connections

We at Barista didn’t realize that Paula Danziger had so many Montclair connections until she died last week. Here’s another. Gary and Mark Blackman of ArtsPower, a young-adult touring theater company based in Montclair, met her last summer during a workshop of their show, “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler” (based on the book by E.L. Konigsburg). Danziger was apparently deciding whether to get mixed up with the Blackman brothers (who are twins) and checked out the show they did based on her friend’s book. Apparently they passed the test. ArtsPower will be adding the musical “Amber Brown Is Not a Crayon,” based on Danziger’s book of the same name, to their national tour in October 2005.
Production of the show will begin next January, and music will be written by Bloomfield resident Richard DeRosa, who’s a professor of music at William Paterson University.