Albert M. Tapper Archives - TheaterScene.net

Albert M. Tapper

Bettinger’s Luggage

September 28, 2023

An alternate title for Albert M. Tapper’s Clifford Odets-esque "Bettinger’s Luggage" might be "The Flood." In Tapper’s period piece, a flood destroyed the eponymous shop, an event around which Tapper’s tale of a family-owned business on Delancey Street in the Lower East Side of 1974 revolves. Solidly directed by Steven Ditmyer, "Luggage" is a classic story of one generation disappointing another with unreasonable expectations, with a touch of Jaime Sánchez’s character in the "The Pawnbroker"’s self-sacrifice tossed in for emotional heft. [more]

On the Right Track

April 22, 2023

The latest collaboration by composer lyricist Albert M. Tapper and bookwriter Tony Sportiello, "On the Right Track," proves to be a charming chamber musical for three performers playing seven roles. The show combines realism with magic and the supernatural as it tells three stories which take place on a New Jersey Transit train. The Conductor, the narrator, also is a mystical figure who is able to give the characters second chances in life and lea them to a better place than when they came on board. Owing some inspiration to such classics as Sir James M. Barrie’s "Dear Brutus", Sutton Vane’s "Outward Bound" and Frank Capra’s "It’s a Wonderful Life," "On the Right Track" avoids being preachy at the same time that it offers suggestions about how to live one’s life. [more]