Tom Dudzick’s semi-autobiographical portrait of his loud and sometimes loony clan is a nostalgic portrait shared with both humor and love.

Circle Theatre presents Over the Tavern, an entertaining comedy by Tom Dudzick about growing up in a Polish-Catholic family. Performances run June 15th – July 30th.

Tom Dudzick’s Over the Tavern, a comedy about the fictional Pazinski family, inspired by his Catholic boyhood growing up above his father’s bar in Buffalo, was a hit in three productions (the first in 1994) at Buffalo’s Studio Arena Theatre and in theatres around the country. The sequel, Over the Tavern Part II: King O’ the Moon, was an instant hit in November 1998 at the Studio Arena and nearly sold out when the co-production moved to the Pittsburgh Public Theater in January 1999. A third play, Lake Effect, set twenty years after Over the Tavern and ten years after King O’ the Moon, premiered at the Studio Arena in 2001.

Set in Buffalo, New York, Over the Tavern carries us back to the Eisenhower era of the 1950’s. It introduces us to the Pazinskis, who live over the bar they own. There’s Mom, Dad and their four children: Eddie, Annie, Georgie and the hero of the tale, 12-year-old Rudy. A precocious kid, this Polish-Catholic “Neil Simon” is about to be confirmed. When he suddenly changes his mind, he throws not only his family but the whole neighborhood and parochial school into turmoil. Dudzick’s semi-autobiographical portrait of his loud and sometimes loony clan is a nostalgic portrait shared with both humor and love.

Tom Dudzick (Playwright) is known for creating a series of semi-autobiographical comedies that have had successful runs in theatres from New York to Los Angeles. Theatre critics often refer to him as “the Catholic Neil Simon.” Born in Buffalo, New York (over a tavern) in 1950, Mr. Dudzick received his early theatrical training creating musical comedies for Buffalo’s massive dinner theatre industry. In the 1980’s, he relocated to New York, left performing behind and focused on writing. Within a few years he landed his first off Broadway play, Greetings!, a Christmas family comedy which The Los Angeles Times described as “a wonderful, wacky look at how cleverly a mixture of Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Age philosophy can-in the right hands-flick on the electricity.” The play is now a holiday favorite, appearing annually in theatres all over the country. For his next play, Mr. Dudzick dipped into his own childhood, semi-fictionalized his family, called them the Pazinski’s, named the play Over the Tavern and turned it into what Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune calls, “one of the biggest grass-roots successes in American regional theatre of the last few years.” The hilarious and touching play created such interest that Buffalo Studio Arena commissioned him to write a sequel, King o’ the Moon, employing the same characters ten years older. He created an “Over the Tavern Trilogy” by writing yet a third play about the Pazinski’s, set in the infamous blizzard of 1977, and entitled Lake Effect. By mayoral proclamation, May 5 in Buffalo is declared “Tom Dudzick Day” in gratitude for “his contribution to his boyhood community and theatre-goers nationwide.” He now lives in Nyack, New York with his wife Holly Caster, and their children, Charles and Emma.