Mainstage
| Fun & Entertaining, see our local actors in action! Click on the links below for more detailed information on each production. |
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Our Town
| Cast: 17m, 7f, extras ~ less with doubling | Auditions: Monday & Tuesday, Aug 1 & 2, 2011 |
| Directed By: Richelle Kowalczyk | Performances: Sept. 16-18, 22-24, 2011 |
This edition of the play differs only slightly from previous acting editions, yet it presents the version of Our Town as Thornton Wilder wished it performed. Described by Edward Albee as “…the greatest American play ever written,” the story follows the small town of Grover’s Corners through three acts: “Daily Life,” “Love and Marriage,” and “Death and Eternity.” Narrated by a stage manager and performed with minimal props and sets, audiences follow the Webb and Gibbs families as their children fall in love, marry, and eventually—in one of the most famous scenes in American theatre—die. Thornton Wilder’s final word on how he wanted his play performed is an invaluable addition to the American stage and to the libraries of theatre lovers internationally.
The play was programmed into the 2002 summer season because, after 9/11, artistic director Joanne Woodward thought it was the right time to return to what the play had to say about people.
"She felt it spoke to the mood of the time. It has a wonderful history here in Westport. Thornton Wilder appeared on stage at the Playhouse, he got his Equity card here. As [Woodward and James Naughton] began to put the production together, and more and more people signed on from the Fairfield County area, and Connecticut, it became Our Town in our town and it had a really special feeling to it."
Initially the company signed on for three weeks in Connecticut, but enthusiastic reviews and board support swelled toward talk of a move to Broadway. "One thing led to another and it came down to Paul Newman agreeing to do it, and he agreed to do it on the condition that Westport was the sole producer of it" so the artistic control could be maintained.
Bookfair
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FrUiTCaKeS
| Cast: 4m, 4w, 6boys, 7 girls, extras | Auditions: Monday & Tuesday Oct 10 & 11, 2011 |
| Directed By: Dave Zochert | Performances: Dec. 2-4, 8-10, 2011 |
Mix together a batch of fruitcakes, three dozen Christmas trees, 10,000 outdoor Christmas lights, a chicken pox epidemic, two southern spinsters, an estranged old man, a lost cat named Tutti Frutti and a Christmas hog named Buster and you've got the recipe for a fun filled and touching evening filled with holiday cheer. Into this world comes Jamie, a kid who has run away from home and come as far as his money will take him. At first he thinks this town's inhabitants are "nuttier than fruitcakes," but soon he comes to admire, appreciate and adore this nutty little town. A moving story of alienation, understanding and reconciliation, FrUiTCaKeS provides audiences with a heaping helping of holiday warmth and Christmas cheer.
Blithe Spirit
| Cast: 2m, 5f | Auditions: Tuesday & Wednesday Jan 3 & 4, 2012 ~ 1010 Waube Lane |
| Directed By: Craig Berken | Performances: Feb. 17-19, 23-25, 2012 |
The smash comedy hit of the London and Broadway stages, this much-revived classic from the playwright of Private Lives offers up fussy, cantakerous novelist Charles Condomine, re-married but haunted (literally) by the ghost of his late first wife, the clever and insistent Elvira who is called up by a visiting "happy medium", one Madame Arcati.
Noises Off
| Cast: 6m, 4f | Auditions: Monday & Wednesday February 27 & 29, 2012~ 1010 Waube Lane |
| Directed By: Barb Alloy | Performances: May 4-6, 11-13, 2012 |
Called the funniest farce ever written, NOISES OFF presents a manic menagerie as a cast of itinerant actors rehearsing a flop called NOTHING'S ON. Doors slamming, on- and backstage intrigue, and an errant herring all figure in the plot of this hilarious and classically comic play.
"The most dexterously realized comedy ever about putting on a comedy. A spectacularly funny, peerless backstage farce. This dizzy, well-known romp is festival of delirium."—The New York Times
"Bumper car brilliance...If laughter is indeed the best medicine, NOISES OFF is worth its weight in Cipro."—New York Daily News
"The funniest farce ever written! Never before has side-splitting taken on a meaning dangerously close to the non-metaphorically medical."—New York Post
"As side-splitting a farce as I have seen. Ever? Ever."—New York Magazine
