The Beast and his Beauty, Belle, are happily ensconced in their palace, audiences are happy, and the massive show is now put to bed. Phew! What an undertaking. I directed it the last time we did the show in 2005, and I had almost forgotten what a monster show it is to put together. Add in the fact that it was double-cast this outing, and … well … It was quite an undertaking. Congrats to all for a marvelous performance.
Now we’re onto the spring and all the other shows needing our attention. This weekend we have a reading of “Is Murder Tax Deductible?” The reading will be performed March 22-24 in the Schmuckal Theatre. We hear the playwright, Katherine Beeson, may even join us on Saturday.
It’s the offices of Dett and Merring Accountants, and murder is afoot. One partner mistakenly identified as the dead man continues to play out the ruse along with the office secretary, Bella, and foiling the other characters and the police until Detective Bartholomew sees through the obfuscation, learning the secrets each is hiding behind. All is not what it seems nor who they seem, and long-time vengeance plays out with whacky consequences and twists. It’s a lighthearted murder mystery in the Agatha Christie cozy tradition.
While the Beast ruled the theatre this winter, the Young Company has been hard at work on their Theatre for Young Audiences show. They have taken Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and adapted it for a young audience, adding dance and music as they traipse the magical forest of Oberon, Titania, Puck and the young lovers. Adapted and directed by Denni Don Hunting, you can catch these performances at the Event Center on Garfield Avenue April 18-20. It’s always a joy to gambol with the fools and fairies in this classic comedy.
This April also sees the presentation of the taut and moving drama “Radium Girls” by D. W. Gregory. Radium Girls is based on a true and tragic story that defined American labor history in the 1920s. The Radium Girls were factory workers who painted dials with radium-based paint and mysteriously started dying. The public didn’t know of radium’s toxic nature. In fact, Madame Curie, the internationally adored physicist and chemist, convinced the world of radium’s healing powers. In the factories, laborers who painted were instructed to finely point their brushes by molding the bristles with their mouths, but this process ultimately poisoned the laborers themselves. As doctors slowly began to discover radium’s devastating harm, five women in New Jersey sued their employers but reached a settlement outside the court in 1928. Those women’s stories serve as source material in D.W. Gregory’s work.
The play has had over 1800 performances in the last 20 years, and it is one of the best dramas of the new century. At its core is its fierce look at the culture of compliance and the resulting victims. It takes a hard look at the uses of denial, and the lengths we will go to in order to protect ourselves from painful truths.
An impressionistic work, the play moves quickly, cinematically from scene to scene as the play delves deeper into the commercialization of science, the pursuit of both health and wealth, the power of the underdog, and the fierce injustice laborers in America have faced, and may even continue to face in the present.
This dynamic play performs April 5-13. Get your tickets at oldtownplayhouse.com.
See you on the boards.