tHeater
Character: Eliza Doolittle
Character: Jackie
Director: Sarah Butts
Director: James Rice
Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a commentary on women’s independence.
synopsis
pygmalion
Long Beach Playouhouse
Feb. 27 to Mar. 26, 2016
In this farcical comedy of manners, Noel Coward displays his talent for word-play as a quiet weekend getaway turns into a battlefield of intellectual warfare. Novelist David Bliss and his actress wife, Judith, escape to the country hoping for a quiet escape from their hectic lives, only to find their grown children dashing their hopes with their arrival, along with each of the family members’ guests. The family’s last name is the only bliss this out-of-control clan can hope to experience in this hysterically witty British whirlwind. Like Coward’s Blithe Spirit and Private Lives, Hay Fever will keep you breathless from laughter.
synopsis
hay fever
Long Beach Playouhouse
Nov. 7 to Dec. 5, 2015
Translation by Beverley Cross, Francis Evans
This 1960s French farce adapted for the English-speaking stage features self-styled Parisian lothario Bernard, who has Italian, German, and American fiancees, each beautiful airline hostesses with frequent “layovers”. He keeps “one up, one down and one pending” until unexpected schedule changes bring all three to Paris and Bernard’s apartment at the same time. “This latest edition of a play soars right out of its time zone and into some unpolluted stratosphere of classic physical comedy.” – The New York Times
synopsis
Boeing Boeing
Long Beach Playouhouse
Nov. 9 to Dec. 7, 2013
Helen's entire life has been dictated to her. She she does what society expects of her, however resistant she may feel. She marries her boss, whom she finds repulsive and has a baby with him. Followed by an affair with a younger man who fuels her lust for life, she is driven to murder her husband. She is found guilty and is executed in an electric chair. Inspired by the real life case of executed murderess Ruth Snyder. Its 1928 Broadway premiere is considered one of the high-points of American Expressionist theatre.
synopsis
machinal
Long Beach Playouhouse
May 9 to June 1, 2013
Character: Gloria
Director: James Rice
Character: Helen
Director: Katie Chidester