“The
St. Patrick’s Day Gala will be a little different than the
others,” explained Chew;
“we’ve actually scripted it rather than just approach
it as straight cabaret. It’s set in a pub in Ireland with
a bunch of colorful characters and a young American tourist passing
through.”
Co-Artistic
Director Troy Siebels
is equally excited about the scripted performance, noting that
“for each ‘on-tour’ show we pull together everyone
in our Company who’s not currently performing in Boston.
Right now many of us are in rehearsal or performance downtown,
so there will be seven of us for St. Patrick’s Day. As it
turns out, the seven are among the best comedians in the Company,
and with a smaller group we can make it a much tighter show.”
The performance will feature Chew
and Siebels, as well
as Laura D. DeGiacomo,
Beth Gotha, Julie
Jirousek, Bill Mootos
and Joseph Upton.
The Gala will
begin at 6:30pm on Friday, March 17 with complimentary light hors
d’oeuvres, beer and wine; the performance will begin at
7:30pm and run about ninety minutes. Tickets are $40 for non-members
and can be obtained by calling the theatre at (978) 456-7898 or
by email at info@villagetheatreproject.org.
Village Theatre
Project will launch its first fully staged production at the Groton-Dunstable
Performing Arts Center, April 20-30. “Better Off Dead,”
written by Company member Shawn
Sturnick, was developed during the group’s summer 2005
Ashby Retreat, a two-week intensive residency for the development
of new plays. Chew directed
the play during the summer Retreat and describes it as “quick,
smart and funny. It’s about the playwright of a very bad
Broadway play, who is mistakenly reported dead in a freak accident
on opening night. Despite the horrible reviews, everyone wants
to see ‘the play the dead guy wrote,’ and it becomes
a huge success. When the playwright’s producer and agent
discover that he’s still alive, they plot to kill him to
keep the money flowing in.
Besides just
being a really funny play, it makes you laugh at how we get manipulated
by the media,” relates
Chew, who will play a variety of roles in the April production;
‘quick-changing’ from one to the next. The theatre
company has constructed a 200-seat ‘black box’ theatre
on the stage of the much larger Performing Arts Center, to create
an intimate and engaging performance space.
