The curtain goes up – figuratively speaking – on Beach House Theatre’s seventh season on Aug. 14, as live theatre in a semi-outdoor location returns to Crescent Beach for another summer.
The shows are the Neil Simon’s Rumors (Aug. 14-19, performances at 8 p.m.), and the theatre-for-young-audiences (TYA) show Miss Electricity, by Kathryn Walat (daytime performances Aug. 15-19 at 11 a.m.) at the company’s state-of-the-art tent stage on Blackie Spit.
Directed by Beach House founders and artistic directors Candace Radcliffe and Rick Harmon, Rumors promises a hilarious excursion into the fragile world of celebrity, 1980s-style.
When elegantly-attired guests arrive at the home of Charlie Brock (deputy mayor of New York) and his wife Myra, they’re expecting a dinner party to celebrate the couple’s 10th anniversary. Instead they find Myra missing and Charlie unconscious upstairs with a bullet hole in his ear lobe.
The comedy – detailing friends’ frantic efforts to protect the hosts’ reputations, and their own – features Matt Falletta, Janine Guy, Tom Gage, Jenessa Galbraith, Michelle Collier, James Walker, Rebekah McEwan, Jessica Tabak and Aran Davison, and is presented with a warning of adult language and subject matter.
Courtney Shields, back to helm the company’s TYA show for a third year, directs Miss Electricity, a timeless excursion into the imaginative world of a fifth grader.
Violet has been zapped by lightning twice, leaving her with electricity-controlling superpowers and a new persona – Miss Electricity. But while her powers allow her to dominate her world, they begin to go to her head, threatening everything that really matters.
The versatile, energetic cast consists of Jenny Dieu Nguyen as Violet, with Steven Masson, Kelsey Ranshaw and Abby Wells as everybody else.
To reserve tickets for both shows – recommended because of the short season and limited seating – visit beachhousetheatre.org