Shows Archive - Page 127 of 130

During the war, Joe Keller and Steve Deever ran a machine shop which made airplane parts. Deever was sent to prison because the firm turned out defective parts, causing the deaths of many men, while Keller went free and made a lot of money. The twin shadows of this catastrophe and the fact that the young Keller son was reported missing during the war dominate the action. The love affair of Chris Keller and Ann Deever, the bitterness of George Deever returned from the war to find his father in prison, and his father’s partner free, are all set in a structure of almost unbearable power. The climax showing the reaction of a son to his guilty father is a fitting conclusion to a play electrifying in its intensity.

Arthur Miller’s Tony Award winning play “All My Sons” opens Community Players’ 95th Season. The show was first presented at Community Players in January of 1981. This play is based upon a true story that Arthur Miller first heard while visiting his family in Ohio. Bruce and Kathy Parrish were the director and producer of the 1981 production, and now return for the 2017 production in the same positions. This production received high critical praise from the reviewer, with audience responses to the staff and the actors with the same high praise.

Peter and the Starcatcher is a prequel to Peter Pan based on the children’s book by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson and freely adapted for the stage by Rick Elice, with co-directors Alex Timbers and Roger Rees. For two-and-a-half hours, twelve actors make theatrical magic by playing dozens of characters: sailors, pirates, British naval officers, Mollusk natives and orphans in addition to eighteen major roles. The original Broadway production was a deliberately low-budget spectacle: an extravaganza of staging that relied on suggestion and storytelling rather than expensive set pieces like the chandelier in Phantom of the Opera or the helicopter in Miss Saigon. Elice’s script, jam-packed with poetry, fart jokes, gentle lyricism, and numerous nods to pop culture, is a coming-of-age adventure story about how a nameless orphan — inspired by a remarkable and ambitious girl — became the strange and celebrated hero that is the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up.

“Peter and the Star Catcher” by Rick Elise was a first-time production for Community Players. “Star Catcher” was the opening production of the Community Players 96th Season and marked the return to Players for Director Brian Artman and Producer John Leider after an absence of several seasons in those positions. The show was well received by the audiences and the reviewer who called the show a delightful romp. The twelve actors in the show performed many parts; they were in constant motion throughout the play, including singing several songs, a rarity for a non-musical show at Players.

Community Players also received an award as the Best of Readers Choice for Live Theater Venue in the Bloomington-Normal Area for the second year in a row.

Stephen Sondheim’s joyous, musical romp through Ancient Rome has desperate lovers, scheming neighbors, and secrets behind every toga. Broadway’s greatest farce is light, fast-paced, witty, irreverent, and one of the funniest musicals ever written, taking comedy back to its roots by combining situations from time-tested, 2000 year old comedies of Roman playwright Plautus with the infectious energy of classic vaudeville. “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum” is a non-stop laugh-fest in which Pseudolus, a crafty slave, struggles to win the hand of a beautiful but slow-witted courtesan named Philia, for his young master, Hero, in exchange for freedom. The plot twists and turns with cases of mistaken identity, slamming doors, a fake funeral, a chase that involves the entire cast and a showgirl or two.

The third time around! This is Community Players’ third time to produce the Tony-Award winning musical of 1962. “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum.” “Forum” was the second production of the 96th season. The show had initally been performed in 1982 and again in 2000. The current production was well reviewed with praise for the music and the performers. This production featured first-time director Cristen Monson and a first-time producing credit for Players’ Veteran Scott Myers.

In “South Pacific” set in an island paradise during World War II, two parallel love stories are threatened by the dangers of prejudice and war. Nellie, a spunky nurse from Arkansas, falls in love with a mature French planter Emile. Nellie learns that the mother of his children was an island native. Unable to turn her back on the prejudices with which she was raised, she refuses Emile’s proposal of marriage. Meanwhile, the strapping Lt. Joe Cable denies himself the fulfillment of a future with an innocent Tonkinese girl with whom he’s fallen in love out of the same fears that haunt Nellie. When Emile is recruited to accompany Joe on a dangerous mission that claims Joe’s life, Nellie realizes that life is too short not to seize her own chance for happiness, thus confronting and conquering her prejudices.

Community Players’ 78th season was dubbed “Better Living Through Theatre.” The season included four revivals and one first-time production. The season also offered a fundraiser revival of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” The season officially opend with a revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific.” The show had been first performed in the 1965-1966 season.

Just before the opening of the show, two veterans of World War II, Lynn Simpson and Tony Holloway, spoke with the cast and crew about what it was like serving in the Pacific during the war. The two gentlemen gave the cast insight into everyday life and survival during the war. This discussion by the two men was covered by a Pantagraph photo article on Sunday, August 6, 2000. The show was well-received and was an audience favorite.