STRAY KATS THEATRE COMPANY PRESENTS “WONDERFUL WORLD”
BY RICHARD DRESSER, STARRING BARBARA RHOADES
Saturday, April 28th at 7:30 p.m.
The Stray Kats Theatre Company, a not-for-profit theatre company located at Edmond Town Hall’s Alexandria Room, 45 Main Street, Newtown CT, will present a staged reading of Richard Dresser’s Wonderful World.
The play was featured at the 2001 Humana Festival, one of the most prestigious playwriting festivals in the country, “Dresser sets up an ascending sequence of increasingly bizarre and wildly hilarious scenes in which his characters try by hook or by crook to convince the others to see things their way… It's bright and brittle, oh so nasty …" —Sacramento News and Review
The Humana Festival of New American Plays is the leading event of its kind, launching new plays into the national spotlight.
Richard Dresser's plays are widely produced in New York, regional theater and Europe. His recently published trilogy of plays about happiness in America includes Augusta (working class), The Pursuit of Happiness (middle class) and A View of the Harbor (upper class).
Other plays are Rounding Third, which appeared off-Broadway after regional productions in Chicago (Northlight Theater) and The Old Globe, and Below the Belt and Gun-Shy, both of which started in the Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville before moving off-Broadway. Also, Something in the Air, The Downside, Alone at the Beach, Wonderful World and Better Days.
Dresser wrote the Broadway musical Good Vibrations and the Sundance film Human Error, plus many short plays. His most recent projects include a musical, Red Sox Nation, which opens next season at A.R.T. in Boston; Club Mojito, a play for high school/college students; and a new play about the notorious gangster Whitey Bulger, which will premiere next season.
Dresser is a former member of New Dramatists and twice attended the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. He also writes for film and television and is currently teaching at Rutgers University.
The stellar cast will include Barbara Rhoades, a veteran of stage, screen and TV. Ms. Rhoades started out as a dancer in Funny Girl on Broadway and on TV shows such as The Sammy Davis Show. Universal Pictures brought her out to LA to star in, "Don't Just Stand There" with Robert Wagner and Mary Tyler Moore, putting her under contract where she starred opposite Don Knotts in "Shakiest Gun in the West”.
Barbara has appeared in over 100 TV shows as both a guest star and series regular including It Takes A Thief, Ironsides, Mannix, Columbo, Kojak, Alias Smith and Jones, The Six Million Dollar Man, Trapper John, MD, Murder She Wrote, The Blue Knight, and into the new millennium on Law and Order.
Her extensive film credits include "Busting Loose" with Adam Arkin, "The Blue Knight" with George Kennedy, "Joe Forester" with Lloyd Bridges. She appeared in "Harry & Tonto", the film that brought Art Carney his Oscar, and the following year in "The Goodbye Girl", which brought Richard Dryfess his Oscar. Other films include "The Choirboys" and several only seen late at night on obscure channels! More recently, Barbara appeared off-Broadway in Love, Loss and What I Wore, and as the “mother-from-hell”, Irene Manning on ABCs One Life to Live.
Barbara is a resident of Weston where she lives with her husband Bernie Orenstein, Executive Producer of such shows as Kate and Allie, Sanford & Son, Love American Style and That Girl.
The cast will also include Sean Hannon of Weston, Barbara Ellen Stuart of Trumbull, Damian Long of Norwalk and Joanna Keylock of Woodbridge. Actors appear courtesy of Actors Equity Association.
Building an audience and recognition in the community before venturing into fully mounted productions, SKTC currently offers staged readings of contemporary classics and new works with professional casts. Each evening includes a talk-back with the company, coffee and dessert by Andrea’s Pastry Shop of 5 Queen Street, Newtown, specializing in Italian pastries, cakes, breads and cookies. All shows are on Saturday nights at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are available at www.straykatstheatrecompany.org or by calling 203-514-2221.
Price: $25 each when purchased in advance
$30 when purchased at the door
For further information, contact Kate Katcher at 203-514-2221 or by email at info@straykatstheatrecompany.org">info@straykatstheatrecompany.org