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Arts & Entertainment

Langhorne Players Announces 2011 Season

The theater company hopes to bring the roof down (metaphorically) and repair the (actual porch) roof.

They are a study in dichotomy. Historic building. Vanguard theater. Richboro’s Langhorne Players produces a season of cutting edge plays in the 180-year-old Spring Garden Mill in Tyler State Park.

The 2011 season includes a thriller by a Pulitzer-prize nominee, a witty and sly comedy from a multiple Pulitzer-prize winning playwright, a bittersweet tragicomedy, a Pulitzer-prize winning drama recently made into a movie and a comic exploration of self-improvement.

“We’re looking to construct a season with an ebb and flow,” Langhorne Players treasurer Rob Norman said.  “Langhorne Players is known for doing plays that aren’t done that often.”

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Certainly you won’t find this company producing a Broadway hit from years gone by, or a popular musical done by high schools across the country. This is the territory of nuance, resonance and wry wit.

“Typically we do newer works,” Norman said. “Yet, ‘Seascape’ [by Edward Albee and the troupe’s second offering this season, June 3 through 18] was first produced in 1975. Two seasons ago we did one written in 1930. It just has to be interesting.”

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“Mauritius,” written in 2007 by Theresa Rebeck, is the first play of the season, running April 15 through May 7. Auditions for “Mauritius” are set for Feb. 15 and 16. “I’m fairly sure no one’s done it in this area.” Norman added.

Although it has been produced in Philadelphia, Norman said he believes Langhorne Players is the first community theater in this area to perform “End Days” by Zoe Laufer, July 15 through 30. “It has some comedy to it,” he said, “but also deep meaning.”

“Rabbit Hole” by David Lindsay-Abaire, Aug. 19 through Sept. 3, was selected by Langhorne Players before it became a feature film, but it took the company until now to secure the rights to produce it. “It’s a very, very, very good play,” Norman said of the wrenching study of grief.

“The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife” is a look at a middle-aged, well-to-do New Yorker’s attempts at intellectual and cultural self-improvement. The last offering of the season, Oct. 14 through 29, is by Charles Busch.

“We hope people will see a play at our theater,” Norman said, “and be talking about it two days, two weeks later.”

It’s an ambitious undertaking, one that Langhorne Players has been meeting since 1947. They’ve been at their current location, the rustic mill leased to them from the state, since 1976. Rustic and historic means maintenance and repairs, and the company is solely responsible for those, which Norman said has become increasingly difficult and expensive.

They estimate to have poured some $40 to $45,000 into Spring Garden Mill in their 35 years in residence, most of it to increase the comfort and experience of the patron. Their latest challenge has been a crumbling front porch, necessitating the use of the side entrance last year. So far they’ve raised about 70 percent of the funds needed for repairs, he said.

“But we don’t quite have all the money we need yet,” Norman said. “Most important for us first is to rebuild this structure so the (porch) roof doesn’t fall down.”

The intent, of course, is for only the shows to bring down the roof.

 

Ticket prices are $12 to $14, depending on the night of the week. Season tickets are $55 to $65. A special opening night package for two is $115 for all five shows. Visit www.langhorneplayers.org.

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