our 2024 Season

Run dates:  April 11-14 and 18-21 

Directed by Mike Skiles

 When the biggest highlight in your life for the past 30 years has been your weekly bridge night out with the "girls," what do you do when one of your foursome inconveniently dies? If you're Connie, Leona and Millie, three southern ladies from Birmingham, you do the most daring thing you've ever done. You "borrow" the ashes from the funeral home for one last card game, and the wildest, most exciting night of your lives involves a police raid, a stripper and a whole new way of looking at all the fun you can have when you're truly living. 

 NOTE:  The show is recommended for mature audiences due to alcohol use, some profanity and sexual innuendo. 

• Director:  Mike Skiles  
• Stage Manager:  Elizabeth Shaffer
• Tech Designer/Operator:  Dana Skiles 

• Connie Harland:  Suzanne Rakestraw
• Rachel Harland:  Elizabeth Melville
• Leona:  Heidi Hamer
• Millie:  Jane Simonsen 
• Officer Grayson:  David Shaffer                                

Rehearsals begin April 22nd

Run dates:  May 30-June 2 and June 6-9 

Directed by John Donald O’Shea 

Detective Mark McPhearson is assigned to investigate the apparent shotgun murder of Laura Hunt, at the door of her upscale apartment. Hunt, a successful career woman, who earned her living creating advertising copy, was a woman with many male admirers.  Not unexpectedly, McPhearson’s investigation focuses on the men in Laura’s life who admittedly loved her: Waldo Lydecker, her mentor; Shelby Carpenter, her fiancée; and the aspiring Julliard student, Danny Dorgan.  

But McPhearson’s investigation suddenly takes a bizarre twist when Laura Hunt enters her apartment, alive and well after a brief respite in the country, only to find McPhearson present and endeavoring to solve her murder. Once McPhearson is over the initial shock, Laura soon explains that she loaned her apartment to a girl friend, Joyce Madden, for the weekend. McPhearson then finds himself investigating an entirely new murder case, with a plethora of new questions. 

Who was the intended victim? Who would want to kill Laura, and why? Or was Joyce Madden the intended victim and why?

• Director:   John Donald O’Shea 
• Stage Manager:   Mike Skiles 
• Asst. Stage Manager:   Pat Kelley, Jim Strauss 
• Light & Sound Designer:   Jennifer Kingry 
• Tech Operator:   Mimi Sweetser 

• Laura Hunt:   Dana Skiles
• Waldo Lydecker:   Tom Akers
• Mark McPhearson:   Eric Friedman
• Mrs. Dorgan :   Tricia Fox
• Bessie Clary :   Alexandra Champagne 
• Shelby Carpenter:   Perry Farley 
• Donny Dorgan:   Jonathan Freadhoff 
• Olsen:   Jim Strauss 

Rehearsals Begin early to mid-June

Run dates:   July 11-14 and 18-21 

Directed by Jennifer Kingry

A tender and heart-warming tale of transatlantic friendship, 84 Charing Cross Road is based on the true story of the remarkable relationship that developed between a brassy American writer and a gentlemanly English bookseller. 

It begins in the post-war days of the 1940’s, when English books were not only difficult to find in the States, they were prohibitively expensive, especially for a poor struggling playwright living in New York City. A chance encounter with an ad in The Saturday Review prompted the first letter, an endearingly-blunt request with a five-dollar bill enclosed. The friendship that bloomed almost instantly between Miss Helene Hanff in her brownstone and Mr. Frank Doel in his London second-hand bookshop expanded to include fellow bookstore employees. If Helene’s effusive camaraderie is disarming to the Brits, their loveliness of manner and graciousness begets a family-like devotion in her own heart.

For twenty years the letters and books fly back and forth across The Pond, from the end of WWII through the swinging 60’s; over that time, a moving account of human friendship and kindness unfolds. Our modern world seems to have very little time for such things anymore.  In an age of texts, tweets, and TikTok, how rare do we feel the quiet thrill of receiving a handwritten personal letter? 

• Director:  Jennifer Kingry
• Stage Manager:  Terri Nelson
• Stage Crew:  Janet Vanderschaaf
• Costumes:  Suzanne Rakestraw
• Set Builders:  Jim Skiles and Mike Skiles
• Light & Sound Designer, Tech Operator:  Jennifer Kingry

• Helene Hanff:    Jackie Skiles 
• Frank Doel:    Mischa Hooker 
• Cecily Farr:   Elissa Dynes 
• Megan Wells:   Susan Hopton 
• George Martin:  Jim Strauss 
• Bill Humphries: John Simosky 
• Maxine Stuart:  Jackie Patterson 
• Thomas:  Rolan Swanson 
• Joan Todd:  Mimi Sweetser 

Run dates:  August 15-18 and 22-25 

Directed by Joe DePauw

When Uncle George invites his whole family up for a weekend of fun at his rustic cabin, he actually wants them together so he can read his will. But between the bequeathing and his rambling stories, George drops the bomb that somewhere on the property is a suitcase holding four hundred and eighty thousand dollars! What follows is a hilarious farce of pettiness, slander, and greed. The relatives end up wrestling each other, falling down the stairs, and getting stuck in the furniture. "Yep, we're gonna have lots of fun!" says George as he's seen carrying a shovel out the front door. But George's gift is much more important than mere money, even though the relatives don't see it that way - at first.

• Director:  Joe DePauw
• Stage Manager:  Elizabeth Shaffer
• Stage Builders:  Jim Skiles, Mike Skiles
• Set Painters:  Dana Skiles, David Shaffer, Elizabeth Shaffer
• Light and Sound Designer/Operator:  Jennifer Kingry

• "Uncle" George (Porge) Plunkett:  Bruce Carmen
• Mitch Bryant:  David Shaffer
• Joanne Bryant:  Dana Skiles
• Chelsey Bryant:  Violet Runty 
• Margaret (Peg) Blankenship:  Valerie Painter          
• Mamie Jo Durant:  Amanda Wilson
• Andrew Shumway:  Alex Claus
• Gloria Shumway:  Elizabeth Pyle

Run dates:  October 3-6 and 10-13

Directed by Justin Raver 

Two drifters, George and his friend Lennie, with dreams of living off the “fat of the land,” arrive at a ranch, hoping to work for enough money to buy their own place. Lennie is a man-child, a little boy in the body of a dangerously powerful man. His obsessions with things soft and cuddly have made George cautious about who the gentle giant, with his brute strength, associates with. George’s promise to let Lennie “tend to the rabbits” on their future homestead helps to keep Lennie calm, as the overgrown child needs constant reassurance. But the ranch owner’s son is a brutal bully with a promiscuous wife, and Lennie’s encounters with them lead to tragic results. Realizing they can’t run away anymore, George is faced with a moral question: how should he deal with Lennie before the ranchers find him and take matters into their own hands? 

Show is PG-13 due to language and adult themes 

• Director:  Justin Raver 
• Stage Manager:  Megan McConville
• Light and Sound Designer/Operator:  Jennifer Kingry
• Set Builders:  Mike Skiles and Jim Skiles

• George:  Kevin Maynard
• Lennie:  Matthew McConville
• Candy:  Pat Kelley
• Boss:  Mike Skiles
• Slim:  Glenn Kluge
• Carlson:  Julian Totton
• Curley:  Kevin Keck
• Curley's Wife:  Lily Blouin
• Whit:  Zack Sullivan
• Crooks:  Anthony Mitchell                                
• Candy's Dog:  Kane