Sumter Players

The tenth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks will be commemorated at the Rylander Theatre on Sunday, September 11, prior to the matinee performance of the Sumter Players production of Crimes of the Heart, as area middle and high school students participate in the 9-11 Literary Expo.

Sponsored jointly by Sumter Players and the Rylander Theatre, the Expo is a judged competition of writings and art submitted by students in public, private and home schools in Sumter and surrounding counties. Middle and high school students and the home school equivalents from Sumter, Schley, Lee, Macon, Crisp and Webster counties are invited to submit writings and artwork on themes of patriotism and remembrance to be displayed at the Rylander September 8 through 11 when Crimes of the Heart is being performed. Entries will be professionally judged and the winner from each level in each category will receive a $50 cash award and other prizes and the two winners in the writing category will have the opportunity of performing or reciting his/her entry on the Rylander stage before the play on Sunday afternoon.

All entries must be submitted by August 29 either by mail to Sumter Players at P.O. Box 154, Americus, or hand delivered to the Rylander. Written entries are limited to the first 125 received from middle schoolers and 125 from high schoolers by the August 29 deadline. The judges will not know the identity of any of the entrants.

Written submissions may be prose, poetry or dialog typewritten, double spaced on not more than a single letter size paper in a font size of at least 12 pt. Artwork may be drawings, paintings, photographs or sculpture of an easily transportable size suitable for display. One or more photograps may be substituted for a sculpted work that will not fit within a one foot square cube. All entries will be displayed in the Rylander lobbies and entrants and their families invited to attend the play on Sunday.

Complete rules are available on the Sumter Players website. Questions may be referred by e-mail to info@sumterplayer.org.

All middle and high school students in the area are urged to take part in this project commemorating the tragedy, sacrifice and ultimate hope inspired by the historic 9-11 events.

Subscriptions for the exciting 2011-2012 Sumter Players season are now available online and at the Rylander Theatre box office.  Subscriptions at all levels include tickets to all four season productions at a substantial discount from individual show tickets plus a ten% discount on all guest tickets and many other benefits.

The season will open with Beth Henley’s Pulitzer Prize and New York Drama Critics Award winner, Crimes of the Heart.  Warm hearted, irreverent, zany and brilliantly imaginative, this play teems with humanity and humor as it examines the plight of three young Mississippi sisters betrayed by their passions.  It will be performed September 8, 9, 10 and 11 at the Rylander Theatre.

November 17, 18, 19 and 20 at the Rylander will see Blithe Spirit, the smash comedy hit of the London and Broadway stages from the pen of Noel Coward.  It offers up fussy, cantakerous Charles Condomine, haunted by the ghost of his late first wife, the clever and insistent Elvira who is called up by a “happy medium”, Madame Arcati.  When Charles current wife, Ruth, is accidentally killed, she “passes over”, joins Elvira and the two haunt the hapless Charles into perpetuity.

The musical offering is the fabulous Chicago, featuring the dazzling score that sparked the immortal staging by Bob Fosse.  In roaring twenties Chicago, chorine Roxie Hart murders a faithless lover and convinces her hapless husband Amos to take the rap … until he finds out he has been duped and turns on Roxie.  Convicted and sent to death row, Roxie and another “Merry Murderess”, Velma Kelly, vie for the spotlight and the headlines, ultimately joining forces in search of the American Dream — fame, fortune and acquittal.  Chicago will be performed March 8, 9, 10 and 11 at the Rylander.

Charlotte’s Web, at the Rylander May 10, 11, 12 and 13, is adapted from “the best American children’s book of the past two hundred years” according to The Children’s Literature Association.  All the E.B. White characters are here: Wilbur, the irrestible young pig who desperately wants to avoid the butcher; Fern, a girl who understands what animals say to each other; Templeton, the gluttonous rat who can occasionally be talked into a good deed; the Zuckerman family; the Arables; and, most of all, the extraordinary spider, Charlotte, who proves to be “a true friend and a good writer”.

Sale date for individual shows will be announced soon.

After open auditions, Irmgard Schopen-Davis and Megan Sleeth, the directors of the Sumter Players production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest have announced the cast of veteran performers for the four performances at the Rylander Theatre in downtown Americus May 12, 13, 14 and 15.

First performed in London in 1895, the play is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play’s major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Its high farce and witty dialogue have helped make The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde’s most enduringly popular play.

See cast list.

More about the play.

Nunsense, the hilarious musical comedy by Dan Goggin, is coming to the Rylander Theatre in downtown Americus with a fabulous production presented by Sumter Players and GSW Dramatic Arts. Directed by Cori Lyman-Barner with choreography by Christi Barr and music direction by Brad Bunce, the ever popular show will be performed on March 31, April 1 and 2 at 8:00 pm and on April 3 at 2:30 pm.

Punctuated by some of the funniest songs ever written, Nunsense tells the story of the five surviving Little Sisters of Hoboken, a one-time missionary order that ran a leper colony on an island south of France, as they discover that their cook, Sister Julia, Child of God, accidentally killed the other fifty-two residents of the convent with her tainted vichyssoise while they were off playing bingo with a group of Maryknolls. Upon discovering the disaster, the Mother Superior had a vision in which she was told to start a greeting card company to raise funds for the burials. The greeting cards were an enormous success and, thinking there was plenty of money, the Reverend Mother bought a big screen plasma tv for the convent, leaving her with no money in the kitty to pay for the last four burials. With the deceased nuns on ice in the deep freeze, they decide to stage a variety show in the Mount Saint Helen’s School auditorium to raise the necessary amount. Participating in the project are Mother Superior Mary Regina, a former circus performer who can not resist the spotlight; her competitive but dignified rival, second-in-command Sister Mary Hubert; Sister Robert Anne, a streetwise nun from Brooklyn; Sister Mary Leo, a novice who is determined to be the world’s first ballerina nun; and wacky, childlike Sister Mary Amnesia, who lost her memory when a crucifix fell on her head. The entertainment that they present includes solo star turns and madcap dance routines.

Featured in the cast are Bren Dubay as the Reverend Mother, Dawn Daniels-McNear as Sister Hubert, Sharon Parks as Sister Robert Anne, Daina Rosario as Sister Leo and Rebekah Martens as Sister Amnesia.

Read more about Nunsense.
Visit the Nunsense official website.

Edward Albee’s classic,The Zoo Story, will feature accomplished local actors — Mario Pagan as Jerry and Patrick Peacock as Peter. Directed by Marc Weathersby, the play will be presented free of charge in the Experimental Theatre on the second floor of the Fine Arts Building on the campus of Georgia Southwestern State University on March 3 and 4 at 8:00 pm each night.

The Zoo Story is American playwright Edward Albee’s first play; written in 1958 exploring themes of isolation, loneliness, social disparity and dehumanization in a commercial world. This one-act play concerns two characters, Peter, a middle-class publishing executive with a wife, two daughters, two cats and two parakeets who lives in ignorance of the world outside his settled life and Jerry, an isolated and disheartened man who lives in a boarding house and is very troubled. These men meet on a park bench in New York City’s Central Park. Jerry is desperate to have a meaningful conversation with another human being. He intrudes on Peter’s peaceful state by interrogating him and forcing him to listen to stories from his life, including “THE STORY OF JERRY AND THE DOG”, and the reason behind his visit to the zoo. The action is linear, unfolding in front of the audience in “real time”. The elements of ironic humor and unrelenting dramatic suspense are brought to a climax when Jerry brings his victim down to his own savage level.

Unsurpassed as intimate drama, The Zoo Story is certain to bring a renewed awareness to the human condition viewed through the eyes of one of the world’s preeminent playwrights.

For more information about The Zoo Story check out Wikipedia. Also see biography of Edward Albee.