The Show Goes On at Stage West

It’s 1942, and Maggie Dalton has a problem. Her husband, the director of the Oberon Playhouse, had planned to present Shakespeare’s famous Henry trilogy in the coming season. Unfortunately, he and all the leading men are off at war.  Can Maggie somehow keep calm and carry on, or will she have to cancel the season?  Stage West presents George Brant’s hilarious Into the Breeches!, which begins a 4-week regional premiere run on Thursday, June 9.

Armed with her husband’s approval and his notes, Maggie is ready to go forward—but first she must convince the theatre’s Board President that she can succeed. Even with Board approval, the path is fraught with difficulties. She must contend with a temperamental leading lady, some inexperienced younger actors with their own ideas, and a couple of unexpected late additions to the cast.  Can they all rise to the occasion and do the Bard justice?  Audiences will have a ball finding out! This hilarious and heartwarming comedy is the perfect summer entertainment.

It should be noted that the playwright originally set the play in Providence, RI, but he suggests that any producing company would be welcome to change the location to reflect the wartime experience in their own area.  Per that suggestion, Stage West will be setting the play in Fort Worth.

Standing: Mark Shum, Sky Williams, Emily Scott Banks, Laurel Lynn Collins, Bradley Campbell, and seated: Amber Rossi, Dana Schultes, Laura Lyman Payne
photo credit: Evan Michael Woods

“Brilliant…fresh, witty and thoughtful…a total triumph.” – Montgomery Advertiser

George Brant received his MFA in Writing from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin and is a member of the Dramatists Guild.  His plays include Grounded, Marie and Rosetta, Elephant’s Graveyard, The Prince of Providence, Tender Age, Dark Room, Grizzly Mama, Good on Paper, The Mourners’ Bench, Salvage, Three Voyages of the Lobotomobile, and many others, and have been produced by such theatres as the Public Theater, The Atlantic Theater Company, Trinity Repertory Company, Cleveland Play House, The Alley Theatre,

Milwaukee Repertory, Gate Theatre of London, among others. His scripts have been awarded a Lucille Lortel Award, an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, a Scotsman Fringe First Award, an Off-West End Theatre Award for Best Production, an NNPN Rolling World Premiere, the Smith Prize, the Keene Prize for Literature, a Theatre Netto Festival Prize, a Creative Workforce Fellowship, the David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center and three Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards.  He has received writing fellowships from the James A. Michener Center for Writers, the McCarter Theatre Sallie B. Goodman Artist’s Retreat, the MacDowell Colony, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the Hermitage Artists’ Retreat and the Blue Mountain Center as well as commissions from the Metropolitan Opera, Trinity Repertory Company, Cleveland Play House, Dobama Theatre and Theatre 4.

Into the Breeches! will be directed by Joanne Zipay, recently returned to Dallas, and the founder of Judith Shakespeare Company in New York.  The cast features Stage West’s Dana Schultes, seen this season in On the Exhale, as Maggie Dalton, and Stage West’s Mark Shum, last on our stage as Dr. Watson in Holmes and Watson, as Stuart Lasker.  The temperamental Celeste Fielding will be played by Emily Scott Banks, who directed our season opener JQA, with Bradley Campbell, last at Stage West as the voice of Everett Dirksen in Are You Now or Have You Ever Been…, as Ellsworth Snow.  Sky Williams, just seen as Four in Stage West’s What to Send Up When It Goes Down, will play Ida Green. And making their Stage West debuts will be Laurel Lynn Collins as Winifred Snow, Amber Rossi as June Bennett, and Laura Lyman Payne as Grace Richards.

And in keeping with the spirit of the show, the creative team for this production are all women and non-binary artists. Set design is by Clare Floyd DeVries, with lighting design by Jessica Ann Drayton, costume design by Laurie Land, sound design by Rayven Harris, fight choreography by Kelsey Milbourn, and props and set décor by Lynn Lovett.

Into the Breeches! will preview Thursday, June 9 at 7:30 and Friday, June 10 at 8:00, and will run through Sunday, July 3.  The opening night reception will be after the performance on Saturday, June 11. Performance times will be Thursday evenings at 7:30, Friday and Saturday evenings at 8:00, with Sunday matinees at 3:00.  All Sunday performances are Safe Sundays, with proof of vaccination required. Masks are optional at this time. Ticket prices are $40 on Thursdays and Fridays, and $45 on Saturdays and Sundays, with $20 tickets for the two preview performances.  Food service is available 90 minutes prior to performances (reservations are advised).  Reservations and information are available through the Box Office (817-784-9378), or on the website, www.stagewest.org.