NO SEX PLEASE, WE'RE BRITISH to Open at Northern Stage, 4/3

A good farce is hard to find, but based on the overwhelming response to last year's Boeing-Boeing, Northern Stage searched for another laugh-out-loud, door-slamming, disguise-wearing, secret-hiding comedy. The result is No Sex Please, We're British, a raucous evening featuring top comic actors. At the helm of this controlled chaos is director Catherine Doherty, whose comic touch is unmatched.

No Sex Please, We're British, written by Alistair Foot and Anthony Marriott and directed by Catherine Doherty, runs live on stage at Northern Stage at the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction, VT, from April 3 - 21, 2013. For tickets and information, call 802-296-7000 or visit www.northernstage.org.

No Sex Please, We're British begins with strait-laced London banker Peter Hunter and his new wife Frances. When Frances decides to make a little extra money selling Scandinavian glassware, her first shipment contains a shocking surprise. Afraid to keep it and afraid to send it back, her husband's panic leads to comic consequences that include a mother-in-law, a visiting bank examiner, and the police.

Scott Cote returns to Northern Stage, following his acclaimed comic turn in last year's Boeing-Boeing. He is joined by other Northern Stage favorites, including Alexis Hyatt (The Importance of Being Earnest) and Tom Treadwell (FDR in Annie), as well as company members Kasey Brown, Shu-nan Chu, John Reshetar and Aaron Thurston. Newcomers include Kathryn Kendall (most recently seen at the Kennedy Center in White Christmas), and Dane Dandridge Clark (from the Florida State University Asolo Conservatory Program). Returning for the first time since 2003 is Meghan Grace O'Leary. Now an accomplished New York actress, she first appeared here as a child in the 1998 production of Annie.

Performances are Tuesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 5:00 p.m., except for the Opening Night performance on Friday, April 5 at 7:00 p.m., with a 2:00 p.m. matinee on Thursday, April 11. The show is sponsored by Mascoma Savings Bank, Summit Wealth Management and Chippers.

Life can sometimes be tough for a farce. No Sex Please, We're British has developed into one of those plays that (many) critics love to hate and audiences just plain love. The play, written in 1970, first surfaced on London's west End in 1971; despite a critical drubbing, it brought in sold-out houses, running until 1987 at three different theaters (the Strand, the Garrick and the Duchess). Setting a record as the longest-running comedy in West End history with 6,761 performances, the play brought in $13.2 million over the years (against an initial investment of $29,000). Producer John Gales said, "When the show opened in 1971, I thought it would probably run for a year. It's very nice to be proved so wrong." One report notes that it has been performed in 52 different countries and is "the longest-running comedy in the history of world theater."

The role of Brian Runnicles was originated by Michael Crawford, over a decade before he hit the stratosphere in Phantom of the Opera. Crawford later used elements of the Runnicles character in the British television series Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em.

The Broadway version, staged in 1973 at the Ritz Theatre. That cast included the incomparable Maureen O'Sullivan as Eleanor and made-for-TV-movie legend Stephen Collins as Peter. The director was Christopher Hewett, who also had Broadway success as an actor, including turns as Andrew Wyke in Sleuth and Captain Hook/Mr. Darling in Peter Pan.

A 1973 film version starred the famously diminutive Ronnie Corbett (who gained later fame in Britain as one of The Two Ronnies and The Frost Report) as Brian, after Crawford reportedly turned down the role. Anthony Marriott collaborated on the screenplay with Johnnie Mortimer; some of the names were changed, along with some of the plot points.

The title has launched a thousand parodies, from a radio production of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that mentions a production of No Sex Please, We're Amoeboid Zingatularians, to the Count Duckula cartoon "No Sax Please, We're Egyptian." News stories range from "No Sex Please, It's Tuesday" (with the results of a survey of sexual activity on different days of the week), and an Australian musical titled "More Sex Please, We're Seniors." A report about how sexual elements tend to be absent from video games was titled "No Sex Please, We Are Finite State Machines." Another news article was slugged "No Sex Please, We're Domestic Goddesses."

Anthony Marriott and Alistair Foot collaborated on a series of farces, including Uproar in the House and I Want To Be A Father. Marriott's other plays include Darling Mr. London, No Room for Sex, Home is Where Your Clothes Are, and Spoof (with Bob Grant); Shut Your Eyes and Think of England, Anything You Say, The Wrong Mr. Right and Divided We Stand (with John Chapman); and A Matter of Style (with Jonathan Daly). As a contract writer for the Rank Organisation (notable for the signature clanging gong that starts their films), Marriott worked on screenplays for Waltz of The Toreadors, Gypsy and the Gentleman, Operation Amsterdam, Doctor, Divorce British Style (aka Sex and the British) and The Intrepid Mr. Twigg. He also worked on a number of British television series and wrote a book, Marker Calls the Tune, a detective story based on the British television series Public Eye.

CATHERINE DOHERTY (director) is now in her ninth season with Northern Stage. She has directed over a dozen plays and readings here, including Boeing-Boeing, M. Butterfly, The 39 Steps, The Elephant Man, Doubt and A Chorus Line. She has also directed at St. Michael's Playhouse. Catherine has appeared on stage in Northern Stage productions such as Romeo and Juliet, The Wizard of Oz and The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. Before coming to Northern Stage, Catherine's credits include co-producing two Off-Broadway productions with Padua Playwrights. She was the assistant director and production stage manager of the Lincoln Center production of Normal Heart. Catherine has also worked with Paper Mill Playhouse (Milburn, NJ), The John F. Kennedy Center and Arena Stage. While in Los Angeles, she worked in a variety of capacities with television networks CBS, ABC and Fox. Catherine holds an MFA in Performance from the University of Georgia and an MFA in Film Direction from the American Film Institute. Her short film, Family Portrait, received the prestigious Ida Lupino Award for Outstanding Film Direction from the Director's Guild of America.

Northern Stage now stands as one of the most prestigious regional theaters in New England, one of only four independent theaters in the nation that is at least 40 miles from an urban center, exceeds $750,000 in annual ticket revenue, and produces a season of seven months or morE. Northern Stage has offered over 100 productions, including World Premieres such as The Shrew Tamer, Ovid: Tales of Myth & Magic and A Christmas Carol: The Musical. Other highlights include a staged reading of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Patrick Stewart and Lisa Harrow and a reading of Resurrection Blues, with the playwright, Pulitzer Prize winner Arthur Miller, in attendance. The company has been honored with Moss Hart Awards for Excellence in Theater from the New England Theatre Conference five times, for productions of To Kill A Mockingbird (1999), All My Sons (2004), LES MISERABLES (2008), Hamlet (2009) and Amadeus (2010), as well as an Addison Award for The Shrew Tamer (2004) and Owl Awards for Best Actress and Best Musical (2010), Best Comedy Theater and Best Artistic Director (2011), and Best Dramas (2012).

Community support has enabled attendance to swell to over 30,000 in the last year to enjoy entertaining and thought-provoking professional theater and theater education here at the crossroads of northern New England. The company has also reached out to offer residencies and workshops at over a dozen area schools; initiated "Project Playwright," a literacy program for fifth and sixth graders; and conducted a statewide literacy program, The Big Read, under the auspices of the National Endowment for the Arts.

For information or tickets, call 802-296-7000, e-mail boxoffice@northernstage.org, or log on to www.northernstage.org. The Box Office at the Briggs Opera House is open beginning two hours before all performances; tickets for all shows are available by phone or at the Northern Stage administrative office at 76 Gates Street, White River Junction, Monday-Friday from 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Pictured: Newlyweds Peter and Frances Hunter (Dane Dandridge Clark and Alexis Hyatt, top and bottom) look on in horror with their friend Brian Runnicles (Scott Cote, center) at the unexpected contents of a package.