Prosky and Carey Set for Arena Stage's Noises Off

Robert Prosky and Helen Carey will star in Michael Frayn's farce Noises Off, presented by Washington D.C.'s Arena Stage from December 15th through January 28th in the Kreeger Theater.  Opening night is December 21st.

"Hilarity and chaos ensue in Arena Stage's production of Michael Frayn's (Democracy, Copenhagen) ingenious play-within-a-play Noises Off, about a third-rate British acting troupe desperately trying to stage and tour a third-rate farce called Nothing On," Arena notes state. British director Jonathan Munby will stage the show.

"As actors in this play-within-a-play rehearse, forgotten lines, dropped trousers and lost plates of sardines create onstage pandemonium. Meanwhile, it is total chaos backstage as love triangles, petty bickering and ruined affairs lead to pratfalls, flying props and more than one bloody nose. In the end, at the frenetic final performance, everything merges into one perfectly ravaged and wholly uproarious theatrical nervous breakdown."

The show will star Tony Award-nominated Arena Stage and Broadway veteran Prosky (Democracy, Glengarry Glen Ross, A Walk in the Woods) as Selsdon Mowbray and Tony Award-nominee Carey (London Assurance) as Dotty Otley.  Also featured will be Susan Lynskey as Poppy Norton-Taylor, James Gale as Lloyd Dallas, and Arena veterans Stephen Schnetzer as Garry Lejeune, Lynnda Ferguson as Belinda Blair and Helen Hayes Award winner Stephen F. Schmidt as Frederick Fellowes. Making their Arena Stage debut are Jay Russell as Tim Allgood and Amelia McClain as Brooke Ashton.

Noises Off premiered in London in 1982 and won the London Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy. It opened on Broadway in 1983 and won four Tony Awards including the 1984 Award for Best Play. In 1992, Marty Kaplan wrote a screenplay for Noises Off and turned it into a successful film directed by Peter Bogdanovich. The play was revived on Broadway in 2001 and received two Tony Awards, including the 2002 Award for Best Revival of a Play.

Visit www.arenastage.org for tickets and more information.