Broadway's Christopher Coucill Stars in UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL at Hedgerow Theatre, Now thru 4/26

Christopher Coucill, whose acting credits include Broadway and TV, brings Glen Berger's one-man mystery adventure Underneath the Lintel to Hedgerow Theatre from tonight, April 9 to 26.

In Berger's 2001 play, described by Variety as "powerfully human and ultimately sublime," Coucill plays The Librarian, a mild-mannered Dutch fussbudget whose life changes forever when someone leaves a book in the overnight return box that is 113 years overdue. He decides to go after the offender to deliver the huge fine, which proves a challenge since it was signed out to someone identified only as "A." After first conniving a way to get time off work, he sets out on a journey Variety says "makes The Da Vinci Code seem like a game of hide-and-seek," that takes him to London, New York, Germany, China and Australia. As his travels take him to new and unexpected places, he begins to break out of his dull routine and to notice and enjoy the smaller things in life he previously ignored.

Coucill has appeared on Broadway in The Graduate, Annie Get Your Gun and Kiss Me Kate, Off-Broadway in The Rothschilds, Portraits, Words Divine and The Fantasticks, and on TV in Law & Order, Deadline and One Life to Live. He's also performed regionally at McCarter Theatre, Arena Stage, Hartford Stage, the Huntington, the Dallas Theater Center, and the Boston Shakespeare Company.

He's been portraying The Librarian since 2006 at various venues on the east coast, including the Delaware Theatre Company and the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival. "I love this guy," he admitted. "Yes, he's the small-minded and intolerant bureaucrat we all recognize; a man with little self-awareness who wouldn't normally catch our notice. But his courage to share his journey, and his immense curiosity, have lead him to this theatre to confide his 'twisty mystery' of a life to the audience." Coucill is thrilled to be at Hedgerow, for personal reasons as well as professional. "My father and mother, Bob and Phyllis, met and fell in love here," he recalled. "He was studying under the great Jasper Deeter and she worked in the costume shop. Both died years ago, but left me with stories of their great love and of Hedgerow. Last year, my dear friend, the director and actor Dan Hodge, was directing Macbeth when I told him this story. I've now come full circle to act in the place where theatre sparked such joy in my parents, and so in me."

Underneath the Lintel is playing in repertory with Forget Your Troubles, a musical revue conceived and compiled by former Hedgerow Fellow Sarah J. Gafgen, in which she and four talented singers will perform favorite Broadway and popular songs designed to lift the audience's spirits and put a smile on their faces.

Tickets are $25 for adults and seniors, $20 for those 30 and under, and $15 for students. Anyone purchasing a ticket for either of the April shows can also buy a half-price ticket for the other. For more information or to reserve a seat, call 610-565-4211 or visit www.HedgerowTheatre.org. Hedgerow Theatre is located at 64 Rose Valley Road in Rose Valley (near Media).

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