The Sherman Playhouse Opens OPERA COMIQUE Tonight, 7/13

This summer, The Sherman Playhouse will premiere the comedy, OPERA COMIQUE, by Nagle Jackson. The production opens tonight, July 13 at 8:00 p.m. for a four-week run.

Sparkling wit and door-slamming farce are delightfully presented in OPERA COMIQUE. The play, a wacky blend of musical history and hilarious conjecture, takes place on the night in 1875 when Georges Bizet's Carmen had its premiere. The setting is the Opera Comique, a theatre in Paris devoted (much to Bizet’s dismay) to more popular offerings than those offered at the grand Paris Opera. The breakneck pace, mistaken identities, tangled relationships, and ribald double entendres provide the dazzling backdrop to an intricate tangle of lust, infidelity, and murder.

“I’m thrilled that such a delightful farce as this shall be my last theatrical effort in the region,” said director Jane Farnol of Gaylordsville, who after 25 years in local theatre, is retiring from stage work altogether. “The production has everything one wants to make one laugh out loud…the show uses the first performance of Bizet’s opera Carmen as a take-off point for its hilarious journey into the outrageous behavior of the so-called ‘better classes.’ Audiences will have a hoot at the antics that unfold on stage, I can tell you.”

The production features some of the areas finest actors: Jenny Schuck (Danbury), Sara Pannaccio (Southbury), John Taylor (Sherman), Charles Roth (Waterbury), Adam Battelstein and Sam Everett (both Kent), Laura Gilbert and Jeff Solomon (both New Milford), and Jeff Rossman and Kate Morris (both New Fairfield).

Besides Farnol, the production crew consists of assistant director Laura Gilbert, costume designer Terry Hawley, producer Robin Frome, and stage manager Abby Hambidge.
OPERA COMIQUE was first presented at The American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco on November 12, 1985 and was subsequently presented by The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. in May 1987. The Baltimore Sun called the play “…funny without being mindless.”

OPERA COMIQUE runs tonight, July 13 and July 14 20, 21, 22, 27, 28 and August 3, 4. Curtain time is 8:00 p.m. Fridays & Saturdays, with a 2:00 p.m. Sunday matinee on July 22. Tickets for all shows are $20 for general seating.

Reservations can be made online at www.shermanplayers.org or by calling the box office at (860) 354-3622. The Sherman Playhouse now accepts credit card payments both online and at the door.

The Sherman Playhouse is a local, non-Equity theatre company located on 5 Route 39 North (next to the firehouse) in Sherman, Conn.

Photo Credit: Josh Siegel