Westport Community Theatre Participates In Westport's First Night Celebration 12/31

Westport Community Theatre is participating once again in the town of Westport's First Night celebrationson December 31 with "The Hippo and the Wasps," a one-act comedy by Connecticut playwright Tom Rushen, directed by Richard Mancini and featuring Alexander Kulcsar and Ann Kinner. Garner and Darian Case are a happily married couple living in upper class Connecticut suburbia. While they seem to have a perfect life, it becomes a bit undone when they are trapped inside their home by a hippopotamus that has camped out on their front lawn.

The one-act will be performed at WCT in the Westport Town Hall at 5:00 PM, 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM; go to www.firstnightww.com for the complete schedule of events.

Alexander Kulcsar (Garner Case) has performed with many area companies, including Square One Theatre (where he won the Subscribers Award for "Best Actor" four times, most recently as David O. Selznick in 2009's Moonlight & Magnolias), Town Players (Newtown), Eastbound Theatre (Milford), Putney Players (Stratford), and Westport Community Theatre, where he was last seen as Orson Welles in Orson's Shadow; he performed his one-man show, The Wurrld According to Dooley, for Bare Bones Theater at the Pequot Library and at Westport Community Theatre and Square One Theatre (www.mrdooley.com).

Ann Kinner (Darian Case) Previous Westport Community Theatre productions include the theatre's next show, Ice Glen, as well as The Best Man, Separate Tables, Sherlock's Last Case, Vanities, Everything in the Garden, and The Turn of the Screw. Connecticut audiences have seen her in Square One Theatre productions including Moonlight & Magnolias, Rutherford & Son, and The Heiress, for which Ann received the Subscriber's Outstanding Actress Award. Television credits include a six-year recurring role as the Roadside Bar waitress on All My Children, and film credits include the lead role in the upcoming independent film Doing Agatha and roles in the 2010 feature films Camp Hope and All Good Things.

Tom Rushen (Playwright) was a semifinalist in the 2008 Samuel French Festival with his play Underneath it All. Going Live was recently staged by Provincetown's Universal Theatre, and The Hippo and the Wasps was a competitor in the Havemeyer Playwrights Festival in Greenwich, CT, and has also been staged by the Town Players of New Canaan and at Stratford's Shakespeare Theatre. SquareWrights has also staged his Quickies Unblocking Will, Plot Holes, Brewing Up Trouble and My One, My Only.

Richard Mancini (Director) has directed Orson's Shadow, Born Yesterday, Broadway Bound, Design for Living, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Lost in Yonkers, and workshop productions of 'night, Mother and Pvt. Wars here at Westport Community Theatre, along with several staged readings and old-time radio recreations for Westport First Night; he'll also stage The Women later this season. Over the past quarter-century, he's also directed at Polka Dot Playhouse, Wilton Playshop, Eastbound Theatre, NEAT, New Canaan Town Players, Greater Norwalk C.T., Darien Players and Clan na Gael Players; credits include Mere Mortals, A Christmas Story, The Philadelphia Story, Cry, Havoc!, Dinner with Friends, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, The Weir, Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, Cactus Flower, Dancing at Lughnasa, The Children's Hour, Our Town, To Kill a Mockingbird, All in the Timing, and about a dozen original one-acts for festivals in Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts. .