Moon Over Buffalo at Studio Theatre's Bayway Arts Center

It is the summer of 1953, and George and Charlotte Hay, formerly a couple of Broadway stars, have taken their run-down touring company to Buffalo, New York. In Buffalo they have the intention of running “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “Private Lives” in repertory, all the while grumbling about missed Hollywood opportunities. But on-stage harmony is compromised when George performs an off-stage infidelity, impregnating the company’s ingenue. When Charlotte learns of this, she prepares to run away with the family lawyer, sending lightweight George on a grief-stricken drinking binge. It turns out that Frank Capra is headed to town on a talent scouting mission looking to hire the couple for his swashbuckling Scarlet Pimpernel epic. As a result, the Hay family -- including scornful, deaf mother in law Ethel, determinedly practical daughter Rosalind, and dashing actor Paul, Rosalind’s ex-boyfriend -- must work overtime to get sloppy drunk George into his Cyrano hat and nose…. or is it his Elyot Chase smoking jacket? With the entrance of Rosalind’s fiance, anxious TV weatherman Howard -- one man with two mistaken identities -- and Richard Maynard, the wealthy lawyer hoping to lure Charlotte away to his mansion -- the confusion only intensifies. With a plethora of pratfalls, slamming doors aplenty, and backstage shenanigans, Ken Ludwig’s Moon Over Buffalo is a fast-paced, hilarious screwball comedy in the old tradition, a throwback farce, a valentine to the stage, and the larger-than-life personalities that inhabit the world of the theatre.

Authors

• Ken Ludwig