BLITHE SPIRIT to Run 11/13-21 at Drayton Hall

Theatre South Carolina will present Noël Coward's otherworldly comedy Blithe Spirit November 13-21 at Drayton Hall Theatre.

Show times for Blithe Spirit are 8pm, Wednesdays through Saturdays, with additional 3pm matinees on Sunday, November 15 and Saturday, November 21. Tickets for the production are $12 for students, $16 for USC faculty/staff, military personnel and seniors (60+) and $18 for the general public. Tickets can be purchased in advance by calling 803-777-2551 or by visiting the Longstreet Theatre box office, which is open Monday-Friday, 12:30pm-5:30pm, beginning Friday, November 6. The Longstreet Theater box office is located at 1300 Greene St. Drayton Hall Theatre is located at 1214 College St.

Blithe Spirit has endured as one of the world's most beloved and frequently performed plays since its debut on London's West End in 1941. Coward's uproarious farce introduces us to popular writer Charles Condomine, who invites the town psychic to his home just so he can cynically study her techniques for his new book. Charles gets more than he bargained for, however, when the medium's seance summons his deceased wife, Elvira. Thrilled to be freed from the spiritual realm, Elvira begins a campaign to retake possession of her widower, in spite of the protests of his current wife. Charles finds himself caught up in a romantic rivalry between heaven and earth that has him stuck squarely in the middle...in hell! "...a comedy that still startles and delights." - The Telegraph

Director Stan Brown says the play shows Coward at the peak of his legendarily multi-faceted career. "He was a brilliant writer, actor, composer... and he was really ahead of his time in terms of what he would talk about. He was able to look at class and relationships in a humorous way that gave his audiences an ability to think about those ideas in a public forum, whereas otherwise they probably would have retreated into the Victorian veil of just not acknowledging those things."

For Brown, however, it's more than Coward's signature wit that makes the play appealing.

"Yes, it is about the outrageous situation of somebody's dead wife coming back," he says, "but it also asks deeper questions. Once you've opened up your heart to someone, how much of that do you take into other relationships? What kind of baggage are you still carrying around, and is that haunting you in your current life?"

Brown has encountered a different sort of "ghosts" in the past two years, as the University of SC alum returned to the Columbia campus in 2014 to take on a full professorship in the theatre program. A graduate of the University with both a BA ('84 ) and MFA ('89) in Theatre, Brown went on to find work in film and television (films Modern Love and Getting In; tv series I'll Fly Away, In the Heat of the Night and Homicide: Life on the Street, among others), while forging a successful teaching career at such institutions as the University of Warwick and the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

Being back on campus stages, he says, brings forth a barrage of great memories. "There's a ghost around every turn. I'll walk around the corner and think 'this' happened here or 'that' happened there. But it's the best decision I've made in the last fifty years. I'm home, and I've always loved home."

Cast in Blithe Spirit are graduate acting students Josh Jeffers (Charles Condomine), Nicole Dietze (his living wife, Ruth) and Candace Thomas (deceased wife, Elvira), and undergraduate students DeAudrey Owens, Ashley Graham and Lindsey Sheehan. Guest actor Marybeth Gorman, an MFA graduate of the theatre program, will play the mysterious medium, Madame Arcati. The "haunted" design of the Condomine residence is being created by graduate students Baxter Engle (scenic design) and Rachel Sheets (lighting design). Graduate costume design student Rachel Harmon is bringing the glamorous 40s fashions to shimmering life. Sound design for the production is by guest artist and alum Danielle Wilson.

For more information about Blithe Spirit or the theatre program at the University of South Carolina, contact Kevin Bush by phone at 803-777-9353 or via email at bushk@mailbox.sc.edu.

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