West End Players Guild Ends 100th Season with ACTS OF LOVE 4/1-10

West End Players Guild presents Kathryn Chetkovich's Acts of Love. It's a nervous thing, taking the new girlfriend home to meet Mom, because you never know what will happen. Sometimes, Mom likes her. Sometimes, Mom hates her. And sometimes . . . .

West End Players Guild wraps its 100th season next month with the St. Louis premiere of Kathryn Chetkovich's Acts of Love, directed by Robert Ashton. The show opens on Friday, April 1, and will be presented Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons through April 10. All performances are at the theater in the Union Avenue Christian Church, 733 Union Ave.

As the curtain rises, Sheila and Ed are at their summer cottage, preparing to celebrate their 20th anniversary. They will be joined by Tom, Ed's son from his first marriage (Sheila and Ed married after Ed's first wife, Tom's mother, died). Tom is bringing his girlfriend Annie along to meet the parents. Tom's relationship with his father is frosty, but he has always gotten on well with his stepmother and he hopes she and Annie will get along.

Annie appears surprised to discover that Tom's stepmother is one of her academic heroines, but as the weekend unfolds, it becomes increasingly unclear whether Annie's presence at the house is a matter of fate, coincidence, or deliberate manipulation.

The unusual tension between Annie and Sheila is just one of the provocative plot twists in this adult-themed production. Chetkovich probes the nature of love, the spectre of lost love and the lengths to which we will go for love. Surprises abound as the four characters surface long-avoided questions that sometimes yield shocking answers.

West End Players' veterans Renee Sevier-Monsey and Sean Ruprecht-Belt play Sheila and Ed. Macia Noorman and Joe Hosea make their WEPG debuts as Annie and Tom. Pauline Ashton is the assistant director and stage manager, Ken Clark designed the set, Tony Anselmo designed the lighting and Russ Bettlach costumed the show.

Tickets to Acts of Love are $18 ($15 for groups of ten or more) and can be purchased at the door or on-line at http://www.westendplayers.org/information/tickets. More information on the show is available at www.westendplayers.org.