Take a cancelled TV actor and offer him the greatest role of the English-language theatre…Hamlet. Put him in the apartment of the late John Barrymore, who became a star by playing the Melancholy Dane. Is it any wonder the young man sees a ghost? I Hate Hamlet by Paul Rudnick is now playing at the Good Company 2nd Space Theater through August 14.
An Ideal Husband opened at Good Company Players 2nd Space Theatre in Fresno on April 21. This play was written by Oscar Wilde, of whom I am a huge fan, so I've been waiting anxiously to see this show ever since I saw it listed on GCP's 2nd Space season.
Lock a Hollywood producer with father-in-law issues (his wife’s dad owns the studio) in an office for five days with a director he stole from another movie he was doing, and a screenwriter who never read the most popular book of the decade, and what do you get? At the Good Company 2nd Space, you get Moonlight and Magnolias, Ron Hutchinson’s comedy about writing the script for Gone With the Wind, playing through February 21.
Shadowlands opened this past weekend at 2nd Space in Fresno, and will be continuing until October 11. I was excited when I first heard that Good Company Players would be doing this show, as I had seen the movie many years ago and loved it. This production did not disappoint!
“French farce.” If you don’t know what that means, you can probably figure it out: naughty people doing naughty things, not-so-naughty people being suspected of doing naughty things, mistaken identities, naughty, and not-so-naughty people running around the stage, and lots of slamming doors. Georges Feydeau wrote A Flea in Her Ear in 1907 (the John Mortimer translation is from the 1960s), and its productions have been slamming doors for over 100 years.
The play is set on a remote island off the coast of Ireland in 1934. The inhabitants are excited to learn that a Hollywood film crew will be arriving in the neighboring Inishmore to make the film Man of Aran, and several of them want to be in the movie. But the person who wants this most is a crippled young man named Billy (Billy Anderson), who hopes it will bring some excitement to his tedious and sad life--a life where he is constantly teased because of his condition.
Four high-school girls promised that whenever one of them got married, the others would be her bridesmaids. They had no idea how many times they would have to fulfill that promise in Always a Bridesmaid, playing at the Good Company Players’ 2nd Space through April 19.
About the time we put the decaying jack-o-lanterns out of their misery, we begin that long slide into Christmastime. You may not think yourself ready to leap into holly-mistletoe-carol mode, but you can do yourself a favor and jump-start the old Christmas Spirit by going to the Good Company Players’ 2nd Space production of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever between now and December 21.
Two sets of separated twins, a death sentence, a gold chain, cross-dressing, mistaken identities, a seductive courtesan, a duke, and a mysterious Abbess. It smells like Shakespeare.
We have families. We love them…and they drive us crazy. Isn’t that wonderful? Over the River and Through the Woods, a play by Joe DiPietro, is now onstage at the Good Company Players’ 2nd Space Theatre. It’s about families. Isn’t that wonderful?
