Join the Peterborough Players at the Mariposa Museum for First Friday in August.  Playwright and Director, Charles Morey, will give a peek behind the curtain at the process of writing, and then directing his upcoming play Dumas’ Camille.
 
Mr. Morey is the author of eleven produced plays. Figaro was commissioned and produced Off-Broadway by the Pearl Theatre Company in 2012 and was named a NY Times “Critic’s Pick.” The Granite State was premiered by the Peterborough Players in the summer of 2014. In addition he has written Laughing Stock – a hilarious romp, loosely based on his time as Artistic Director of the Players in the 70s -- which has received close to 200 hundred productions around the world, The Yellow Leaf, The Ladies Man (an adaptation from Feydeau with over 70 productions to date) as well as adaptations of the 19th century classic novels, The Count of Monte Cristo, A Tale of Two Cities, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dracula and The Three Muskateer. His plays have been produced at numerous professional theatres around the country, and Laughing Stock has been in continuous production in Russia since 2013.   His current projects include a commission to write the Libretto for a Music-Theatre piece about Walter Reuther and the American Labor Movement with composer Greg Pliska, tentatively titled A Most Dangerous Man. He is also working on the first draft of a new play, Monadnock, the third of the ‘New Hampshire Plays’ including The Granite State and The Third Sky.
 
Mr. Morey was the Artistic Director of the Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake City from 1984 to 2012 where he directed more than 90 productions including world premieres of Find and Sign by Wendy MacLeod, Bess Wohl's Touch(ed) and In as well as first regional theatre productions of Les Misérables, The Producers, and The Vertical Hour. While serving as Artistic Director of the Peterborough Players from 1977 to 1988, he directed some 35 productions including significant world premieres by Percy Granger (Eminent Domain and Unheard Songs) and Poet Laureate of the United States Donald Hall’s Ragged Mountain Elegies. 
 
Charles Morey splits his time between Peterborough and NYC.  He received a BA from Dartmouth College and a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University. He is a Fellow of the MacDowell Colony.
 
He will direct Dumas’ Camille at the Players August 14th -25th.  This will be the east coast premiere for this moving play filled with some of the most beautiful music ever written.  It is a deeply romantic love-story about the relationship of reality to memory and art, set at a rehearsal for Verdi’s La Traviata.
 
“I am delighted to be part of the Players First Friday presentations and look forward to talking about the rich and fascinating history behind Dumas' Camille” says Playwright–Director, Charles Morey. “I enjoy being a part of this incredibly creative community in the Monadnock Region.”
 
Don’t miss the August edition of Peterborough Players First Friday downtown at the Mariposa Museum on Friday, August 2nd. Admission is free, doors open at 5:30 pm, and the program will begin at 6:00pm.  Tickets for summer season shows are on sale and can be purchased at Peterborough Players, 55 Hadley Road, Peterborough, or by calling (603) 924-7585. For more information, please visit www.peterboroughplayers.org. 

"She loves me/And to my amazement/I love it knowing that she loves me/She loves me/True, she doesn't show it/How could she when she doesn’t know it?” If those well-known lyrics strike up a tune in your head, then you’re no doubt familiar with She Loves Me, this season’s big, Broadway-style musical on stage at the Players from July 31st- August 11th.

One of the most charming and popular musicals ever written, She Loves Me is a heart-stopping comedy about finding love in a very old-fashioned way. Georg and Amalia, sparring co-workers in a luxurious 1930s Budapest perfume shop, simply can’t see eye to eye. But using the “lonely hearts advertisements” in the newspaper, each of them has found and fallen for the perfect secret admirer. MGM twice used the same source material, the Hungarian play Parfumerie by Miklós László, to make classic movies: The Shop Around the Corner starring James Stewart and In the Good Old Summertime starring Judy Garland. Later, it served as inspiration for the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan film, You’ve Got Mail.

The musical’s various Broadway productions have garnered 13 Tony Nominations and 3 Tony Awards, as well as the Olivier, Drama Desk, and Critics Circle Awards for Best Revival of a Musical. ​With a score by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock (the team behind Fiddler on the Roof) and a book by Joe Masteroff (the writer of Cabaret), the show is filled with now Broadway-standard songs like “She Loves Me” “Tonight at Eight” and the soaring and humorous “Vanilla Ice Cream”.

At the Players, Artistic Director Gus Kaikkonen is at the helm the production with a cast of 22 accompanied by live musicians. The show will be choreographed by nationally-known choreographer and Broadway dancer Bill Burns, who returns to the Players having choreographed The Producers in 2017; Tom Martin of Dublin rejoins the Players as music director, having won the NH Theatre Award for his work on last year’s The Drowsy Chaperone.

The cast of Players includes Tom Frey (The Producers at the Players, 2 Pianos 4 Hands internationally) and Rebecca Brinkley (The Skin of Our Teeth at the Players, Hindle Wakes at the Mint Theatre) as Georg and Amalia, love-struck clerks. They’re joined by Bridget Beirne (The Drowsy Chaperone at the Players, That Time of the Year at the York Theatre) as sassy co-worker Ilona, Joe Bigelow (The Drowsy Chaperone at the Players, world tour of West Side Story) as the slick Kodaly, Kraig Swartz (Tru at the Players, Fully Committed at the Philadelphia Theatre Co. and more) as the long-suffering Sipos, and Greg Wood (Pygmalion at the Players, Skylight at the McCarter Theatre) as shop owner Mr. Maraczek.
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She Loves Me is a singing, dancing extravaganza certain to make anyone fall in love. The production is co-sponsored by Belletetes and RiverMead, and supported by the Broadway at the Players Fund. Showtimes are Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 7:30pm, Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 4pm. In addition, there is a 2pm matinee on Tuesday, August 6th. Tickets and more information can be found at www.peterboroughplayers.org, or by calling the Box Office at (603) 924-7585.

After our first successful Peterborough Players downtown event last June, the Players return to the First Friday lineup at the Mariposa Museum in Peterborough. On July 5th  from 6:00-7:00pm, join the Players for a free “mini cabaret” performed by members of the Second Company and hosted by popular Players company member, Kraig Swartz.

For years, the late night post-show cabaret has been a must for fans of the Players. Patrons who attend our shows – and even those who don’t! – can join us after the show for free on designated cabaret evenings. This month, the Players will bring the show downtown for one night only on First Friday. Anyone who’s ever attended the fun and freewheeling post-show event that is the Players cabaret will recognize all of the vocal talents, moving storytelling, good humor and more than a bit of mayhem on full display. For those new to a Players cabaret, this is your opportunity to experience the talents of the Second Company first-hand.

Company member Kraig Swartz is a long-time favorite and has become known for his lighthearted and entertaining cabaret hosting. He’ll be joined by Acting Company member Bridget Beirne to help introduce the proceedings and join him for a song.
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“Cabaret nights are one of our favorite ways to welcome our audiences and invite them to enjoy even more of the extraordinary abilities of our company members,” says Beth Brown, Director of Advancement at the Players. “It’s impossible not to enjoy yourself at a Players cabaret!”

Don’t miss the next Peterborough Players downtown event at the Mariposa Museum on July 5th. Admission is free, doors open at 5:30 pm, and the program will begin at 6:00pm.  All Players summer season ticket options are now on sale and can be purchased at Peterborough Players, 55 Hadley Road, Peterborough, or by calling (603) 924-7585. For more information, please visit www.peterboroughplayers.org. 

Peterborough, NH – What do Picasso, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Thornton Wilder, and Matisse have in common? They all invented themselves in the famous Paris atelier of two American expats, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Gertrude Stein and a Companion, running from July 3rd – 14th, explores the 40-year love affair between these two great minds and enduring artists of the 20th century.

Win Wells’ witty and unconventional love story looks at Stein, an avant-garde novelist, poet, playwright and art collector, and her partner, editor and muse, Alice B. Toklas  –whose recipe for hashish brownies in her 1952 cookbook, Thornton Wilder called “the publicity stunt of the year.” In the early 1900s these women left behind their privileged American lives and found refuge, and each other, in bohemian Paris. Their encouragement of the “Lost Generation,” (a term coined by Stein) indelibly changed the artistic landscape of the time. ​

In a season full of performances by powerhouse women, two Broadway veterans and Players’ favorites return to bring Stein and Toklas to life. Becky London (Broadway's Marlene. Diana Vreeland in Full Gallop, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life... and more at the Players) plays Stein. Dale Hodges (Broadway's original production of Equus. Arsenic and Old Lace, Outside Mullingar and others at the Players) is Toklas. Gertrude Stein and a Companion won first prize at both the Edinburgh Festival and the Theatre Festival in Sydney, Australia.

 “The salon has always fascinated me, that existed in Paris that these two women ran, and where all of the major artists of the early 20th century met, and argued, and conversed, and exchanged ideas”, says Artistic Director Gus Kaikkonen, who also directs the piece. “It really was a matrix of so much of 20th century art and literature.” The play expounds upon how the relationship between Stein and Toklas, and those who attended their salon, affected their life and work in an enduring way.

Gertrude Stein and a Companion runs from July 3rd-14th and is exclusively sponsored by SoClean. Showtimes are Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 7:30pm, Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 4pm. In addition, there is a 2pm matinee on Tuesday, July 9th. Tickets and more information can be found on our website, or by calling the Box Office at (603) 924-7585. Rated PG-13.

Peterborough, NH – A chance encounter between a young American artist and an Iranian college student waiting for a ferry sets the scene for Mahida’s Extra Key to Heaven, by New Hampshire Playwright Russell Davis. Kicking off the theatre’s 86th year, the show opens on June 19th and runs through June 30th.

Directed by Players’ Artistic Director Gus Kaikkonen, Mahida’s Extra Key to Heaven gracefully plumbs the cultural collision between two very different families and brings into stark relief the disparity between our preconceived notions about those whose culture, race, or religion differs from our own. When Thomas offers Mahida shelter for the evening in his mother’s home, the simple offer triggers a chain of events that threatens to engulf them all. “I think clearly this play is driven in part by a desire to refute that kind of literal minded, black and white, opportunist thinking,” says playwright Russell Davis, “and to articulate how complex and gentle an alternative might be.”

Aliah Whitmore, a third generation Peterborough Player, appears in the title role of Mahida. She follows a long history of family members who’ve delighted the audiences of the Peterborough Players, including her grandfather, beloved stage and film actor James Whitmore, and her father, James Whitmore, Jr. She graces the Players’ stage for the first time. Players’ favorites Steven Michael Walters and Kathy Manfre return as Thomas and his mother Edna, respectively. Walters was most recently seen at the Players in Born Yesterday, and Peterborough resident Manfre appeared as Mrs. Tottendale in The Drowsy Chaperone. Rounding out the cast is newcomer Adham Haddara, a New York based actor at the Players for the first time, as Mahida’s brother Ramin. Playwright Davis is a resident of West Chesterfield, NH, having grown up in Europe and the Middle East, he came to the United States for college. His plays have been produced around the country, and he’s been the recipient of the Pew Fellowship for the Arts, among other recognition.

Of the play, Kaikkonen says that, “It’s definitely about America…there’s peril in the play. There’s danger in the play, and the peril and the danger comes out from the meeting of these two cultures – Iran and America – but it comes out in ways that are subtle and inevitable.”

Mahida’s Extra Key to Heaven runs from June 19th-30th and is sponsored in part by Atkins Callahan PLLC and the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript. Showtimes are Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 7:30pm, Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 4pm. In addition, there is a 2pm matinee on Tuesday, June 25th. Tickets and more information can be found on our website or by calling the Box Office at (603) 924-7585.