PRESS RELEASE FROM HART THEATRE:
Running at HART through July 3, an award winning comedy by master playwright Christopher Durang. “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” opened on Broadway in 2013 and starred David Hyde Pierce and Sigourney Weaver. Rave reviews made it one of the season’s most successful plays and when award time came along it won the Tony Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award and the Theatre World Award for Best Play.
Vanya and Sonia and Masha are siblings, whose parents were community theater actors who loved the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov and named their children after his characters. The children have grown up with the personalities of the characters they were named for and Masha, a movie star, has returned home with her boy toy, Spike. What ensues is the kind of comedy you want to see again and again. You don’t need to know Chekhov’s plays to get the laughs and Durang insists the play is not a parody, but something completely new.
Christopher Durang was born in 1949 and he burst onto Broadway in 1979 with “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You.” Since then he has had a steady stream of hits including “Baby with the Bathwater,” “The Marriage of Bette and Boo,” “The Actor’s Nightmare, “Wanda’s Visit” and “For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls.” HART patrons may recognize some of the titles. Barbara Bates Smith appeared as “Sister Mary Ignatius,” Rita Scribner and Adam Kampouris were in “Southern Belle” and Allison Stinson was in “Wanda’s Visit” at HART.
HART’s production of “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” is being directed by Charles Mills and will feature Kier Klepzig, Cary Nichols, Anna Denson, Carol Duermit, Charlie Cannon and Emily Crock. Performances are June 17, 18, 24, 25, 30 and July 1 & 2 at 7:30pm and June 19, 26 and July 3 at 2pm.. Special discount tickets are available for the Thursday performances and special discount tickets are also available for all performances for students. All performances are at the HART Theatre, 250 Pigeon St. in downtown Waynesville. To make reservations call the box office at (828) 456-6322, Tuesday-Saturday from 1-5pm or go online to www.harttheatre.org.
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