Chaos, mayhem rule when Gaslight Dinner Theatre presents Lend Me a Tenor
Release Date: 3/20/2007. Expired: 5/12/2007
It’s a night of chaos, mayhem and tomfoolery when the Gaslight Dinner Theatre presents Lend Me a Tenor April 5-May 12 at The Renaissance Center in Dickson.
The hilarious farce mixes mistaken identities, competing opera stars and a symphony of slamming doors in a Tony Award-winning play by Ken Ludwig.
Performances of Lend Me a Tenor are Fridays and Saturdays beginning with a 6:30 p.m. buffet dinner. Tickets are $30 and include dinner, drink, dessert and the show.
Senior Matinees are Thursdays and Fridays beginning with a 12 p.m. lunch buffet. Tickets are $20 and include lunch, drink, dessert and the show.
Lend Me a Tenor debuted March 21, 1989, at the Royale Theatre in New York and ran for 476 shows. It received seven Tony Award nominations, winning for Best Actor (Phillip Bosco) and Best Direction (Jerry Zaks), and won four Drama Desk awards (Best Actor for Bosco, Best Director for Zaks, Best Featured Actress for Tovah Feldshuh and Costume Design). The original Broadway cast included Victor Garber, most recently known for roles as Jack Bristow on the ABC series Alias and Ron Trott on the short-lived FOX legal drama Justice.
Set in one night in September 1934, Lend Me a Tenor is the story of the biggest night in the history of the Cleveland Grand Opera Company. World-famous tenor Tito Morelli (played by Paul Kerr) is to perform the title role in Verdi’s opera Otello at the gala season opener, which the company’s grumpy general manager, Henry Saunders (Hal Partlow), hopes will put Cleveland on the operatic map. But Morelli arrives too late to rehearse with the cast and through a series of hilarious mishaps is mistakenly believed to have committed suicide by his own boozing and a double dose of tranquilizers.
Saunders persuades his assistant Max (Ryan Hunt), an aspiring singer, to dress in Morelli’s costume and secretly take his place in the show, setting off a string of mistaken identities as Max’s girlfriend Maggie (Katherine Jett), Tito’s wife Maria (Kiersten Vorheis), flirtatious soprano Diana (Anna Hammonds), Julia (Tracy Nichols), chairman of the Opera Guild, and a pesky wannabe-playwright bellhop (Daniel Bissell) all seek an audience with the man they believe to be Morelli. Meanwhile, Tito, known by his fans as Il Stupendo, has regained consciousness and attempts to present his performance, putting competing Otellos on the stage.
“Lend Me a Tenor was a sensation on Broadway and in London’s West End, full of the laughs and slapstick comedy of a classic farce,” said Pacer Harp, managing director of the Gaslight Dinner Theatre. “Audiences who enjoyed our 2005 production of Run for Your Wife will find this show even more hilarious and want to make their reservations right away.”
Kerr and Vorheis return to the Gaslight after making their debuts in last season’s Smoke on the Mountain. Hunt is appearing in his 12th Gaslight production with past shows including Run for Your Wife, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change and The Dining Room. Hammonds, Jett and Bissell made their Gaslight debuts in Run for Your Wife and are now appearing in their fifth, sixth and eighth shows, respectively. Partlow, manager of the Renaissance Repertory Company, is appearing in his 12th Gaslight show and 32nd production at The Renaissance Center. Nichols makes her second appearance in the Gaslight after debuting in last year’s Anything Goes.
Tickets for the Gaslight Dinner Theatre’s production of Lend Me a Tenor are available now by calling (615) 740-5570. For more information on the show, call (615) 740-5600 or visit www.rcenter.org.
The Renaissance Center is a fine arts education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.
Visit the Theatre page for more about community and professional theatre.
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