Actors delight in characters for The Star-Spangled Girl
Release Date: 3/20/2002. Expired: 5/24/2002
The Gaslight Dinner Theatre will come alive with laughter as Neil Simon’s classic play The Star-Spangled Girl opens Friday evening.
Sponsored by Union Planters Bank, The Star-Spangled Girl stars Renaissance Repertory Company members Pacer Harp as Norman Cornell, Hal Partlow as Andy Hobard and Alix McEachern Jones as Sophie Rauschmeyer.
Directed by Kim Leavitt, director of Theatre Education for The Renaissance Center, The Star-Spangled Girl focuses on Norman and Andy, two young college roommates fresh out of Dartmouth, who are struggling earnestly to publish their political magazine from their apartment. But Sophie, a former Olympic swimmer, moves in next door and, despite her engagement to a United States Marine, throws both of them into a romantic tailspin, resulting in a delightful blend of love and politics in a bubbling series of events in this fast-paced, hilarious Simon masterpiece.
“It is a time in America when we are still newly active in the civil rights movement and we are in the middle of Vietnam,” Leavitt said. “So there are a lot of political overtones to what’s happening in the country. Andy and Norman are authors and editors of a political magazine. Their life is going about as normal and one day this girl, Sophie Rauschmeyer, moves in next door and Norman is completely smitten with her.”
Leavitt said the play is about friendship and love and is very funny.
“It’s hysterical,” she said. “People will really enjoy it.”
Harp said the actors enjoy their characters and are inspired not only by Simon’s dialogue but with the situations written into the play as well.
“My character is the writer, the only writer, all he does is sit down at the typewriter and type and tries to meet deadlines,” he said. “My roommate, Andy, seems to have a date every night and I never have a date. Off the cuff one day I say to Andy, ‘some day a gorgeous blond is going to move into the empty apartment next door and I’ll fall madly in love with her.’ As soon as I say that a gorgeous blond moves in next door and I fall madly in love with her. I’m having a blast.”
Harp said Norman spends the next several days doing anything he can to win Sophie’s attention. He cooks and cleans for her, he brings her gift baskets and he particularly likes the way she smells, so he constantly sniffs at her, which becomes extremely annoying to Sophie.
“He sniffs me all the time and brings me little presents and it gets very annoying,” McEachern Jones said. “His best friend Andy suggests that I should possibly spend a little more time with Norman.”
She said a highlight of her time in the show is the time she gets to spend with her fellow actors in the 3-member cast.
“I’m having the most fun getting to spend time with Pacer and Hal,” she said.
“There are only three of us so each of us gets a lot of stage time together,” Harp said. “That’s nice. And like any Neil Simon play, there’s some situation comedy in it where perhaps the dialogue isn’t necessarily the joke, but it may be what I’m wearing while I’m saying it, or the fact that Alix and I are in a closet having the dialogue.”
Both actors said they believe playgoers will have a good time and enjoy an evening of great comedy and cuisine.
The menu for the evening is tossed salad, cole slaw, barbecue pork, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, vegetable medley, baked beans, corn on the cob, rolls, cornbread, apple cobbler with ice cream, and assorted pies or cakes.
Don’t miss this good time, good food evening out at the Gaslight Dinner Theatre with The Star-Spangled Girl.
Shows are Friday evenings March 15, 22, 29, April 5, 26, May 3, 10, 17 and 24. Dinner and the show are $25 with dinner at 6:30 p.m. Reservations are required.
Special bookings for other nights may be reserved for groups of 25 or more for $25 per person plus a 15 percent special performance fee. Call LeAnn Polk, director of Events, at (615)740-5503.
To make reservations or for more information call The Renaissance Center at (615)740-5600.
The Renaissance Center is located at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 minutes west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.
Visit the Gaslight Dinner Theatre page for more about dinner theatre.
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