THANKS TO ALL WHO ATTENDED THIS SHOW!
An ingenious, funny and brilliantly crafted masterpiece, which juggles time and space to present the lives and loves, passion and panic of three married couples in a play of love and laughter, meals and mayhem. Like all of Alan Ayckbourn’s comedies it is about the precise interaction of sex and class in modern English society.
Bob Phillip’s liaison with his boss’s wife is in danger of being discovered by their respective spouses. Each attempt to wriggle out of suspicion by projecting their own infidelity on to a third, totally innocent, uninteresting and unsuspecting couple in the Featherstones. The action takes place at two dinner parties given on different nights. The single set is almost a character in itself, so important is it to the action. It represents two living-dining rooms at once. The furniture – and often the people of the two places – are intermingled, most notably in the scene that closes the first act, when one hapless couple is having Thursday night dinner with another pair and Friday night dinner with the third.
The ensuing action leads to a string of misunderstandings and almost farcical events with hilarious consequences in one of Alan Ayckbourn’s best loved comedies. Like all first-rate comedies, the play is only funny because it tackles serious issues. “I firmly believe that what distinguishes the good comedy or farce from the mediocre specimen is that the former always has a kernel of reality: (Ayckbourn) is really a regional writer exploiting a traditional metropolitan form, the farcical comedy. And into it he injects a wealth of unobtrusively accurate social detail: but the kind that just gets mentioned in passing.” – Michael Billington.
For more information on the plays of Alan Ayckbourn visit his official website: http://www.alanayckbourn.net/
How The Other Half Loves is presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc.
Sponsored by Essex Meadows.
To download a copy of the poster for How The Other Half Loves, please click here: How The Other Half Loves Poster
B. Brian Argotsinger (William Detweiler) *
Brian is delighted to be performing at the Ivoryton Playhouse for the first time. Recent New York credits include Kulygin in Three Sisters and Harry Archer in The Verge (both with PL115), Crumpet in The Santaland Diaries (The Gallery Players), and Small Child in Les Freres Corbusier’s Dance Dance Revolution (Ohio Theater). Regionally, he has appeared as Ira in Neil Simon’s Laughter on the 23rd Floor (Northern Stage), Ross in Visiting Mr. Green (PVST), and Miles in The Drawer Boy (New Century Theatre), among others. He is a graduate of Yale University and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Jacqueline Hubbard (Fiona Foster)
Jacqui has spent the best part of the last twenty years at the Ivoryton Playhouse; in 1991 she became a member of the Board and since 1999 she has been its Executive/ Artistic Director. She has directed over 35 productions at Ivoryton. Acting credits include Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Katerina in Taming of the Shrew; Maureen in The Beauty Queen of Leenane; Stepping Out and Shirley Valentine. Regional theatre appearances include US – Cloud Nine; Sherlock’s Last Case; Arpeggio Major -Tampa Playmakers; Twelfth Night; Maggie and the Bird Go Fishing; Poe! Poe! Poe/City Lights and Savannah Theatre Company; UK – Shout Across the River; Henry V – Leeds, Everyman – Sheffield
Bill Kux (Frank Foster) *
Broadway- Ain’t Broadway Grand. Off Broadway- Endpapers, Summer of ‘42, The Philanthropist, Loose Ends. National Tours- Death of a Salesman w/Hal Holbrook, The Mysteries, or What’s So Funny?. Regional-Hartford Stage: Noises Off, A Christmas Carol, Summer and Smoke, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Learned Ladies of Park Avenue; Yale Rep: Psychic Life of Savages; Hartford TheatreWorks: Talking Heads, Murderers; CT Rep Othello; Philadelphia Theater Co.: Love, Valor, Compassion; Seattle Rep. Travels With My Aunt. Film/TV- Die Hard With a Vengeance, Gossip Girl, Law and Order. Graduate of the Yale School of Drama.
Nick Stevenson (Bob Phillips)
Nick is over the moon to be treading the boards again. After a lengthy hiatus to focus on film and stand up comedy, it was only a matter of time before he returned to the beloved stage. A native of Sydney, Australia, Nick first trained at the Australian Theatre for Young People. He attended the Atlantic Theater Co.’s 2 year program in New York, graduating in 2002. Nick is the Co-Artistic Director of The Outhouse Theater Company. An Australian theater company dedicated to the cultivation and development of both emerging and established Australian theater artists. Nick has performed all around the world. Some of his favorite productions are The Boys, Bed,Mercy Thieves and Reader. Film credits include Bang, A Day with Sophia, The Contenders (achieving critical acclaim on the festival circuit) and Snowfall. TV credits include All Saints and The Alice (Australia). Nick can also be seen in some of the hottest stand up clubs in NYC and recently filmed a commercial with Jerry Seinfeld, his new hero. Nick is currently finishing a fourth draft to his screenplay, Greyhound, an Easy Rider meets Five Easy Pieces.
Beverley Taylor (Theresa Phillips)
Beverley is happy to be on stage again at The Ivoryton Playhouse. Growing up in England, appearing on stage in both countries and moving here at 22 she finally feels like this is her home. Some of her favorite roles include, Nancy in Oliver, Nellie in South Pacific, Anna in The King & I, Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Eleanor in A Lion in Winter and Constanza in Amadeus. This is proving to be a wonderful experience with a very talented cast.
Alanna Wilson (Mary Detweiler) *
Alanna is thrilled to be making her Ivoryton Playhouse debut, especially since she gets to reunite with Brian, playing the same parts they did at Northern Stage. Past credits include: Cold as Ice, starring Oksana Baiul (Gateway Playhouse) and several shows with NYC based company aMios. Favorite roles: Little Red (Into the Woods), Winnifred (Once Upon a Mattress), Crissy (Hair) and April (Company). TV/Film: 30 Rock, Law and Order, My Sassy Girl. www.alannawilson.com
Directed by: Larry Thelen
Stage Manager: TRick Jones *
Set Design: Tony Andrea
Lighting Design: Doug Harry
Costume Design: Lisa Marie Harry
Wig and Hair Design: Joel Silvestro
Sound Design: Tate Burmeister
* member of Actors Equity
- Photos courtesy of Anne Hudson
PRESS RELEASE
An antidote to the Royal Wedding! How The Other Half Loves by Alan Ayckbourn at the Ivoryton Playhouse
Ivoryton:
Nobody writes contemporary sex farces better than the British, and no British comic playwright concocts livelier boudoir free-for-alls than Sir Alan Ayckbourn (Absurd Person Singular, The Norman Conquests, and A Chorus of Disapproval). How the other Half Loves – opening at the Ivoryton Playhouse on April 13 – is one of his liveliest, pitting 3 couples against time and space with a series of misunderstandings and hilarious consequences.
In the madcap world of How the Other Half Loves, Bob Phillips (Nick Stevenson) is having an affair with Fiona (Jacqui Hubbard). When it looks like Bob’s wife (Beverley Taylor), and Fiona’s husband (Bill Kux*) are about to put two and two together, the guilty lovers use a third, unsuspecting couple (B. Brian Argotsinger* & Alanna Wilson*) as their alibi. The ensuing action leads to a string of misunderstandings with hilarious consequences. What sets How the Other Half Loves apart from other farces is its unusual set: two living rooms in separate houses overlap on stage, allowing the audience to see and hear what’s happening miles apart and at different points in time—including the frantically hilarious scene when we witness the hapless third couple as Thursday night dinner guests in one home and Friday night dinner guests in the other—with all of the action occurring on stage simultaneously.
“[The idea] came about when I was living in one of those soulless blocks of flats, identical boxes piled one on top of the other,” explained Ayckbourn. ”One or two friends lived in similar segments of this concrete honeycomb, and from time to time we visited one another. It became, I found, increasingly difficult purely because of the same-ness of the rooms and consequently identical furnishing arrangements, to remember whether you were in their house or your own. Particularly late at night, with the lights dimmed, mellowed with food and drink, you could have witnessed assorted couples, looking clandestinely at their watches, wishing the others would go home so they could go to bed. Each day, each of us, occupied more or less identical areas, trod the same well worn paths from kitchen to dining table, table to chair, chair to bed. It was a small step mentally, to superimpose one flat on another, emphasize the differences in the couples as they wove in and out of each other, pursuing their separate pleasures and traumas.”
Sir Alan Ayckbourn is the author of over 73 plays such as Absurd Person Singular, Bedroom Farce, Just Between Ourselves, Otherwise Engaged, A Chorus of Disapproval, and Woman in Mind. His plays have been translated into 35 languages and won numerous national and international awards including the 2009 Tony for Best Revival of a Play for The Norman Conquests. He is the long serving Artistic Director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all of his plays have premiered before moving to the West End or Broadway.
How the Other Half Loves is directed by Larry Thelen who was last here for Driving Miss Daisy. Set Design is by Tony Andrea; Lighting Design by Doug Harry; Costume Design is by LisaMarie Harry.
How the Other Half Loves opens on April 13th and runs thru May 1st for 3 weeks. Performance times are Wednesday and Sunday matinees at 2pm. Evening performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30pm, Friday and Saturday at 8pm. Tickets are $40 for adults, $35 for seniors, $20 for students and $15 for children and are available by calling the Playhouse box office at 860-767-7318 or by visiting our website at www.ivorytonplayhouse.org (Group rates are available by calling the box office for information.)
The Playhouse is located at 103 Main Street in Ivoryton.Members of the press are welcome at any performance.
Please call ahead for tickets.
*member of Actors Equity