DIE! MOMMY! DIE! Ends Run at Silver Spring Stage, 3/28

Silver Spring Stage presents Die! Mommie! Die! by Charles Busch, directed by Michael Sandner and produced by Patty Edwards, a comic melodrama of secrets and murder when a daughter plots to kill her own mother after her father s mysterious death. Die! Mommie! Die! plays through March 28.

Silver Spring Stage is located in the Woodmoor Shopping Center, lower level (next to the CVS) at Colesville Road and University Boulevard. Ticket prices are $20 for adults and $18 for seniors/students.Tickets can be purchased at www.ssstage.org. Information is also available by calling (301) 593-6036.

Remember Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Lana Turner in Portrait in Black from the 1950 s and 1960 s? Well, Charles Busch has lovingly and hilariously written a spoof and homage to them in the deliciously devilish Die! Mommie! Die! Framed in beautiful gowns, eye popping make-up and dripping in jewelry, Busch invokes the glamour goddess in her twilight years embroiled in a lurid plot of floundering identity, sultry affairs and surprising murder. Busch said in an interview, As stylized as my [plays] are, such as Die! Mommie! Die!, they really are emotionally very autobiographical and revealing. You just have to look carefully. Starting in the 1980 s, Busch created a new persona of a drag queen inspired by Hollywood in Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, Psycho Beach Party and Red Scare on Sunset. With his witty writing The leading lady in Die! Mommie! Die! rhapsodizes You've slipped into my life as easily as vermouth into a glass of gin... quickly and just a bit too smooth he not only entertains but raises a theme depicted in those melodramas about the power women can lose when a man walks into their world. He also skillfully makes the case that those films were about female identity crises at a time when women were not in charge of their lives. Busch takes female identity to a different level where a man is playing a woman seeking to act like a man. With Die! Mommie! Die!, audiences have to look no farther than to enjoy this thrilling comedy.
Set in 1960 s Hollywood, faded pop singer, Angela Arden (Doug Krehbiel), is trapped in a corrosive marriage to film producer, Sol Sussman (Scott Bloom) where her maid Bootsie (Terry Toot), a Nixon supporter, is secretly in love with . In her attempt to find happiness with her younger lover Tony (Alex Witherow), an out of work TV star, Angela murders her husband with the aid of a poisoned suppository. Despite the fact that Angela receives virtually nothing in Sol's will, her resentful daughter Edith (Carly Bales) and emotionally disturbed son Lance (Steve Love), along with the maid Bootsie (Terry Toot) who was in love with Sussman, begin to suspect Angela's involvement. Edith convinces Lance to avenge their father's death by killing their mother. Lance, demanding proof of Angela's crime, slips some LSD into her after-dinner coffee, triggering a wild acid trip that exposes all of Angela's dark secrets. This is a wild trip not to be missed!

The production team includes Elena Maria Lower (Stage Manager), John Buckley (Set Design/Set Construction), Kevin Boyce and Jenna Ballard (Light Design), Brandon McWilliams (Costume Design), Kevin Garrett (Sound Design), Sonya Okin (Props/Set Dressing) and Patty Edwards (Set Painting).

The Stage's 2009-2010 "Appearances Can Be Deceiving!" season continues with the moving Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire (Apr. 16-May 9), George Bernard Shaw's enchanting Pygmalion (June 4-June 27), and the provocative Fat Pig by Neil LaBute (July 16-Aug. 8)

About Silver Spring Stage
Silver Spring Stage has provided quality, affordable theatre for over 40 years. We are an all-volunteer, non- profit organization and appreciate any contribution to enable us to offer excellent and entertaining productions. Thank you for your interest and support of Silver Spring Stage. All programs at Silver Spring Stage are made possible in part by grants from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County and the Maryland State Arts Council.

Website: http://www.ssstage.org

 

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