Photos: First Look at THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG at Cleveland Play House

Cleveland Play House is presenting the regional premiere of the international hit comedy, The Play That Goes Wrong, written by core members of London’s Mischief Theatre, Henry Lewis, Henry Shields, and Jonathan Sayer. Running now through March 3 in the Allen Theatre, the play is directed by Melissa Rain Anderson, with fight and stunt direction by Jason Paul Tate, and features Jeffrey Marc Alkins*, Josh Bates, Michael Doherty*, Farah El-Ashram, Victoria Alev Duffy, Blake Henri*, Dylan Ireland, Ben Liebert*, Alfredo Ruiz, and Joz Vammer*. 

Get a first look at photos below! 

The Play That Goes Wrong follows the misadventures of the Cornley Drama Society’s newest presentation, “The Murder at Haversham Manor.” It’s the opening night of the troupe’s ambitious 1920s whodunit and right from the start things have quickly gone from bad to utterly disastrous. Everything that can go wrong – literally – does go wrong. Falling props, collapsing scenery, an unconscious leading lady, a corpse that can’t play dead, and actors who trip over everything, including their lines, results in an outrageous production. The accident-prone thespians battle against all odds to make it through to their final curtain call. With non-stop slapstick unleashed, this side-splitting comedy is a hilarious, catastrophic masterclass in theatrical chaos.

The Olivier Award-winning theatre company, Mischief Theatre, was founded in 2008 and began as an improvisational comedy troupe led by a group of graduates from The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. The Play That Goes Wrong was first presented in 2012 under the title, The Murder Before Christmas. Mischief’s artistic director Henry Lewis, the company director Jonathan Sayer, and core member Henry Shields wrote the highly theatrical play and starred in the original run at the Old Red Lion Theatre in London. Boasting a remarkable “rags-to-riches story,” the play premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with an audience of only four paid theatregoers at the first performance.

A decade later, the play has been seen worldwide by millions. The West End production received the 2015 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, becoming the longest running play on the West End, and received five UK tours playing on six continents—excluding Antarctica due to volatile weather and low temperatures. In 2017, the Broadway production opened at the Lyceum Theatre playing 745 performances before closing in early 2019. It received the 2017 Tony Award for Best Set Design, the 2017 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Scenic Design of a Play, and a 2017 Drama Desk Nomination for Best Play. The celebrated production transferred to Off-Broadway in February 2019, where it is still running at New World Stages.

At the helm of CPH’s regional premiere production is Melissa Rain Anderson, who directed The Play That Goes Wrong at The Repertory Theater of St. Louis in 2019, the very first professional production of the play outside of the UK, Broadway, and US national touring productions. Anderson says, “In 2019, there was no roadmap [for directing this play] …there still isn’t a roadmap. It’s really a nice mixture of farce, but the set itself attacks that! I don’t know of another play that does what this play does – as far as how far the hijinks go. It’s pretty shocking. They have to literally hope for a happy ending! That’s my favorite type of comedy!”

The design team includes fight and stunt director by Jason Paul Tate, costume design by Lauren T. Roark, lighting design by Lonnie Rafael Alcaraz, original music and sound design by Lindsay Jones, wig design by J. Jared Janas, and stage management by John Godbout*.

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