Buck Creek Players to Stage CITY OF ANGELS, 6/7-23

The Buck Creek Players will continue their 2012-2013 season "In the Spotlight" with the Tony Award winning musical, City of Angels, a deliciously funny spoof of 1940's film noir and hard-boiled detective fiction. The wickedly witty musical -- written by Larry Gelbart, creator of TV's M*A*S*H -- opened on Broadway in 1989. With four-part harmonies by Cy Coleman (Sweet Charity, Barnum, The Will Rogers Follies) and lyrics by David Zippel (The Goodbye GIrl, Disney's Hercules, Disney's Mulan), City of Angels went on to win numerous honors in 1990, including the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and The New York Drama Critics Circle awards for best musical. Opening Friday, June 7th, and running for three weekends through Sunday, June 23rd, curtain times will be at 8:00 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, with 2:30 p.m. matinees offered on Sundays. All performances will be held at the Buck Creek Playhouse on the southeast-side of Indianapolis at 11150 Southeastern Avenue. Tickets are $17 for adults and $15 for students (through college), and senior citizens (ages 62 and older). Reservations are recommended and may be reserved online atwww.buckcreekplayers.com, or by calling (317) 862-2270. Group discounts are also available for parties of ten or more when purchased online.

Set in the glamorous, seductive Hollywood of the 1940's, the world of film studios, and filmy negligées,City of Angels chronicles the misadventures of Stine (Scott A. Fleshood), a young novelist, attempting a screenplay for movie producer-director, Buddy Fidler (Daniel Draves).

While Fidler professes to be a fan of Stine's work, his gargantuan ego forces Stine to make endless compromises in the script he's writing, an adaptation of one of Stine's novels featuring his Humphrey Bogart-esque hero, a private investigator named Stone (Mark Kamish). It all begins when Oolie (Christy Walker), Stone's secretary and Girl Friday, ushers a striking socialite, Alaura Kingsley (Laura Lockwood), into Stone's office. Stone is to be hired to find her stepdaughter, Mallory (Emma Alyce Weber), a beautiful "bad" girl, who later turns up in the most unlikely of places.

But it's not all fun and games for the private eye, who in the course of the "movie" receives a brutal beating from two thugs (Stanley Springer and Dennis Karr) who encourage him to drop the case and is framed for murder. The relatively simple "missing daughter" case turns complicated and may end up costing Stone his life. It keeps getting more and more complicated, possibly because the author keeps rewriting it, much to the chagrin of his wife, Gabby (Carrie Morgan).

Completing the cast of twenty one are: B.J. Bovin, Daniel Burkhardt, David Michael Cress, Cathy Cutshall, Adam Decker, Zach Decker, Louise T. DeMore, Kristi Wilkinson Gross, Kelsee B. Hankins, Jake McDuffee, Michael R. Mills, Patrick M. Murphy and Cathy Tolzmann.

D. Scott Robinson directs this movie-within-a-play-within-a-musical. Indianapolis audiences may remember his previous BCP productions of Nunsense (1999), Lizzie Borden (2000), Wait Until Dark (2001) Side Show (2002),Violet (2004), Sweeney Todd (2005), The Spitfire Grill (2006), Parade (2007), Honk!(2008), Grey Gardens (2009), The Brain from Planet X (2010), Frankenstein (2011), and last season's Encore Award-winning best musical, The Drowsy Chaperone. He also conceived and directs the biennial Play-A-Part Fundraiser productions at BCP. Joining Robinson on the production team are Lynne B. Robinson (Producer), Kevin D. Smith (Vocal Director), Aaron B. Bailey (Set Designer & Technical Director),Linda Rowand (Costume Designer), Krista Layfield (Lighting Designer), Schuyler Brinson (Conductor/Musical Director), Daniel Klingler (Hair, Wig & Makeup Designer), Jeff Rowand (Sound Designer), and Ruthie Weller-Passman (Stage Manager).

For more information or directions to The Playhouse, please visit the theater's website atwww.buckcreekplayers.com.

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