BOEING BOEING Lands At Stagecrafters 3/22

Stagecrafters proudly presents Boeing Boeing on Stagecrafters Main Stage, Friday, March 22, through Sunday, April 7, 2019.

A hilarious, fast-paced farce, Boeing Boeing is about Bernard, a happy bachelor who has carefully arranged his life so that his three stewardess fiancées don't land on his doorstep at the same time. Everything is fine until Boeing develops a faster jet, wreaking havoc on Bernard's schedule. When all three girlfriends land at the same time for a visit, Bernard flies into a full-blown panic. With help from his bewildered friend Bob and skeptical housekeeper Berthe, Bernard scrambles to keep his fiancées from meeting each other. Filled with dizzying twists and turns and door-slamming entrances and exits, Boeing Boeing is a classic bedroom farce that's sure to be a load of laughs.

Boeing Boeing won the 2008 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. Originally a 1960 French farce, it premiered on Broadway in 1965 and in the same year was made into a film starring Tony Curtis as Bernard and Jerry Lewis as Bob.

In Stagecrafters' production, Stephanie Babb (Royal Oak) plays one of Bernard's stewardess girlfriends. She says being in the cast has been a blast. "The show really is hilarious. I was dying of laughter even during the auditions. Playing Gloria is really fun, she's definitely a character." She adds that the most challenging part of being in the show is getting the timing of the jokes right.

In a typical "slamming door" bedroom farce, characters quickly enter and exit through doors, narrowly missing each other as one door shuts and another opens. "A good farce combines physical humor, mistaken identities, fast-paced dialogue, improbable plots, and those beautiful, beautiful doors," says director Ryan Lawson (Berkley).

And when actors rush in and out of those "beautiful" doors, timing is everything.

To get the actors comfortable and hone their comedic timing, Lawson started each rehearsal with improv exercises. "The cast learns to develop their timing around each other," he says, noting that some of them began doing improv exercises in character. The results are impressive, says Lawson. "We've got a phenomenal cast.... Because they're so comfortable, they have been willing to try new things and work to push some acting boundaries that I don't see in a lot of casts. In the process they've taken ownership of their characters."

Lawson applauds the actors for being able to pull off the hilarious fast-paced, tightly choreographed action so necessary in a slamming door farce. And he applauds his stage crew for building sturdy doors.

Tickets for Boeing Boeing are now on sale at Stagecrafters.org, or by calling the ticket office at 248-541-6430, Monday through Friday, 10:00AM to 2:00PM. Tickets are $20 on Thursdays and $24 on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Discounted tickets available for Veterans, Seniors and Youth on Thursdays and Sundays. On Thursday, March 28, at 8PM, students with a school ID can get a half-price ticket at the door, based on availability.

Photo by Mike Hanson

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