Village Players Presents VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE

The Village Players continues their successful 93rd season with the hilarious comedy, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike by Christopher Durang.

In this winner of the 2013 Tony Award for Best Play, middle-aged siblings Vanya and Sonia share a home in Bucks County, PA, where they bicker and complain about the uneventful circumstances of their lives. When their glamorous movie-star sister, Masha, suddenly swoops in with her new twenty-something "boy toy", Spike, old family dynamics and absurd resentments flare up, eventually leading to threats to sell the house and unexpected events. Also on hand are the feisty maid Cassandra, who can foretell the future, and a sweet young aspiring actress named Nina, whose delicate beauty worries the imperious but insecure Masha.

Author of many renowned comedies and satires, Christopher Durang is one of the most celebrated living American playwrights. Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is his most recent and has garnered much acclaim. USA Today hailed it as "hugely entertaining...few contemporary playwrights have proven as deft as Durang at mining both the absurdity and the dangers of human folly...in its own deliciously madcap way, the new work offers some keen insights into the challenges and agonies of twenty-first-century life."

Stephen Sussman of Bloomfield Township, who makes his main stage directorial debut, finds this to be a departure from his performing and writing. "I've enjoyed performing locally on-stage for many years, and have gotten involved in playwriting and directing one-acts the past few years. This is my first effort with a full-length play and it's very exciting! I found Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike to be hilarious and insightful on family relationships and the human condition. There is also clever commentary on theatre and society, and at the same time it's very funny, yet thought-provoking."

So come and join these Chekhov-inspired characters and see this hysterical and wildly entertaining show!

The talented cast of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike includes local veteran actors and some exciting new faces to the Village Players stage:

Vanya: Greg Bowman of Ferndale

Sonia: Sue Chekaway of Bloomfield Hills

Masha: Sally Savoie of Bloomfield Hills

Spike: Brian Stanczak-Tuscany of Sterling Heights

Cassandra: Shondra Tipler of Detroit

Nina: Erica Shubin of Ann Arbor

The two-act comedy runs approximately two and a quarter hours with a short intermission.

Show dates: Evenings January 15, 16, 22, 23, 29 and 30 at 8:00 PM, and January 17, 24 and 31 at 2:00 PM. Individual ticket prices - $18, plus there is a $1 Facilities Improvements Fee for each ticket purchased and a $1 processing fee for each ticket order.

Birmingham Village Players is located at 34660 Woodward Ave, Birmingham, MI 48009, or call the box office at (248) 644-2075.

About The Village Players

The Village Players of Birmingham, a 501 (c)3 nonprofit community theater celebrating its 93rd season, presents high quality dramatic, comedic, and musical productions. All community members are invited to participate on stage, backstage or as an audience member in the theater's main stage, youth theater, and Playwrights at Work productions and programs. The Village Players has been entertaining the community from its location at 34660 Woodward Avenue in Birmingham since 1926.

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