The Gin Game at Lake Country Playhouse

The Gin Game
By D.L. Coburn

Producing Sponsor: Kit Seidel
Directed by Max Levine

This winner of the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, which originally starred Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn and was later revived with Julie Harris and Charles Durning, uses a card game as a metaphor for life. Weller Martin is playing solitaire on the porch of a seedy nursing home. Enter Fonsia Dorsey, a prim, self-righteous lady. They discover they both dislike the home and enjoy gin rummy, so they begin to play and to reveal intimate details of their lives. Fonsia wins every time, and their secrets become weapons used against one another. Weller longs for a victory to counter a lifetime of defeats, but it doesn’t happen. He leaves the stage a broken man, and Fonsia realizes her self-righteous rigidity has led to an embittered, lonely, old age.

"Perfect [...] A vibrant study on loneliness, disillusion, old age and death yet fiercely funny." – The Boston Globe

"A thoroughly entertaining lesson in the fine art of theatrical finesse. The closest thing the theatre offers to a duel at 10 paces." – The New York Times

"Extremely intelligent [...] fine bittersweet comedy [...] Funny, sad, profane, eloquent, touching, beautiful." – WABC-TV

Staged Reading
Full-Length Play, 90 Minutes
Dramatic Comedy

Admission: $10.00

Performances:

Friday, May 31, 2024, 7:30pm
Saturday, June 1, 2024, 7:30 pm

Cast:

WELLER MARTIN - Bob Hurd
FONSIA DORSEY - Paula Nordwig
NARRATOR - Zackary Henke

Authors

• D.L. Coburn

Tony Awards and Nominations for The Gin Game