Casting Spells Productions Announces Cast of 'FRANKIE & JOHNNY'

Casting Spells Productions announces the late fall production of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune by Terrence McNally at Minneapolis Theatre Garage Nov. 5 - Dec. 6, 2015 (preview Nov. 4) starring Shanan Custer as Frankie and Charles Hubbell as Johnny. Voice of Radio Announcer will be played by Eric Webster.

A critical and popular success, this bittersweet comedy combines poignancy and laughter as it traces the unlikely romance that begins to develop between two middle-aged "losers."

Playing waitress Frankie, Custer is a Twin Cities actor, writer, director and improviser known for her work at multiple Twin Cities stages including her original work 2 Sugars, Room for Cream (with Carolyn Pool) that won an Ivey Award for Best Ensemble in 2013. (See biography below.)

As short-order cook Johnny, Hubbell is a versatile, busy actor seen in many films, industrials, commercials, web series and on stages from the Guthrie Theater to Park Square and Old Log Theater. (See biography below.)

James Detmar directs. Detmar, a local actor, director and writer, played Johnny in the Cricket Theatre production 20 years ago.

He is joined by co-producers Mark Bergren, well known in the Twin Cites as former artistic director of Dudley Riggs' Brave New Workshop and in Orlando as a show director and writer for Walt Disney Entertainment and Michael Shann, former Disney executive and producer of the Closing Ceremonies of the XXII Winter Olympic Games and the 2015 Pan Am Games Closing and Parapan Am Opening and Closing Ceremonies in Toronto, Canada, to make up Casting Spells Productions LLC.

Production staff include: Jane Ryan (Scenic Design), Grant Merges (Lighting Design), Darren Hensel (Tech Director) and Jessie Storovich (Stage Manager/Show Operator).

The setting of Frankie and Johnny is a walk-up apartment on Manhattan's West Side where, as the curtain rises, Frankie (a waitress) and Johnny (a short-order cook who works in the same restaurant) are discovered in bed. It is their first encounter, after having met several weeks ago on the job, and Frankie is hopeful that Johnny will now put on his clothes and depart, so she can return to her usual routine of watching TV and eating ice cream. But Johnny, a compulsive talker (and romantic), has other ideas. He is convinced that he loves Frankie, a notion that she, at first, considers to be ridiculous. She has had more disappointments than delights in life, and he is the veteran of one broken marriage already. And neither of them is in the bloom of youth. Yet out of their sometimes touching, sometimes hilarious interplay the promise of a relationship beyond a "one-night stand" does begin to emerge and, as the lights dim, the two are back in bed again, but this time side-by-side, holding hands before the glowing television screen.

The show includes brief nudity and adult content.

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