Patrick Kramer Directs 'Noises Off' for Circle Players' '09-'10 Season

Patrick Kramer, director of Circle Players' upcoming Noises Off, has been involved in enough theatrical productions to know that comedy is very serious business. But British playwright Michael Frayn's farce is such serious business that Kramer told his actors not to even try for funny when rehearsals first got under way.

"I told them to get the timing and the moves right first, before even thinking about finding the nuances of the script," Kramer explains. "That's how challenging a show it is. The characters are very nuanced, the show requires meticulous timing, but on the other hand it is physically broad."

Opening Friday, October 16, at Nashville's Z. Alexander Looby Theatre, and running for three weekends, the plot of Noises Off focuses on a "highly dysfunctional theatre troupe as it puts on an unfunny farce called Nothing On," explains Regine McClain, Circle's public relations director. "In Act 1, the audience gets to see a dress rehearsal that is not going well. In Act 2, the cast performs the first act as the audience watches from the backstage perspective, where things are getting out of hand. The final act shows the play after two months of touring, when the show has deteriorated into a total disaster, yet a delightful one."

The script presents any cast and its director with "plenty of challenges," Kramer suggests: "Everything in this show needs to look as if it is happening in the moment. Nothing can look staged, or it stops being funny."

Kramer says he is confident that his experienced cast can pull off the production with style, since most of his actors have the much-needed comic chops.

Alan Lee, who plays the role of the director in Noises Off, just finished a run of Jesus Christ Superstar at Franklin's Boiler Room Theatre.. Noises Off, Lee says, leaves no margin for error among the actors.

"You have dropped lines, missed cues, props that disappear and reappear--all of the mess-ups are built into the script. The real actors are daring disaster at any moment," Lee says. "It's our responsibility to know the show so well that it appears as if we have no clue what happens next."

Perhaps best known as an actor and director in both professional and youth productions in Nashville, this is Kramer's debut as director of a Circle Players show. What intrigued him most about Noises Off, Kramer says, is that it's a show about the theatre: "It's theatre that actors enjoy immensely, but at the same time it's very accessible to a general audience. This is one of those shows where the audience can just let itself go. It's a roller coaster ride. I'd say hang on and enjoy the ride."

Noises Off opens October 16, continuing through November 1 at the Looby Theatre, 2301 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard. Curtain is at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, with a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday afternoons.

Tickets are $15 for adults and $12 for students and seniors (ages 60 and up). Children ages six and under get in free. On Thursday nights, all tickets are $10.

Tickets, including discounted season tickets, are available online at www.circleplayers.net or by phone (615)-332-PLAY. Tickets will also be on sale at the box office of the Looby Theatre one hour before each show.

photo by Hatcher & Fell Photography

 

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