Fred Grandy Headlines Surflight Theatre's SLEUTH, 5/8-18

Surflight Theatre, under the leadership of Executive Director Ken Myers presents Fred Grandy (TV's The Love Boat) and Christian Pedersen in Anthony Shaffer's Tony Award-winning thriller Sleuth, as part of the theater's 64th Season from May 8 through 18.

Directed by Clayton Phillips, Sleuth will have its press opening on Thursday, May 9 at 8pm.

What do you get when you take one eccentric detective novelist, add in his wife's lover, stir in a cocktail or two, blend in a team of intrepid investigators, top it off with a dangerous proposition and mix it all together in an English manor house? One of the most deviously clever thrillers ever concocted. Plots, counterplots, and double crosses are unleashed as rivals play out deadly games in a tangled web of intrigue. Popular mystery writer Andrew Wyke (Fred Grandy) lives in a world of plot twists and intricate strategies. In discovering his wife's lover, Milo (Christian Pedersen), Mr. Wyke devises a devious plan to humiliate him. But even the best laid plans can go astray when the police arrive and a new game begins - a game where rules don't apply and the stakes are life or death.

Also featured in Sleuth are Rich Tanis as Detective Sergeant Tarrant, Ed Spreen as Police Constable Higgs, and Earnest Cindership as Inspector Doppler.

Surflight Theatre's production design team for Sleuth includes Stephan Cowles (scenic design), Anna Hilberry (costume design), Jeremy Cunningham (lighting design), A & L Sound (sound design). Michael J. Iannelli is production stage manager.

Fred Grandy (Andrew Wyke) Known to television audiences everywhere for his role as Gopher on the long running series, The Love Boat, Fred Grandy also served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, and is delighted to return to the real world of the legitimate stage. Grandy began his career off-Broadway working at Joe Papp's Public Theater and was brought to Hollywood by Norman Lear who cast him in his now iconic sit com, Maude. From there Grandy went on to appear in several film and TV productions including, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blind Ambition, Mary Tyler Moore, Welcome Back, Kotter, and Law and Order. More recently, Washington, DC audiences have seen him as Captain Keller in the Arena Stage version of The Miracle Worker and in two musicals at the Folger Theatre, where he portrayed Joe Gargery in Great Expectations and Richard D'Oyly Carte in the Gilbert and Sullivan parody, Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Purloined Patience. He also holds a degree in Classical Acting from the Washington Shakespeare Theatre and George Washington University.

Christian Pedersen (Milo) is a proud native of the Jersey Shore and delighted to be making his Surflight debut. In New York, where he now lives, Christian performs in plays (most recently Eternal Equinox at 59e59), some TV shows (The Good Wife, Fringe, Damages, All My Children, and currently One Life to Live online) and writes songs with his wife Uma. Their rock musical played FringeNYC last summer and is the winner of this year's NJ Playwright Contest at William Patterson University.

Clayton Phillips (Director) is excited to be working with Surflight Theatre. Most recently directed Hairspray at Lake Worth Playhouse, The Outgoing Tide at Arts Garage in Delray Beach and Leading Ladies at The Barnstormers in New Hampshire where he was the Producing Artistic Director from 2004- 2009. Clayton served as Hal Prince's assistant on productions of Kiss of the Spider Woman, Candide and Parade. He also directed international companies of Spider Woman. He was the recipient of the New Hampshire Theatre Award for Best Direction of a Musical for Slow Dance with A Hot Pick-Up by John Pielmeier and Matty Selman. Other favorite directing credits include national tours of Show Boat, Oliver, Kiss of the Spider Woman and regional productions of Chicago, The Music Man, Dirty Blonde, Barefoot In The Park, Deathtrap, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Gypsy, Bash, Our Town, Into The Woods, Camelot, and Of Mice And Men. Clayton is currently the Production Manager for Maltz Jupiter Theatre in Florida and has served as Production Supervisor for 5 Broadway shows, 4 national tours and 3 Off Broadway productions.

Anthony Shaffer is the author of Sleuth one of the greatest theatrical hits of all time in London, New York and throughout the world, winning the Tony Award as the Best Play of 1971. Other stage plays include This Savage Parade, Murderer, Widow's Weeds, and The Case of the Oily Levantine, which was presented in New York in 1982 under the title Whodunnit. In 1972 he wrote the screenplay for Forbush and the Penguins, which starred John Hurt and Hayley Mills and, in 1974, he turned Sleuth into a film which starred Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. The same year he wrote the screenplay for the Alfred Hitchcock film, Frenzy. Other screenplays include The Wicker Man and Absolution, which starred Richard Burton, and three Agatha Christie adaptations: Death on the Nile, Evil Under the Sun and Appointment With Death with Peter Ustinov as 'Hercule Poirot.' Mr. Shaffer developed the storyline for the film Sommersby starring Jodie Foster and Richard Gere. Anthony's autobiography, So What Did You Expect?, was published by Picador in 2002. Anthony Shaffer died on November 6, 2001.

Performances of Sleuth are Tuesday at 2pm and 8pm; Wednesday at 2pm; Thursday at 2pm and 8pm; Friday and Saturday at 8pm, and Sunday at 2pm. Tickets are $45, with Groups (15 or more) $35 dinner packages available. Call the Surflight Theatre Box Office at 609-492-9477 or purchase online at www.surflight.org.

Next on the Surflight Theatre stage The Boy Friend (May 24 - June 16), George M! (June 19 - July 7), South Pacific (July 10 - 28), Les Miserables (July 31 - August 18), You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown (August 25 - September 8), Our Town (September 25 - October 4), and White Christmas (November 29 - December 22).

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