Act II Playhouse Opens 11th Season With BOEING-BOEING 9/22-10/18

Broadway comes to Ambler, as Act II Playhouse opens its 11th season in September with the Tony Award-winning hit play Boeing-Boeing. Act II Associate Artistic Director Harriet Power directs the post-Broadway world premiere of the smash-hit revival of Marc Camoletti's 1960s effervescent farce.

The show - which opens for previews on Sept. 22 - was revived last year on Broadway in an adaption by Beverley Cross. Act II's production stars Tony Braithwaite, Kristyn Chouiniere, Jessica DalCanton, Sarah Doherty, Anthony Lawton, and Deven Walker.

Boeing-Boeing spins its zany tale of intrigue and surprise around an American architect [Lawton] who rents a swanky Paris apartment and gets himself engaged to three sexy flight attendants [Chouiniere, DalCanton and Walker] whose schedules interlock with pitch-perfect precision. With his dour French housekeeper [Doherty] juggling breakfasts and bedding, each fiancée thinks she's the only one...until an old school pal [Braithwaite] visits, flights get cancelled, and chaos crackles. Miraculously (and delightfully) amidst the mayhem, love triumphs!

Three preview performances of Boeing-Boeing will be held Sept. 22-24, with tickets discounted at $20. Opening night is Sept. 25, and the show runs through Oct. 18. Tickets are $25 for all Wednesday-Thursday performances and $30 for Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday matinees. Discounts are available for groups of 10 or more. For more information, visit www.act2.org or call the Act II Box Office at (215) 654-0200.
Boeing-Boeing was first revived in London in 2007 and received Olivier Award nominations the following year for Best Revival and for Best Actor. Act II's production is the first since the play moved to Broadway's Longacre Theatre and won the 2008 Tony for Best Revival of a Play. When it closed, Camoletti's classic comedy played for 280 performances and 17 previews.
Director Power commented: "Many friends who saw the Broadway revival tell me they can't wait to see Boeing-Boeing again! For audiences new to the play, think James-Bond style sexiness and sophistication mixed with Marx Brothers/Will Ferrell-esque banana-peel-slipping, door-slamming, madcap physical comedy.

"As a director, I savor the challenge of making the farce fly while also capturing the very real hungers and humanity common to all of us," added Power. "In our worrisome and politically difficult times, farce in general, and this play in particular, are good for the soul."

Power, a Barrymore Award-winning director and a Professor of Theatre at Villanova University, is no stranger to the fast-paced style of farce. She directed Villanova Theatre's 2008 Barrymore-nominated production of Georges Feydeau's 21-character comedy Le Dindon (An Absolute Turkey) last November, where she had previously revived Michael Hollinger's comic farce Incorruptible in 2006.

Braithwaite, a popular comedic actor in Philadelphia, has performed in Act II's season opener in four of the last five seasons, most recently in Marie Jones' Stones in His Pockets. He won the 2005 Barrymore Award for Best Actor in a Musical for Act II's production of The Big Bang and wowed audiences with his virtuoso portrayal of George Burns in Say Goodnight Gracie. He last performed at Montgomery Theater, portraying 40 characters in Fully Committed.

Lawton starred as George in Of Mice and Men (Walnut), Austin in True West and Feste in Twelfth Night (Lantern). His original play, The Foocy, received five Barrymore nominations, including one for Best New Play.
Lawton and Braithwaite are part of the ensemble nominated for the 2009 Barrymore Award for Best New Play for This is the Week That Is: The Election Special! (1812 Productions).

Boeing-Boeing features a design by James Leitner (lighting; Barrymore Award for Act II's 2004 production of Mary's Wedding), and by Barrymore nominees Dirk Durossette (scenery), Millie Hiibel (costumes), and Mark Valenzuela (sound).
Boeing-Boeing is sponsored by the Philadelphia law offices of Fox Rothschild. B-101 is the exclusive season radio sponsor of Act II Playhouse's 2009-10 season.
SPECIAL DRESS REHEARSAL FUNDRAISER

The final dress rehearsal of Boeing-Boeing will be open to the public on Sunday, Sept. 20, at 2 p.m. Suggested donation is $10, and all contributions will be donated to Angel Flight East (AFE), in honor of Steven and Daniel Altman, two volunteer pilots who were killed in the Aug. 8 collision of their plane with a tour helicopter over the Hudson River. Angel Flight East, based at Wings Field in Blue Bell, provides free air transportation to seriously ill patients who need medical treatment at health care facilities far from their hometowns.

Act II Playhouse, celebrating 11 years of professional theatre in the Philadelphia suburb of Ambler, PA, is committed to creating world-class theatre in a 130-seat venue whose intimacy draws audiences and actors into dynamic interaction. Act II produces new, classic, and contemporary plays and musicals under the direction of Bud Martin (Producing Artistic Director) and Harriet Power (Associate Artistic Director).

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Marc Camoletti authored more than 40 plays and became a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in France. Boeing-Boeing, his first major international success, opened in Paris in 1960, where it subsequently ran for 19 years. It went on to run for seven years and 2,000 performances in its debut London production. It became the Guinness Book of Records most-performed French play worldwide. The Paramount film starred Jerry Lewis, Tony Curtis and Thelma Ritter. A later play, Don't Dress for Dinner, also ran for seven years in London's West End. A French citizen, born in Geneva, and an acclaimed artist and associate of the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts, Marc Camoletti's theatre career launched with three plays running simultaneously in Paris. His work continues to flourish in numerous languages and some 55 countries. He died in 2003.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Harriet Power became Associate Artistic Director of Act II in May 2008, and is thrilled to direct Boeing-Boeing and the world premiere of Bruce Graham's Any Given Monday (coproduced with Theatre Exile) for The Playhouse's 2009-10 season. She is also a Professor of Theatre at Villanova University, where she teaches directing and acting.

She has devoted much of her professional directing and dramaturgy career to play development, working with new plays and playwrights at New Dramatists (New York), Philadelphia's PlayPenn, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, West Coast Playwrights, Iowa Playwrights Festival, and the International Women Playwrights Festival. At Act II, she has directed James Still's Iron Kisses (2009), the world premiere of Jeff Baron's Brothers-in-Law (2008), and the Barrymore Award-nominated Syncopation (2006).

In summer 2009, Power was honored to direct Michael Hollinger's Ghost-Writer for PlayPenn and Jen Child's newest one-woman show, Why I'm Scared of Dance, performed at Philadelphia Theatre Company. Regionally, she has directed full productions of new work at InterAct, the Walnut Studio, Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays, Venture Theatre, and Cheltenham Center for the Arts, where she was resident dramaturg for four years; and staged readings of new plays at Philadelphia Theatre Company, the Wilma, Luna Stage, and the Walnut Street Theatre.

Other regional directing credits: the first reading of Bruce Graham's Any Given Monday for PlayPenn; two world premieres at InterAct Theatre, both by Seth Rozin - Reinventing Eden and Missing Link (Barrymore nomination, Outstanding New Play); Measure for Measure (Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival; Barrymore nomination, Outstanding Direction of a Play), Inspecting Carol (Philadelphia Drama Guild), and two works by Michael Hollinger at New Dramatists: A Wonderful Noise (co-authored with Vance Lemkuhl) in a workshop production, and the first reading of his newest play Ghost-Writer. Overseas directing credits: Donald Margulies' Dinner With Friends in Rome, Italy at Teatro L'Arciliuto, coproduced by The English Theatre of Rome and the American Embassy (winner of "Best of Rome" citation in Trova Roma); Dorothy Louise's LoveKnot in Galway, Ireland, International Women Playwrights Festival; Wole Soyinka's The Strong Breed, Liege, Belgium. From 1995-1998, as Artistic Director of Venture Theatre, Philadelphia 's professional culturally diverse theatre, Power produced two world premieres and directed A Moon for the Misbegotten (Barrymore nomination, Outstanding Direction), Fires in the Mirror, and Mad Forest (Best Director, Philadelphia Inquirer). She won the 1997 Barrymore award for Outstanding Direction of a Play with James J. Christy for Angels in America: Perestroika (Villanova). Professor Power is an active member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas and Theatre Communications Group, has been published in Dramaturgy in American Theatre: A Sourcebook, and is honored to serve on the selection committee for the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Artist. She received an MFA in Directing at the University of Iowa, where she won the IRAM award for Best Director.

She recently directed Feydeau's Le Dindon (Barrymore nominations, Outstanding Set and Costumes Design) and Kushner's adaptation of Corneille's The Illusion at Villanova, where she will direct Shakespeare's As You Like It in November 2009.

Her directing was featured during the 2008 Barrymore Awards ceremony. She is honored to serve on selection committee of the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Artist.

 

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