Brighton Beach Memoirs
by Neil Simon
directed by Penny Nash
June 6,7,8,13,14,15,20,21 7:30 p.m.
June 22, 2:00 p.m.
The Davies Foundation Auditorium
52 Church St., Kingston, ON
Left to right: Abby Wolfe, Harli Polonsky, Sara Beck, Michael Capon, Kate Barker, Max Comber, William Mitchell |
Dreaming of baseball and girls, almost-15 Eugene Jerome must cope with the mundane existence of his family life in 1930s Brooklyn: formidable mother, overworked father, wordly older brother Stanley and his widowed Aunt Blanche and her two young (but rapidly aging) daughters.
Eugene has the usual early-teenage preoccupations such as adjusting to "the year I began to notice girls that weren't too bad to look at," being blamed (or imagining he is) for everything that goes wrong, and liver and onions for dinner again. But he and his whole family are dealing with the loss of jobs they can't manage without, his aunt's suitor who her sister considers highly unsuitable, the strains of adult sisters and their families sharing a small house and his older cousin Nora's dreams of a big break in show business. No wonder Eugene is thinking of writing his memoirs.
And a memoir is just what this loosely autobiographical play is. The first of Simon's trilogy about his adolescence and early adulthood, it was followed up with Biloxi Blues, based on his military service, and Broadway Bound, in which he takes the first steps to a career as America's most produced playwright of the 20th century.
Brighton Beach Memoirs opened on Broadway in March 1983, after a pre-Broadway production in Los Angeles. In 1983, it received the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play and was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play. It ran until 1986, a total of 1,299 performances.
Cast |
|
| Eugene | William Mitchell |
| Blanche | Kate Barker |
| Kate | Sara Beck |
| Laurie | Harli Polonsky |
| Nora | Abby Wolfe |
| Stanley | Max Comber |
| Jack | Michael Capon |
Production Crew |
|
| Producers | Lloyd Balme Wayne Orr Liz Schell |
| Director | Penny Nash |
| Stage Manager | Stephanie Bowen |
| Asst. Stage Manager | Isaiah Dunham |
| Set Design & Chief Carpenter | Grant Buckler |
| Lighting Design | David L. Smith |
| Sound Design | Lloyd Balme |
| Set Dressing | Wayne Orr |
| Costume Design | Liz Schell |
| Set Construction | Bob Brooks James Gow Lorna Jodoin Douglas McNichol Wayne Orr Liz Schell John Woollett |
| Set Painting | Grant Buckler James Gow Penny Nash Wayne Orr Bernd Steglich Jay Steglich John Woollett |
| Lobby/Digital Program Photography | Tim Fort |
| Archival/Promotional Photography | Grant Buckler |
| Poster Design | Katie Flower-Smith |
| Lobby Art Curator | Kingston School of Art |
| Front of House Co-ordinator | Cindy Chappell |
| Enhanced Digital Program Design | Douglas Connors |