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Aug 7, 2008 issue


Blowing Rock Stage Presents Neil Simon’s Rumors August 15 to 24

 

The whispers and rumors abound when high-society dinner guests scramble to cover up a mysterious crime in Neil Simon’s Rumors, showing Friday, August 15, through Sunday, August 24, at the Hayes Center in Blowing Rock.Hot on the heels of the one of theatre’s most wondrous escapades, Peter Pan, the Blowing Rock Stage Company turns its attention to one of the theatre’s most uproarious ones: the drawing room farce Rumors, a high-society frolic penned by the master of comedy himself, the prolific and Tony Award-winning Neil Simon (The Odd Couple, Biloxi Blues, Lost in Yonkers). Rumors, which NBC–TV calls “not only side-splitting, but front and back splitting,” is onstage at the Hayes Performing Arts Center Friday, August 15 to Sunday, August 24.

Set in the posh upper-class living room of host and hostess Charlie and Myra Brock on the evening of their 10th wedding anniversary, Rumors opens with the arrival of status-obsessed guests who are horrified and scandalized to find Charlie shot through the earlobe and Myra and the servants missing in action. Each couple thereafter arriving at the party—dragging with them cases of whiplash, car wreck trauma, back spasms, eye-rolling “couple baby talk” and posh indifference—literally trips over another in equally hysterical efforts to explain the whereabouts of their hosts, until the evening becomes a door-slamming, increasingly outlandish study of miscommunication and misinformation—and flying dinner rolls. As the second act begins and policemen arrive to unearth the “truth,” the guests rely on wisecracks, sidesplitting banter and, well, comically escalating rumors.

The Blowing Rock Stage Company production of Rumors is directed by Ann Marie Costa and stars Kim Cozort, Kenneth Kay, Nan Barnett, Gordon McConnell, Dianna Haas, Paul Haas, David Forsythe, Lynn Llewelyn, Aaron Scott and Shoshana Sims.

The Rumors Broadway production that opened on November 17, 1988, at the Broadhurst Theatre featured original cast members Lisa Bane, Christine Baranski, Ken Howard, Ron Leibman, Joyce Van Patten and Jessica Walter.

Show times are 8:00 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays, 2:00 and 8:00 p.m. on Thursdays and Saturdays and 2:00 p.m. on Sundays.

Tickets are $26 for adults and $14 for students. Adult tickets are $1 extra on Friday and Saturday nights. The Hayes Center is located at 152 Jamie Fort Road off U.S. 321 in Blowing Rock. For more info, call 828-295-9627 or click to www.brcac.org.

 

Want To Go?


Dates: Friday, August 15, to Sunday, August 24
Times: 8:00 p.m. Wednesday and Fridays/2:00 and 8:00 p.m. Thursday and Saturdays/2:00 p.m. Sundays
Location: Hayes Center, Blowing Rock
Cost: $26 adults/$14 students/$1 extra Friday and Saturday night