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Shakespeare & Company Kicks Off Longest Season Ever with The Ladies Man East Coast Premiere

LENOX, MA: Theatre-goers have long known that it takes a seriously talented actor to play comedy. This summer, audiences will get the chance to see a remarkable ensemble dig into a ferociously funny romp that simultaneously celebrates and sends-up the conventions of French farce. Shakespeare & Company’s longest season ever kicks off with George Morey’s The Ladies Man, playing at Founders’ Theatre May 23 to August 31. Press Opening is Saturday, May 31 at 8 p.m. RSVP to Aspenlieder@shakespeare.org.

Founders’ is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible. Performances in the evenings run at 8:00 p.m. and in the afternoons at 3:00 p.m. Tickets range from $10 to $57. For a complete listing of productions and schedules or to inquire about student, senior, and Rush Tix or to receive a brochure, please visit the website at www.shakespeare.org. For group visits, contact Group Sales Manager Victoria Vining at (413) 637-1199 ext. 132.

This production re-unites many of the artists behind last summer’s smash hit Rough Crossing, all Company members—including director Kevin G. Coleman, actors Elizabeth Aspenlieder and Jonathan Croy, plus set designer Carl Sprague (The Royal Tenenbaums, Amistad) and costume designer Govane Lohbauer.

“I’ve spent the winter looking forward to working with this remarkable team again,” Coleman says. (Coleman is also director of Shakespeare & Company’s award-winning Education Program). “The energy they bring to any project is infectious, but this piece in particular requires their best. To play farce, you need to vibrate at a very high frequency, moment by moment—even if your character seems calm and composed. I truly cannot wait for all of us to dig into this material. What great fun it makes for in rehearsals—and finally, onstage.”

Aspenlieder’s tour de force performance in Rough Crossing earned her “stage comedienne of the year” honors from the Wall Street Journal. Coleman’s hand on the tiller of that play led Metroland to declare him “Best Director” of 2007. Their roles also landed Aspenlieder and Croy in Metroland’s “Top Ten” list of stage performers for the year.

The setting also provides a tailor-made vehicle for Michael Toomey, whose fascination with clowning led him to the London International School of Performing Arts where he earned an MFA in acting based on the techniques of master French mime and actor Jacques Lecoq. (Toomey delighted audiences at the Rose Footprint Theatre last summer as the titular character in Scapin.) Walton Wilson, Head of Voice and Speech at Yale School of Drama and a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher, is also a perfect match for his role as the jealous Prussian officer—providing an interesting follow-up to his critically acclaimed turn in last summer’s Antony and Cleopatra as Enobarbus, Marc Antony’s chief lieutenant.

Award-winning actress Annette Miller, a favorite of Boston stages, returns to Founders’ Theatre after creating the lead role in the smash, original Shakespeare & Co. production Martha Mitchell Calling in 2006. That show has recently been re-mounted to rave reviews at Stageworks/Hudson and the Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, with a run in the Boston area scheduled for later in the year.

Morey, artistic director of the Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake City, freely adapted The Ladies Man from two works by George Feydeau, the writer who helped define the classic French farce through his prodigious output of plays during la belle epoch in Paris. Morey borrows from The Ladies’ Dressmaker, Feydeau’s first big hit (though rarely performed in English), and the most-performed Feydeau piece, A Flea in Her Ear. The Ladies Man made its world premiere at Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2007.

The Ladies Man is the gut-busting story of a physician who surreptitiously returns home one morning (through the parlor window), hoping his overnight absence has gone unnoticed by his much younger wife. The story of just where he spent the night—and why—propels this rollicking farce, as Monsieur Molineux scampers to avoid a too-persistent suitor and her muscle-bound husband, a pestering patient oblivious both to his own speech impediment and the fact that he’s not welcome, and most of all, the fearsome wrath of his mother-in-law.

“This play is a farce, and that means doors,” Coleman says. “Any farce requires a series of doors, to enable unexpected coincidences and undesired rendez-vous. But it’s also about the complicated maze of high society and expectations these characters have to weave through in order to find happiness. I think all of us know that sometimes your best plans can get slammed right in your face.”

This play demonstrates that the essence of great farce is a tightly constructed story that maintains scrupulous fidelity to its own internal logic—however twisted it may be. In the midst of all the slamming doors and a parade of unfortunate coincidences, at the heart of this play is a (mostly) honest husband who is just too embarrassed to explain to his pretty wife why he insists on separate bedrooms. It adds up to a feast of language and wordplay.

The era of la belle epoch Paris (roughly 1871 to 1915) is vividly brought to life with Lohbauer’s sumptuous period costumes and Sprague’s elaborate set—including the seemingly endless row of doors required by the script, architectural details true to the era (such as black, wrought-iron railing familiar to anyone who’s seen the Eiffel Tower) and a sight-gag crucial to the story that has to be seen to be believed.