Three actresses from Maplewood will lead the cast of Noel Coward’s classic comedy, Present Laughter, presented by interACT Theater Productions and opening March 4 at the Baird cultural center in South Orange.
Heidi Hart, Julie Jin and Pat Tine portray three of the many women – and some men – beguiled by Garry Esseling, a character Coward wrote to explore the conflicts and absurdities of middle age. Garry juggles women who want to seduce him, a long-suffering secretary (played by Tine), housekeeper (played by Hart) and estranged wife (played by Jin) who fear his misadventures will wreck both their personal and professional partnerships, and a crazed young playwright who invites himself on Garry’s upcoming journey to Africa.
Described by Coward himself as “a series of semi-autobiographical pyrotechnics,’’ Present Laughter has been produced four different times on Broadway and many more times in London, starring actors as different as Coward himself, Ian McKellen, Albert Finney and Columbia High School graduate Frank Langella in the title role. When it was first produced, critics hailed Present Laughter as “the best comedy of its kind and generation.”
Present Laughter opens on Friday, March 4 and runs on weekend evenings through March 19, with the curtain rising at 7:30 p.m. Sunday matinees will be performed on March 6 and 13 at 4 P.M. InterACT’s presentation of Present Laughter is directed by John A.C. Kennedy of Springfield, and produced by Kimberly Mullaney of Maplewood and Elena Svitavsky of South Orange.
Tickets will be available at interactproductions.org beginning the week of Feb. 1.
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