Season 77
2024-2025
The Village Players of Hatboro is delighted to announce the slate for our 77th season!
The Creature Creeps!
By Jack Sharkey | Directed by Edward Young
September (2024) 6, 7, 13, 14, 20, 21 at 8PM | 8, 15 at 2PM
Farce. This hilarious send up of the horror story genre has an ancient castle, creaking doors, a mad scientist, his misshapen assistant, a grim housekeeper, secret laboratory, shrieks from the depths of the cellar, disappearing villagers, an incredibly stalwart and stupid hero of sterling character, the scientist's absolutely dopey daughter, and so many laughs you'll lose count. The setting (designed for both proscenium and in the round performances) is the parlor of Castle Von Blitzen in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania. Where is the Baron Von Blitzen's secret laboratory? That's what the terrified villagers would like to know and when the scientist and his assistant convert the innocent parlor into a fiend's experimental station, the ingenuity of the set provokes both laughter and applause.
Little Women
Adapted by Kate Hamill | Directed by Keith Maliszewski
November (2024) 8, 9, 15, 16, 22, 23 at 8PM | 10, 17 at 2PM
Drama. Adapted from the novel by Louisa May Alcott. Jo March isn’t your typical Victorian lady. She’s indecorous and headstrong, and one day she’s going to be a great American novelist. As she and her sisters grow up in the middle of the Civil War, they strive to be brave, intelligent, and imaginative young women. But as adulthood approaches, each sister must negotiate her private ambitions with society’s expectations. In a war-torn world defined by gender, class, and personal tragedy, Jo March gives us her greatest story: that of the March sisters, four dreamers destined to be imperfect little women.
Is He Dead?
Adapted by David Ives | Directed by Nicolas Pinault
January (2025) 10, 11, 17, 18, 24, 25 at 8PM | 12, 19 at 2PM
Comedy. Adapted from the play by Mark Twain. Jean-Francois Millet, a young painter of genius, is in love with Marie Leroux but in debt to a villainous picture-dealer, Bastien Andre. Andre forecloses on Millet, threatening debtor's prison unless Marie marries him. Millet realizes that the only way he can pay his debts and keep Marie from marrying Andre is to die, as it is only dead painters who achieve fame and fortune. Millet fakes his death and prospers, all while passing himself off as his own sister, the Widow Tillou. Now a rich "widow," he must find a way to get out of a dress, return to life, and marry Marie.
Arcadia
By Tom Stoppard | Directed by Kevin Christian
March (2025) 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, 22 at 8PM | 9, 16 at 2PM
Comedy/Drama. This brilliant play moves back and forth between 1809 and the present at the elegant estate owned by the Coverly family. The 1809 scenes reveal a household in transition. As the Arcadian landscape is being transformed into picturesque Gothic gardens, complete with a hermitage, thirteen year-old Lady Thomasina and her tutor delve into intellectual and romantic issues. Present day scenes depict the Coverly descendants and two competing scholars who are researching a possible scandal at the estate in 1809 involving Lord Byron. This brilliant play moves smoothly between the centuries and explores the nature of truth and time, the difference between classical and romantic temperaments, and the disruptive influence of sex on our life orbits- the attraction Newton left out!
Moon Over Buffalo
By Ken Ludwig | Directed by Steven J. Niles
May (2025) 2, 3, 9, 10, 16, 17 at 8PM | 4, 11 at 2PM
Farce. In the madcap comedy tradition of Lend Me a Tenor, the hilarious Moon Over Buffalo centers on George and Charlotte Hay, fading stars of the 1950s. At the moment, they’re playing Private Lives and Cyrano De Bergerac in rep in Buffalo, New York with five actors. On the brink of a disastrous split-up caused by George’s dalliance with a young ingénue, they receive word that they might just have one last shot at stardom: Frank Capra is coming to town to see their matinee, and if he likes what he sees, he might cast them in his movie remake of The Scarlet Pimpernel. Unfortunately for George and Charlotte, everything that could go wrong does go wrong, abetted by a visit from their daughter’s clueless fiancé and hilarious uncertainty about which play they’re actually performing, caused by Charlotte’s deaf, old stage-manager mother who hates every bone in George’s body.
