Opening this weekend: The Real Inspector Hound

The show opens this weekend -that's Julie (Mrs. Drudge) in The Real Inspector Hound

If you know Tom Stoppard, you know good script writing…and this will be a fun one. It’s opening Friday at the Community Theatre – here’s more from Jan Bollwinkel-Smith:

Expect the Unexpected in SJCT Summer Play

A play within a play…a mystery…a farce…a satire: Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound is all that and much more.  The one-act play opens THIS Friday and Saturday at 8 pm at San Juan Community Theatre.

Stoppard, a British playwright who has earned four Tony Awards and an Academy Award for the screenplay for the 1998 film, Shakespeare in Love, wrote Inspector Hound in the early 1960s, as an intriguing parody of the stereotypical parlor mystery (think Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes).  The Friday Harbor audience will enter the Whittier Theatre to indeed see a play within a play, as the main stage is set as Muldoon Manor where murder, intrigue and romance unfold, while two “theater critics” watch from their own audience and soon literally become entangled in the funny and mysterious plot unleashing in the Manor.

Director Jane Maxwell Campbell says she has been enamored with the one-act play and its playwright and is thrilled to get the “not your typical farce” to the Whittier.

“This is an intellectually and very sophisticated play written by one of the foremost contemporary writers of the past century,” said Maxwell Campbell.   She adds she finds the play within the play very fun for the real island audience, who discover they too get to become part of the story.

Inspector continues next Friday and Saturday, August  5 and 6 at 8 pm; Sunday, August 7 at 5 pm; and finally, Thursday through Saturday, August 11-13 at 8 pm.

Each show features after-play live music with island musicians and the cast in the lobby.  Opening night features Susan Williams and Keith Busha.  Saturday it’s young island violinist Robin Lohrey.

The Business Partner for the play is Islanders Bank.  Tickets are $17 for adults, $9 for student reserved and $5 student RUSH at the door.   The Box Office (378-3210) is open Tuesdays through Fridays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. or tickets may be purchased on-line at www.sjctheatre.org.

This'll be a funny one....

Who’s in the show?

Cast of The Real Inspector Hound

Moon – Bo Turnage
Birdboot – Doug Schirmer
Mrs. Drudge – Julie Laidlaw
Simon –  Stephen Moore
Felicity –  Amanda Lee Smith
Cynthia – Bristol Whalen
Major Magnus – Michael Herber
Inspector Hound – Ed Wilson
The Dead Body – Pete Dawson
The Audience: Dick Coffey, Duvie Dow, Greg Swinford

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