A Love Triangle with a Dog at its heart, AR Gurney's hilarious and touching comedy is at Lost Nation Theater.
Lost Nation Theater presents SYLVIA – “the Doggone Funniest Play” – Berkshire Press.
A Love Triangle with a Dog at its heart, AR Gurney's hilarious and touching comedy is at Lost Nation Theater.
Do you have a pet? Did it change your life? Do you ever wonder what she’s thinking as she stares up at you with those big eyes and tilts her head? Is the secret to understanding the world and your place in it behind them? Or is she just wondering how your shoe tastes?
In Sylvia – a modern comedy with bite, a middle-aged couple’s world is turned on its head when the husband brings home an engaging canine running loose in Central Park.
Lost Nation Theater, the community’s award-winning professional theater, presents AR Gurney’s Sylvia Thursday–Sunday, Oct 6– 23 at Montpelier City Hall Arts Center. Sylvia unleashes laughter even as it tugs at your heartstrings!
"Dramatic literature is stuffed with memorable love scenes, but none as immediately delicious and dizzy as the one that begins the redeeming affair in A.R. Gurney's comedy, SYLVIA." (NY Times) It’s a love triangle – with a dog at its heart!
Empty nesters Greg and Kate moved back to Manhattan after twenty-two years in the ‘burbs. Kate’s career is taking off, while Greg begins to struggle. Kate tells Greg: "The dog phase of my life is definitely over." But life has a way of giving you what you think you don't want. Greg finds Sylvia- a stray street-wise, perky (or is it pesky?) pooch and takes her home. She quickly becomes a bone of contention, testing Greg and Kate’s marriage to hilarious, and touching, effect.
Gurney, whose mutt Molly first inspired the play, cleverly plays on our tendency to anthropomorphize our pets. Most of us want to believe our pets understand us; that they love us; that they share our nobler traits like loyalty and courage. But in Sylvia, Gurney’s also nudging us to mull over our own need for connection, for love, for understanding.
LNT assembled a “dream team” for this most popular show of one of America’s most respected, loved, & prolific playwrights. Stellar actors Paul Molnar, Maura O’Brien, Scott Renzoni (39 Steps, Stone) and Courtney Wood, accomplished designers John Devlin (Stone), Donna Stafford (Judevine), and Charis Churchill (39 Steps) and join director Will Davis.
Paul Molnar (Henry V, Hamlet) returns to Lost Nation Theater to play husband Greg. He says: “Sylvia, for me, is a wonderful look at the challenges of growing into the next chapter of life. As someone who has been married a long time and past my mid-forties I certainly relate to Greg's situation. Sylvia’s a funny, warm, crazy story with a charming ending and working at LNT is my favorite fall activity.”
LNT fan favorite (Louise, Always…Patsy Cline, etc) Maura O’Brien plays wife Kate. Playwright Gurney credits his own wife for many of the lines “Kate” says in the first scene of Sylvia! “Sylvia is a great ensemble piece and it is sooo funny, but yet touching and serious. But now every time a dog barks or whines or moans and groans, I burst out laughing thinking of what he or she is really trying to say.”
Courtney Wood (who just astounded audiences with her virtuoso performance in LNT’s Syringa Tree) plays Sylvia. (Yes the dog talks!) Wood gushes: “Sylvia is one of my favorite plays. The character Sylvia has always been a dream role for me, and now that dream’s coming true! To get to do it at LNT, which always supports, challenges, and inspires me, is extra special.”
“Comic Masterpiece” (Berkshire On Stage Magazine) “Howlingly Funny” (Backstage) “One of the Funniest, Touching, Profound Plays Ever” (Daily News).
Will Davis, theater faculty member at Johnson State College directs with equal emphasis on serious and “shenanigans.”
“I’m excited to explore the wild love triangle that is at the heart of Sylvia. This story pops with questions about the world around us and our understandings of our own relationships. I don’t think there is a stronger company around to find the intricacies of these characters than Lost Nation Theater. Every rehearsal is leading to some very playful, bold storytelling.”
See it. Thursday-Sunday, October 6-23. Curtain is: 7:30pm Thu thru Saturday and 2pm Sat & Sun.
Tickets are: $30 Fri and Sat Eve; $25 Thu & Matinees. Special $15 tickets Preview Thu Oct 6 and the Sat Mat Oct 8 only. Students & seniors (age 65): $5 Off. (Rated PG: Sylvia’s got a bit of a potty mouth!) Join the Party Opening Night, Fri Oct 7 – with live music and a cash bar.
LNT is wheelchair accessible, and offers an assisted listening system. Call! Go Online! Or get tickets at the City Clerk’s Office on the first floor of Montpelier City Hall. Or take a chance on getting tickets at the door. (1 hour before curtain). For tickets & information: call 802-229-0492, or Click Here
Lost Nation Theater: winner “Best in New England”- Yankee Magazine, and named One of the Best Regional Theaters in America by NYC Drama League is Sponsored by Capitol Copy, City of Montpelier, Eternity Web, National Life Group, WDEV, The Times Argus, and The Point-FM.