Marco Players investing in comic season with Simon, Gurney, Kane laughs

If you're ready for a laugh, Marco Players is ready for you. The community theater on Marco Island has announced a 2018-19 season fortified with names like Neil Simon and A.R. Gurney.

"The last couple of years people have been telling us that they come to Marco for comedy, so we listened to that," said Beverly Dahlstrom, spokeswoman for the group.

The organization has also expanded its Lunch Box Series with an extra performance: a storytellers roundtable, during which the participants listen to actors' stories, have lunch and then talk with them about the tales. Those performances have not been announced yet. 

The season starts, however, with a murder mystery. 

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"It's a play within a play," explained Dahlstrom of "Rehearsal for Murder," by Richard Levinson and William Link. The story, which actually became a TV movie, unfolds around a playwright who believes his fiancee did not commit suicide over the bad reviews of her play, but was murdered. 

It quickly shifts in the next production to a format that's becoming popular: shorts. "Four One-Act Comedies," all written by Bruce Kane, a familiar playwright to community theater, take on superheroes in four different, and funny, ways. Another of his once-act evenings skewering fairy tales last season was particularly popular, according to the news release on the coming season. 

Two other familiar playwrights, Neil Simon and A.R. Gurney, wrote two of the plays planned: "Come Blow Your Horn" and "Black Tie." But "Spreading It Around" brings a new name, Londos D’Arrigo, writer for such comediennes as Phyllis Diller, Lily Tomlin, and Joan Rivers and another written by a team of playwrights. 

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Main stage series tickets are currently on sale to past season ticketholders and will go on sale to the public in September. Those interested can email the theater to be placed on a contact list when tickets do become available. 

The theater has also opened its audition dates for all the plays.

The Marco Players' Main Stage Series for 2018-19, and auditions, are as follow: 

• Oct. 24-Nov. 11, "Rehearsal for Murder":  Teleplay by Richard Levinson and William Link, adapted by D.D. Brooke. A theatrical murder mystery in which a play is used to solve the mystery of a murder that occurred there a year earlier. Auditions: Aug. 4
• Nov. 28-Dec. 16 — Four One-Act Comedies: By Los Angeles writer Bruce Kane. There's a sendup of retired superheroes, a Justin Thyme mystery and other provocative humor in “The Understudy,” “Clark and Bruce,” “Loneliness,” “Pain and Rejection” and “The Big Snooze, A Justin Thyme Mystery.” Auditions: Aug.11
• Jan. 2-20 — "Come Blow Your Horn": By Neil Simon. Neil Simon’s first Broadway comedy hit centers on parents are horrified as they watch their two sons in comic bouts of rebellion and bachelor behavior. Their question: Will they ever grow up? Auditions: Aug. 11
• Feb. 6-24 — "Spreading It Around": By Londos D’Arrigo. When a widow decides her money is being ill spent on her unappreciative children, she decides to set up a “S.I.N. Foundation”  for "spending it now." Auditions: Aug. 25
• March 13-31 — "The Savannah Sipping Society": By Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten. Four  middle-aged women, need to escape life’s challenges, and are drawn to each other for commiseration and some hilarious misadventures in their determination to remake their llives. Auditions: Sept. 1
• April 10-28 — "Black Tie": By A.R. Gurney. The new world meets the crusty New England old money in a black-tie affair gets messy when their cultures clash. The news release calls it "an engaging comedy about generational shifts. Auditions: Sept. 8

Find out more

What: Marco Players upcoming season ticket sales

Where: Online information requests for audition appointments or tickets via 239-642-7270, info@marcoplayers.com, www.themarcoplayers.com or call 239-642-7270; the playhouse is in Marco Town Center Mall at 1089 N. Collier Blvd., Marco Island

When: New subscriber and single ticket sales begin in September