Community Players' 'Blithe Spirit' takes Bigfork stage
Seances will be going on in Bigfork for
the next two weekends — at least on stage.
The Bigfork Community Players will open
“Blithe Spirit,” a comedy involving a medium, a novelist and a
backfiring scheme.
The production is directed by Shelby
Moody, who joins the players for the first time. Moody attended the
University of Montana, and got her degree in theater.
She works at Flathead High School in
the theater and business departments.
She was recruited by the BCP when some
of its board members attended one of her shows last year and asked
her if she’d consider doing a production. She proposed “Blithe
Spirit.”
“It’s a fairly well known Broadway
show,” she said. “I thought it would be a good community for the
production.”
The recent Broadway production of the
show starred actors Angela Lansbury and Rupert Everett.
The play, written by Noel Coward,
features the efforts of novelist Charles Condomine who, in an
effort to gather material for a new book, invites the eccentric
Madame Arcati to his home to conduct a seance. The effort goes awry
when it brings back his temperamental first wife, Elvira, who
proceeds to attempt at disrupting his current marriage with Ruth,
who is unable to see her.
“It is nonstop laughter,” Moody
said.
The Bigfork Community Players, a group
of amateur actors and theater enthusiasts that puts on three
productions a year, welcomes people of all ages and experience,
which means a different dynamic than Moody normally works with as a
teacher.
“It has been an absolute blast. There
are people who this is their first time stepping near a stage and
others who have performed with the players for several years,” she
said.
The show has a relatively small cast of
seven. The cast includes Myra Lindborg and Felicia Schraeder of
Bigfork, Terri Terrific and Hana Hoch of Creston, and Kalispell’s
Kelli and Aaron Turner and Colton Christensen, known for his roles
with the Bigfork Playhouse Children’s Theatre.
“It’s really fun,” Moody said. “I had a
vision in my head what Madame Arcati would be like and the woman
who plays the role just captures that character unbelievably
well.”
The show, a family-friendly production,
will be on stage at 8 p.m. Feb 18, 19, 25 and 26 and at 2 p.m. Feb.
20 and 27 at the Bigfork Center for the Performing Arts.
“If you just want an absolutely
roll-in-the-aisles type of show, you need to come see it,” she
said.
Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for
those ages 65 and older as well as BCP members, and $5 for children
under 12.
Tickets may be purchased at Bigfork
Drug, Sliter’s Ace Hardware in Somers, The Grand Hotel in
Kalispell, at the door or from any cast member.
For more information, visit
www.bigforkcommunityplayers.com.