CULLMAN, Ala. – Cullman Community Theatre broke new ground over the weekend with its first non-musical (known as a straight play) and first dinner theater production, Neil Simon’s “Rumors,” at Stone Bridge Farms. The highbrow and slightly irreverent farce told the story of increasingly over-complicated efforts to cover up a shooting at an upscale dinner party.
“It has been a trial, it has really been a trial,” said Director Melva Jackson. “We’ve just had one setback after another, and I won’t go into all of it, but it’s really been a trial. But this cast has pulled together and worked together; I mean, they are amazing people. I mean they have built the set, they have gotten the furniture, the props, and you see out there it looks great!
“With this, the biggest challenge was they have a lot of events here (at Stone Bridge Farms), so we were not able to build- usually, you can build the set on the stage and rehearse, but we were not able to do that, so, because they had events all the way up until- Monday night was the first night we were able to be in the theater. So we had to put the set up Monday during the day, and then rehearse that night. And we only had three nights rehearsal on the set.”
In the meantime, Morgan Oil donated warehouse space for the cast and crew to construct the set and hold rehearsals.
The efforts seem to have paid off, as the cast and crew played to good-sized crowds that gave the cast all the laughs and applause one would want from such a production.
After Friday evening’s show, Assistant Director Nick Shabel told The Tribune, “I think it was a success. The crowd was very excited- huge applause and hollering after the show, so we’re pretty happy. I think we’re already planning to do it again next year.”
Jackson shared Shabel’s feeling that this was just a start, saying, “It is a challenge, but I absolutely think there’ll be more of these, absolutely. It’s fun. It’s always interesting when you’re not doing it in a real theater and doing it in a dining facility or whatever, but I definitely think there will be more.”
She added that her greatest joy in the production was “Just watching these people. They made me laugh every single night. I mean, some nights I laughed so hard, I couldn’t stop. We just had to stop the whole thing because we were laughing so hard. So it’s a lot of fun! Great, really great people, nice people, funny people; I mean what’s not to like?”
Cast
- Chris Gorman- Kathryn Jones
- Ken Gorman- David Trelles
- Claire Ganz- Kim Trelles
- Lenny Ganz- Jay Jones
- Cookie Cusak- Kristen Phillips
- Ernie Cusak- Bill McCartney
- Cassie Cooper- Chellie Letson
- Glenn Cooper- Levi Stricklin
- Officer Welch- Kathy Kinnison
- Officer Pudney- Amanda Kinney
Director: Melva Jackson
Assistant directors: Nick Shabel, Sarah Glover
Technical director: Noah Carpenter
Set crew foreman: Levi Stricklin
Production operation manager: Cindy Pass
Cullman Community Theatre’s next production will be “Hello, Dolly!” at Cullman High School July 17-19. Auditions are scheduled for late April. For more information, visit http://bit.ly/2IxNxjR.
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