playbill vip

Director's Notes

I once did a play, Sylvia by A.R. Gurney.  Sylvia is about a dog, the couple who adopts her, and the comedy that results.  (I was not the dog).  One of the other actors in that show was a guy named John West, who was performing for the first time.  After the performances were over he said that his experience with theatre was the most "truly collaborative experience" he had ever had.  I have repeated that story many times because it truly is.  When you work on stage no matter what the role or job you are doing, you depend on others and others depend on you - collaboration.
That is precious and even more so as we start coming back from the time when the world locked down.  I am happy to be back, post-COVID, depending on this amazing cast, doing my favorite thing in theatre - farce.

Farce is a "comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations".  Check, check, and check - all of the above.  Rumors is a play of exaggeration, the situation is totally improbable, but it is funny.  Just let yourself go, forget the world outside, and spend a little time where nothing has to make sense, everything is absurd, miscommunication is the rule of the day, and that which is serious turns ridiculous.

I am grateful for my cast - some of them were in Rumors the last time we did it (17 years ago), but not in the same parts.  Some of the cast moved away and returned to us - we are thrilled to have  them back.  Some of them are new to us - we are delighted to have new talent to show you.  And I really want to thank Theatre Victoria's production team, the hardest working people in our theatre - Lori, Paul, Michael, George, Curtis, Joe, and Amanda.  Without them, it would be a cold, dark, joyless stage.

Karen Locher
Director
Rumors