The Glen Arbor Players anticipate that their first play of the season, “Bus Stop”, will draw big, appreciative audiences with its drama, romance, and comedy.
Performances are scheduled June 6-8.
In 1955, it was an award-winning Broadway play; in 1956, it was a popular movie, loosely based on the play, that marked Marilyn Monroe’s acceptance as a dramatic actress.
Harriett Mittelberger, a GAP founding member, directs a cast with 200 years of combined theatrical experience in this William Inge play set in a rural Kansas diner. A freak March snowstorm strands a bus whose passengers take shelter in the diner. Grace, the café’s owner, is a little older but still pretty and flirtatious, and Emma is the naïve teen girl who works there. Will is the brusque but goodhearted local sheriff. Dr. Lyman is a former college professor fond of drinks and young ladies. Cherie is a chanteuse disillusioned with singing in cheap dives. Bo is the loud, clueless cowboy, nearly as naïve as Elma, who thinks he can get Cherie to join him as his wife on his ranch. Virgil, an older cowboy, is Bo’s head ranch hand and father figure. Carl is the bus driver. During the bus’s stay, relationships, some romantic and some not, develop between the characters. Most take unexpected turns.
Rehearsals are proceeding merrily, according to director Mittelberger, who said that a recent rehearsal had to be paused until the cast members could collect themselves enough to stop laughing at Tom Czarny as a tipsy Dr. Lyman searching hilariously for a spot to lie down.
Performances are Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, June 6,7,and 8, at 7:30 at the Glen Lake Church, 4902 W. MacFarlane, Glen Arbor. Free admission; $10 goodwill donation suggested. Refreshments will be served.
