“Harvey" at the Playcrafters Barn Theatre -- February 9 through 18.
Friday, February 9, through Sunday, February 18
Playcrafters Barn Theatre, 4950 35th Avenue, Moline IL
One of America's most beloved and enduring comedies opens the 2024 season at Moline's Playcrafters Barn Theatre when the venue presents the February 9 through 18 return of Mary Chase's Harvey, the Pulitzer Prize-winning delight's original 1944-49 Broadway engagement a smash that ran for 1,775 performances and was directed by Tony Awards namesake Antoinette Perry.
Adapted into a 1950 film classic starring James Stewart and Oscar winner Josephine Hull, Harvey is the story of a perfect gentleman, Elwood P. Dowd, and his best friend Harvey: a pooka who is a six-foot tall, invisible rabbit. When Elwood begins introducing Harvey around town, his embarrassed sister Veta and her daughter Myrtle Mae determine to commit Elwood to a sanitarium. When they arrive there, however, a comedy of errors ensues, and after Veta confesses that she has seen Harvey, too, the young Dr. Sanderson commits Veta to the sanitarium instead of Elwood. After the mistake is revealed, the search is on for Elwood and his invisible companion, and Veta is forced to consider whether she would rather have Elwood the same as he has always been – carefree and kind – even if it means living with Harvey.
Directing his first production for Playcrafters is longtime theatre, television, and film actor/director Jake Ladd, who appeared as Victor Velasco in the venue's Barefoot in the Park last February, and whose lengthy list of credits includes appearances on TV series including Frasier, Cheers, Quantum Leap, and Murder, She Wrote. Elwood is portrayed, in his on-stage Playcrafters debut, by actor and musician Skip Greer, the lead singer for Dead Kennedys who previously sound-designed such productions as The Odd Couple and Almost, Maine. Veta and Myrtle Mae are respectively played by Christine Hicks and Kady Derbyshire, with Ladd's cast completed by Suzanne Braswell, Kendall Burnett, Tim Burrow, Don Faust, Kassidy Holdridge, Dave Moreland, and Zach Zelnio. Thayne Lamb serves as Harvey's assistant director and stage manager, and with Ladd also acting as his comedy's set designer and constructor, additional members of the creative team include: producer Yvonne Siddique; construction crew Lamb and Andrew Derbyshire; lighting and sound designer Gio Macias; props designers Marcia Templeman and Emily Sopatka; and costumers Bailey Hager and Storm Baca.
Harvey runs at the Moline Barn Theatre from February 9 through 18, with performances on Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. Admission is $13-15, and more information and tickets are available by calling (309)762-0330 and visiting Playcrafters.com.
