"Hate Mail" at the Black Box Theatre -- June 3 through 12.
Thursday, June 3, through Saturday, June 12
The Black Box Theatre, 1623 Fifth Avenue, Moline IL
A biting comedy that, according to OnMilwaukee.com, “makes numerous clever brushes with social satire that provide a profoundly interesting look into the heart of human communication,” Bill Corbett's and Kira Obolensky's Hate Mail enjoys a June 3 through 12 run at Moline's Black Box Theatre, with the Twin Cities Reader raving, “Corbett and Obolensky drip sardonic, hilarious acid from their pens, picking apart their characters with enviously articulate and explosively funny letter-grenades.”
As Hate Mail begins, irate customer Preston Dennis Jr. writes a furious letter to a store demanding a refund for a broken snow globe. After some heated exchanges with the company's assistant manager Dahlia, Preston gets the woman fired – and finds, in her refusal to stop writing him, his vengefully witty match. In this wickedly funny alternative to Love Letters, the two embark on an epic, often acrimonious correspondence as their lives intertwine. Whether Preston and Dahlia are joining cults, having breakdowns, shipping each other deceased lizards, or maybe even falling in love, this hysterical two-person comedy is full of surprises at every turn, and inspired the Twin Cities Reader to rave, “Playwrights Bill Corbett and Kira Obolensky may have written the snappy, savagely satirical epistolary Hate Mail by snail mail and fax, but the anti-love story delivers laughs with the speed of a flaming e-mail.”
Directing Hate Mail for the Black Box is the venue's co-founder and artistic director Lora Adams, whose most recent presentations for the theatre include Love, Loss, & What I Wore, Dick Tracy: A Live Radio Play, and Three Viewings. Preston is portrayed by Matt Walsh, a Black Box veteran whose previous productions for the venue include Dick Tracy, The 39 Steps: A Live Radio Play, and The Turn of the Screw. And Dahlia is played, in her Black Box debut, by frequent area-theatre performer Wendy Czekalski, whose other local credits include Quad City Music Guild's Sister Act, the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's The Game's Afoot, and the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's Grumpy Old Men: The Musical.
Hate Mail will will be staged at Moline's Black Box Theatre June 3 through 12, with performances Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Admission is $13-16, and more information and tickets are available by calling (563)284-2350 or visiting TheBlackBoxTheatre.com.
