Friday, October 5, through Sunday, October 7
St. Ambrose University's Galvin Fine Arts Center, 2101 North Gaines Street, Davenport IA
On August 26, theatre, film, and television scribe Neil Simon, at age 91, passed away after a legendary career that found him the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, four Tony Awards, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, and more combined Tony and Oscar nominations than any other writer in history. And from October 5 through 7, St. Ambrose University will celebrate the man's extraordinary career with its staging of Rumors, Simon's Tony-winning slapstick farce that the New York Post deemed “light, frothy, and fun.”
In Rumors, Charlie and Myra Brock are celebrating their 10th anniversary and have invited their best friends to the party. Chris and Ken Gorman are the first to arrive, showing up only to find that Myra is missing and Charlie, the Deputy Mayor of New York, has “accidentally” shot himself in the ear. Hoping to avoid a scandal, Ken and Chris begin to cover up what they assume to be the truth of the situation. But as the rest of the guests arrive – Claire and Len Ganz, Ernie and Cookie Cusack, and Cassie and Glenn Cooper – the story of Charlie and Myra’s anniversary-evening-gone-awry grows and develops. Eventually, all the party guests become complicit in a cover-up that no one even really understands, leading to the sorts of verbal jousts, physical slapstick, and memorable character that led the New York Times Walter Kerr to call Simon “one of the finest writers of comedy in American literary history.”
Directing Rumors is St. Ambrose theatre professor Corinne Johnson, who is no stranger to Simon, having directed his Tony-winning Brighton Beach Memoirs both at St. Ambrose and, last year, for the Mississippi Bend Players. Johnson's other recent directorial credits have included productions of Cabaret and Picasso at the Lapin Agile for SAU and The Glass Menagerie for the MBP, and 10 current St. Ambrose students composer her Rumors cast: Abbie Carpenter, Sarah Goodall, TJ Green, Jeffrey Harper, Tyler Hughes, Allison Hutson, Anna Ladehoff, Ellie Larson, Joe Lasher, and Luke Peterson.
Rumors will be presented October 5 through 7 at St. Ambrose's Galvin Fine Arts Center, with performances on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Admission is $9-13, and more information and tickets are available by calling (563)333-6251 or visiting SAU.edu/theatre.
