Marist College Produces Neil Simon Showcase Featuring Lost In Yonkers and Jake's Women
Performances running for two weekends starting Thursday, October 5th through Sunday, October 15th in the Nelly Goletti Theatre
POUGHKEEPSIE, NY (Oct. 2, 2017) – The Marist Theatre Program, in partnership with the Marist College Club of Theatre Arts (MCCTA), is producing a Neil Simon Showcase, featuring two of his popular plays: Lost in Yonkers and Jake’s Women. Two talented casts of students and guest performers will take on these timeless pieces over the course of two weekends in October at the Nelly Goletti Theatre.
Production Dates & Times
Jake's Women
Directed by James Steinmeyer
Thursday, Oct. 5th, 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, Oct. 8th, 2:00 p.m.
Friday, Oct.13, 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, Oct. 15th, 2:00 p.m.
Lost in Yonkers
Directed by Matt Andrews
Friday, Oct,. 6th, 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 7th, 8:00 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 12th, 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 14, 8:00 p.m.
Tickets are $6 for students/seniors and $12 for general admission
For reservations visit here.
Jake’s Women centers on Jake, a novelist who is more successful creating fiction than dealing with real life, as he faces a marital crisis by daydreaming about the other women in his life. The wildly comic and sometimes moving flashbacks played in his mind are interrupted by visitations from the actual females.
Lost in Yonkers, a favorite of Neil Simon fans, is set in Yonkers in 1942. Bella is thirty-five years old, mentally challenged, and living at home with her mother, stern Grandma Kurnitz. As the play opens, ne'er-do-well son Eddie deposits his two young sons on the old lady's doorstep. He is financially strapped and taking to the road as a salesman. The boys are left to contend with Grandma, with Bella and her secret romance, and with Louie, her brother, a small-time hoodlum in a strange new world called Yonkers.
"By performing Neil Simon's work, our theatre students get to experience first-hand his writing approach and style. Audiences get to enjoy two shows by the same prolific playwright -- one of the most enduring and commercially successful in American theatre history for almost 60 years," said Matt Andrews, Associate Professor, and Director of the Marist Theatre Program. "Although, written just a few years apart, his approach and character development for each player are unique. Performing them together posed a great opportunity for our student actors to hone their skills. They've worked incredibly hard as a team to make this production one of our strongest."
About the Marist Theatre Program:
The Marist Theatre Program is comprised of unique theatre activities on campus working together to provide a comprehensive learning and social experiences for students of all majors. The Marist Theatre Program includes both the student-centered theatre club (MCCTA) and the college's academic theatre offerings of an English major with a theatre concentration, theatre minor, annual theatre scholarship program for incoming freshman, theatre internships, productions & workshops, Theatre Alumni Hall of Fame, Summer Pre-College Theatre Institute for rising high school juniors and seniors, Alpha Psi Omega Theatre Honor Society and the annual Anderson Playwriting Contest. A host of theatre courses is offered each year, including acting, directing and dramatic literature.
Marist College Club of Theatre Arts (MCCTA) is the college's student-run theatre organization. Founded in 1959, MCCTA is the college's oldest club and one of its largest and most active on campus. MCCTA produces several productions a year, including a musical, a comedy or drama, experimental offerings, an original play festival and a children's theatre production. Some offerings are produced fully by students, while others are in collaboration with academic theatre and its faculty and staff.