Parish Players present: ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’

THETFORD HILL, VERMONT — Director RJ Crowley had two basic reasons for choosing the next play he wanted to direct. First, it’s his firm opinion that “what the world needs more than anything right about now is laughter.” And second, he’s in love with farce.

It helps that he already had a play in mind: The Play That Goes Wrong, a traditional Manor-House Murder Mystery melded to a classic French Farce, but on steroids.

The plot concerns a play-within-a-play, in which the diminutive but doughty Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, recently endowed with a substantial bequest, sets aside its usual one-acts and much-abridged scripts to attempt the production of The Murder at Haversham Manor, a tricky Mousetrap-like whodunit that just happens to have exactly the same number of roles as Cornley has actors. No need for understudies, though—after all, what could possibly go wrong?

The award-winning British comedy was born out of a 15-minute improv sketch that simply kept growing until it opened as a full-length production in 2012 in London, where it is still running to this day. And “running” is an apt description here. To reveal a single detail would be a spoiler; suffice to say that the double entendres, sight gags, blown lines, and slapstick moments have left audience after audience breathless.

Crowley first saw The Play That Goes Wrong in 2017, on Broadway. He says he knew nothing about it at the time; he was simply waiting at the last-minute-discount booth to see the list of whatever became available, and up popped this farce. (See Reason Two, above.) He saw it again just three months ago, where it’s still on Broadway (as well as in quite a few local productions country-wide). This time he was with his two daughters, and their combined laughter confirmed his desire to direct the show himself.

Crowley has the perfect resume for the role of comedic director. An alumnus of both the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City and The Groundlings School for Improv Comedy in Los Angeles, he has well-honed skills as comedian, playwright, performer, director, storyteller, and teacher of same. He moved to the Upper Valley ten years ago, and is now a professional storyteller, a teacher of improv comedy at Artistree in South Pomfret, and the writer/director/producer of Immersive Theatre Events (like Murder Mysteries) for local corporations, inns, and even on board the Green Mountain Railroad. (In his night job, he’s house manager for Northern Stage in White River Junction.)

The Parish Players was Crowley’s first choice when he went looking for a local venue. In its 55-year history, the Thetford-based community theater company has produced a wide variety of comedic fare, from classics like A Comedy of Errors and The Hypochondriac to such modern fare as The Norman Conquest Trilogy and The Odd Couple, to full-fledged farces like The Foreigner, and Lend Me a Tenor, to name but a few. And then there are the many comedic moments in their annual 10-Minute Play Festival.

But Crowley cast The Play That Goes Wrong with a wider net, choosing some Parish Players members (Richard Noble, Allison Fay Brown, Will Moore, Noor Taher) and some newcomers (Franchesca Collins, Gabriella Miles, Aaron Richter, Jonathan Rosenbloom). He also looked beyond type and happily cast Allison Fay Brown in the (usually male) role of Police Inspector Carter. “The quality of each audition was important,” he explains, “but I also had to consider physicality, vocal palette, and the visual compositions the group would make on the set—which itself has been called ‘the ninth character.’”

Ah, yes, the set, and all the ways it can go wrong. “It’s a complex piece of machinery,” Crowley says. “I’m really pleased to have such a talented team of creatives to help put it together.”

That team includes set designer Cami Buster, who has worked locally for The Christmas Revels, Opera North, Rivendell High School, and Thetford Academy, among others, and is intimately familiar with the Parish Players’ Eclipse Grange Theatre. Working with her is light and sound designer Alex Cherington, also with years of professional and community experience and a long-time member of the Parish Players. He will be orchestrating dozens of light and sound cues, all of which have to go just right even when they’re meant to be terribly wrong.

“It’s a true collaboration,” Crowley says, pointing to the dozens of special props and set decorations required for the gags. Cast and crew alike have been scouring their homes and even their friends’ homes for the perfect items.—with opening night on September 29. “We’re all of us chipping in to do whatever we can.”

And all this in the midst of political dissension and the third year of a pandemic. Crowley certainly seems right that we need all the laughs we can get.

“Art in all its forms is so pertinent these days,” he observes, “but comedy is an elixir against whatever the world throws at us.”

The Parish Players’ production of The Play That Goes Wrong, directed by RJ Crowley, will be performed from September 29 - October 9 at the Eclipse Grange Theatre in Thetford Hill, Vermont. For more information visit www.parishplayers.org.

The above article is a press release issued by The Parish Players.