“The Underpants,” the first play of the spring semester was quite a success, but now the Drama Department is full steam ahead in prepping their latest production, ‘The Cripple of Inishmaan.’
“The Cripple of Inishmaan” can essentially be described as a dark Irish comedy. A Hollywood film crew comes to the neighboring island of Inishmore to shoot a film entitled “The Man on Aran.”
Interest in the movie is sparked on the island as people were invited to either watch as it was being filmed, or even possibly be in it themselves. A boy named Billy, others refer to him has “Cripple Billy,” is especially interesting in being a part of the filming.
The rest of the cast of characters includes Johnnypateenmike, who likes to get into everyone’s business, Helen, who has a crush on Billy but is a bit mean and stubborn and throws eggs at people, and McSharry, who is the town doctor who looked after Billy since he was young.
Marina Ketchum, who has acted in a previous LMC plays like “Blood Wedding” and also stage managed “How I Learn To Drive” and “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” said they started working on the play in mid-January, but the rehearsals are getting much more intense as opening night creeps closer.
The cast and crew rehearse three hours a night from Monday through Thursday.
During the rehearsals, they “stretch as a warm up, review our objectives for the scenes we are doing that night, perform the scene and go through it with the director as he gives notes, then we move on to the next scene. This usually takes up the whole rehearsal time,” said Ketchum.
In terms of how they picked the play, she said, “picking the show is really a question for the directors. Reid Davis, the director, actually works at Saint Mary’s [College] and Nick Garcia (LMC Drama Department Head) asked him to see if he wanted to do a play here. Reid picked the play based on people who showed up for a workshop he did at the school before break.”
“The Cripple of Inishmaan,” originally written by Martin McDonagh, is set to open April 18 at 8 p.m. in the LMC Theater. The play also has showings April 19, 20, 22, 25, 26, 27, and 29 with a matinee showing April 24 at 11 a.m. Tickets for students with I.D., children and members of the armed forces are $7 and $10 for general audiences. Tickets for the matinee show are $5 for everyone.
Contact Nick Garcia at [email protected] for more details.
