[NEohioPAL] Someone Who'll Watch Over Me at Weathervane Playhouse

[Jan Harcar]

Humor and Fantasy in the Face of Terror in

Someone Who'll Watch Over Me

at Weathervane Community Playhouse Nov. 1 to 17

Weathervane Community Playhouse
1301 Weathervane Lane
Akron, OH  44313-5186
330-836-2626
Weathervane Community Playhouse presents Frank McGuinness's Tony-nominated drama, Someone Who'll Watch Over Me. The production opens Thursday, Nov. 1, and runs through Saturday, Nov. 17, 2007, in the Playhouse's John L. Dietz Theater.

Someone Who'll Watch Over Me is set in a basement in Beirut, Lebanon, where three men have been kidnapped and are being held hostage by unseen Arabs. The three men - an Irish journalist, an English academic and an American doctor - fight the fear and boredom of their plight through a mixture of fantasy and humor, creating a coping mechanism in the face of terror.

As they fight for their survival, the men also engage in a battle of wits to overcome their nationalistic resentments and personal differences. The men find that communication creates strength and even a sort of solidarity. Survival and sanity both prove elusive in this thought-provoking drama.

Under the direction of Jim Fippin, Someone Who'll Watch Over Me is presented in Weathervane's John L. Dietz Theater, an intimate 50-seat "black box" theater. For the Playhouse's 2007-2008 season, the Dietz Theater will house this and one other production, Mitch Albom's comedy And the Winner Is, which will be staged in May 2008. The Dietz Theater's intimate configurations make it ideal for plays and musicals that are not suited, for either artistic or financial reasons, to the Playhouse's 249-seat Grace Hower Crawford Main Stage.

Someone Who'll Watch Over Me is presented by a generous grant from Margaret J. Dietz. The production contains adult language and mature themes.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Frank McGuinness was born in 1953 in Ireland's County Donegal and was educated at University College Dublin. For the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, he wrote The Factory Girls (1982), Bag Lady (1985) and Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme (1986). The latter play won several awards including the London Evening Standard's Most Promising Playwright Award and the London Fringe Awards for Best Playwright. In addition, he wrote the screenplay adaptation for fellow Irishman Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa in 1998. McGuinness is now a writer-in-residence who lectures at University College Dublin.

ABOUT THE PLAY

Someone Who'll Watch Over Me opened at London's Hampstead Theatre in 1992 and starred Alec McCowen, Stephen Rea and Hugh Quarshie. It then transferred to the West End's Vaudeville Theatre for a seven-week run from September to October in 1992.

The original New York production ran for 232 performances from November of 1992 to June of 1993 at New York's Booth Theatre. It was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play of the 1992-93 Broadway season (losing to Angels in America: Millennium Approaches). Stephen Rea, who played Edward, was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, and he also won the 1993 Theatre World Award for his performance.

ABOUT THE CAST

GREG BEALER of Akron plays Edward 

Greg was first seen at Weathervane in Gross Indecency several seasons ago. Other credits include Guildenstern in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Dogberry in Much Ado about Nothing.

DANE LEE of Stow plays Adam

Dane was seen this past summer at Stan Hywet in the Ohio Shakespeare Festival's production of Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Antipholus of Syracuse in A Comedy of Errors and a clown in Othello.

RICHARD WORSWICK of Akron plays Michael

Richard works as a model for commercial, industrial and print advertising and also does voice-overs for commercials. For Weathervane, Richard has taken on roles in Noises Off, The Dinner Party, The Mystery of Irma Vep, The Laramie Project, The Chosen and The Sisters Rosensweig.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

JIM FIPPIN makes his Weathervane directorial debut with Someone Who'll Watch Over Me. He has been acting, directing and otherwise engaged in theater in northeast Ohio for more than 20 years. As the Artistic Director of Coach House Theatre, Jim staged productions of Chapter Two, Betrayal, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Art, Private Lives, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and A Life in the Theatre.

Weathervane Community Playhouse
1301 Weathervane Lane
Akron, OH  44313-5186
330-836-2626
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