Published Thursday, May 01, 2008 2:15 PM
Updated Thursday, May 01, 2008 2:15 PM

Provided
Flowertown Players presents its last mainstage show of the season, the farcical “Noises Off,” at the James F. Dean Community Theatre (located downtown at 133 S. Main Street). Performances are as follows:

Flowertown Players ready to make “Noises”

Since he became artistic director for Flowertown Players two years ago, Lakey has discussed with his theatre colleagues the difficulty of bringing such a technically-complicated farce to the cozy James F. Dean Community Theatre stage.

“There’s a school of thought that this is an Everest for directors,” Lakey says.

If that’s so, Lakey and his cast/crew of 18 will leave base camp and begin their climb Friday night, when “Noises Off” kicks off its two week run.

“Noises Off” boasts a play within a play. It follows a theatrical company as they rehearse and perform “Nothing On,” a British bedroom farce. The audience sees what happens to the actors — both onstage and off.

“There’s an old adage, ‘the show must go on,’ and this production really takes that to the extreme,” Lakey says.

“There are two farces going on at the same time,” he says.

Every production of the play has its own spin, Lakey says, and the Flowertown Players’ production is no different. The company’s performance of “Nothing On” takes place in Charleston. Some of the more “British” jokes have been adjusted and the actors’ English accents will only be used while they perform the play within the play.

“People who have seen it before always come see it again because they want to see how it’s done differently,” Lakey says.

All audience members should enjoy the “Laugh In”-type feel of the play, he says, but theatre aficionados will be especially rewarded.

“The more you know about theatre and the more theatre you’ve seen, the more you’ll get out of it,” he says.

Flowertown is always desperate for comedies because historically they’ve performed very well at the box office, according to Lakey.

“We knew it would sell, but how to do it — that was the question,” he says.

Lakey says the cast has been in rehearsals for two months. The first time the cast members assembled, they discussed their characters and then wrote brief back-stories for them. They also had to learn lines that “are not easy,” Lakey says.

“They’re fantastic,” he says of the cast members. “They all hit the ground running.”