Photo Flash: LEND ME A TENOR Opens Season at Hackmatack in Berwick

Complete with bison, barn and Broadway hits, Hackmatack Playhouse will open its 2018 summer season Friday, June 15, with an hysterically funny farce based in 1934 Cleveland.

The madcap comedy, "Lend Me A Tenor," has enough screwball humor to have earned it three Tony awards and passionate audiences. The story revolves around the Cleveland Grand Opera Company as it gets ready to welcome the greatest tenor in the world for a one-night performance of Otello. When the star passes out, another character gets into the Otello costume to fool the audience and save the show. Two Otellos end up running around the stage in costume while two women run around in lingerie, each thinking she is with the real opera star.

Written by Ken Ludwig, this show "is a remarkable piece of theatre" according to the Times of London. And from the New York Times, Lend Me a Tenor is "one of two great farces by a living writer."

Danica Carlson, who is directing the show, said farce is by far her favorite style of theater."

"I think it takes something very special to be able to pull it off," said Carlson, who has appeared for the past two summers on stage at Hackmatack, a theater set in a former cow barn and surrounded by a field of bison.

The "sheer talent" of the cast chosen for Hackmtack's performance of "Lend Me a Tenor" makes her excited to direct the show.

"It's fast and funny, and every actor we have nails the physical comedy as well as the emotional. element," said Carlson,, resident director at Rochester Opera House who has appeared in more than 275 film, radio, voice-over and live stage performances since she was 5.

The Hackmatack season after "Lend Me A Tenor" will include a heartfelt musical based on a best-selling book and film, and a classic suspense thriller.

"All Shook Up," one of the most popular shows to hit the Hackmatack stage, will return after a 10-year hiatus, opening Wednesday, July 4. This musical, inspired by the tunes of Elvis Presley, travels back to 1955 when a square little town is transformed by a hip-swiveling, guitar-playing rock and roll rebel who changes everything and everyone he meets. This show includes musical classics like "Heartbreak Hotel," "Jailhouse Rock," and "Don't Be Cruel."

"Bridges of Madison County," a musical based on the 1992 romantic novel, will open Wednesday, July 25. It is a story of forbidden love between a traveling photographer and a rural housewife, "Bridges Of Madison County" and won two Tony Awards in 2014 for best score and orchestrations.

This Broadway hit tells the story of a beautiful Italian woman married to an American solider who is looking forward to four rare days alone on her Iowa farm when her family heads to the 1965 State Fair. But when a ruggedly handsome National Geographic photographer pulls into her driveway asking directions, her life suddenly takes a new direction.

The season will close with "Dial M for Murder," opening Wednesday, Aug 15. This suspenseful mystery, probably best known from the Hitchcock film starring Grace Kelly, follows the sinister plan of a man who married her for money and now plans to murder his wife. He blackmails a scoundrel into strangling her, but the set-up doesn't turn out as planned. This melodrama had a successful run on Broadway and on the road.

Performances of "Lend Me A Tenor" will be at 8 pm Friday and Saturday June 15 and 16; Wednesday to Saturdays, June 20 to 23 and 27-30. Also there will be matinees June 21 and June 28.