Students rehearse "Boeing, Boeing" in the theater.
Fitting for a play about air travelers, Union’s adaptation of Boeing Boeing pulls out all the stops.
With a cast of six students, the classic farce by French playwright Marc Camoletti about a lying lothario comes to life on the stage of Yulman Theater.
Performances are set for Wednesday, Nov. 6 through Saturday, Nov. 9 at 7:30 p.m., with a matinee on Sunday, Nov. 10 at 2 p.m.
The cast includes Will Balta ’16, Robyn Belt ’14, Rose Dumbrique ’16, Jordan Pasternak ’15, Lucy Miller ’16 and Karin Tillsley ’16.
The play is directed by noted local actress Yvonne Perry, who has taught at Union and spent five years as “Rosanna” on the CBS soap opera As the World Turns. Set design, technical direction and costume design are by professors Charles Steckler, Robert Bovard and Brittney Belz, respectively.
Boeing Boeing features a young, well-to-do American bachelor named Bernard living large as an architect on the outskirts of Paris who finds himself simultaneously engaged to three alluring stewardesses – each blissfully unaware of the existence of the other two.
Bernard manages to court the women by working around their non-intersecting flight schedules, but chaos ensues when a new line of faster, state-of the-art aircrafts is engineered, throwing off his careful planning and bringing all three of his bride-to-be’s to Paris on the same day.
“My favorite part, honestly, is all the fights and slaps,” said Balta, who plays Bernard’s friend. “The physical humor really engages the audience.”
In addition to its fast-paced, slapstick comedy, theatrically exaggerated accents add to the play’s comedic value. Actors were coached in French, Italian and German dialects by Senior Artist-in-Residence Patricia Culbert.
"It’s such a fun play,” said Culbert, “a rip-roaring, slamming-doors farce. It should be running so fast, and the audience will be laughing so hard that they’ll have a hard time keeping up. That’s the kind of energy it has.”
Tickets are available at the Yulman Theater Box Office weekdays, 12:30-1:30 p.m. For more information, call (518) 388-6545.