From BLACK SWAMP PLAYERS
The Black Swamp Players has announced its 50th season.
BASKERVILLE by Ken Ludwig, Directed by Ben Forman
Performance dates: September 22, 23, 24, 29, 30, October 1
Black Swamp Players is proud to announce that we will be kicking off our Golden Anniversary 50th Season with the northwest Ohio premier of Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery. A comedic retelling of the traditional Conan Doyle tale, a cast of five actors deftly portray more than 40 characters through a combination of accents, physicality, and quick costume changes.
THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER by Barbara Robinson, Directed by Keith Guion along with A CHRISTMAS RADIO PLAY
Performance dates: December 1st, 2nd and 3rd
In this hilarious Christmas classic, a couple struggling to put on a church Christmas pageant is faced with casting the Herdman kids – probably the most inventively awful kids in history. You won’t believe the mayhem – and the fun – when the Herdmans collide with the Christmas story head on!
Radio Play—expect the full radio show audience experience!
THE SECRET GARDEN by Norman, Simon, Burnett directed by Cassie Greenlee
Performance dates: February 16,17,18 and 23,24,25
This enchanting classic of children’s literature is reimagined in brilliant musical style by composer Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of “Night Mother.” Orphaned in India, 11 year-old Mary Lennox returns to Yorkshire to live with her embittered, reclusive uncle Archibald and his invalid son Colin. The estate’s many wonders include a magic garden which beckons the children with haunting melodies and the “Dreamers”, spirits from Mary’s past who guide her through her new life, dramatizing The Secret Garden’s compelling tale of forgiveness and renewal.
ON GOLDEN POND By Ernest Thompson Directed by Wayne Weber
Performance dates: April 20, 21, 22 and 27, 28, 29
This is the love story of Ethel and Norman Thayer, who are returning to their summer home on Golden Pond for the forty-eighth year. He is a retired professor, nearly 80, with heart palpitations and a failing memory—but still as tart-tongued, observant and eager for life as ever.
Ethel, ten years younger, and the perfect foil for Norman, delights in all the small things that have enriched their long life together. They are visited by their divorced, middle-aged daughter and her dentist fiancé, who then go off to Europe, leaving his teenage son behind for the summer. The boy quickly becomes the “grandchild” the elderly couple have longed for, and as Norman revels in taking his ward fishing and thrusting good books at him, he also learns some lessons about modern teenage awareness—and slang—in return. In the end, as the summer wanes, so does their brief idyll, and in the final, deeply moving moments of the play, Norman and
Ethel are brought even closer together by the incidence of a mild heart attack. Time, they know, is now against them, but the years have been good and, perhaps, another summer on Golden Pond still awaits.
