Opening night for “Let’s Be Civilized” promises laughs

Published 9:51 pm Thursday, May 28, 2015

The cast of “Let’s Be Civilized” includes, front row, Dean Trakas as Plato, Ed Harrelson as Napoleon Bonaparte, Steve Harvey as Mahatma Gandhi, Carol Cox as Elizabeth I, Tena Greene as Maria Theresa and Helen Byrd as Isabella I, and in the back row, Steve Porter as Otto von Bismarck, Josh Moffitt as Julius Caesar, Henry Bright as Benjamin Franklin, Mark Schweizer as Nikita Khrushchev and Gordon Pendarvis as Winston Churchill.

The cast of “Let’s Be Civilized” includes, front row, Dean Trakas as Plato, Ed Harrelson as Napoleon Bonaparte, Steve Harvey as Mahatma Gandhi, Carol Cox as Elizabeth I, Tena Greene as Maria Theresa and Helen Byrd as Isabella I, and in the back row, Steve Porter as Otto von Bismarck, Josh Moffitt as Julius Caesar, Henry Bright as Benjamin Franklin, Mark Schweizer as Nikita Khrushchev and Gordon Pendarvis as Winston Churchill.

“Let’s Be Civilized” is an all-new, original farce written by Petra Harrelson and directed by Lavin Cuddihee. The show will be presented in a workshop production at Tryon Little Theatre on Friday, May 29 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, May 31 at 3 p.m. Admission is free, but donations will be gratefully accepted to benefit TLT’s scholarship funds. Tryon Little Theatre is located at 516 S. Trade St.

When Napoleon and Caesar contemplate hosting a political summit, they decide to assure attendance by disguising the event as a weekend of fun and games at Napoleon’s chateau. Considering themselves to be masters in the art of gamesmanship, the hosts expect to dominate all competition. However, their well-laid plans go awry as soon as the guests arrive.

Surprisingly, nine highly dysfunctional world leaders do not get along. Despite the best efforts of quirky philosophers Gandhi and Plato, the façade of civilized conduct begins to crumble and quickly gives way to insult, intrigue and injury. Comic complications arise when, given everyone’s high power status, these maladjusted individuals try to do everything possible to conceal the evening’s events from each other and the outside world.

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–Submitted by Michelle Fleming