A Broadway run of 917 performances over a 27-month span is a good run even for a splashy musical . . . but for a straight play, it’s truly astonishing.  And that’s exactly the run David Auburn’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play “Proof” had, opening at the Walter Kerr Theatre in October 2000 and playing until early January 2003.

How good does a play have to be to draw in audiences that long?  It has to be a superb script very well acted. Critics hailed “Proof” as “a wonderfully funny, ambitiously constructed work”; “surprises us with its aliveness . . . Mr. Auburn takes pleasure in knowledge; at the same time, he is unshowily fresh and humane, and he has written a lovely play.”

Now the Tryon Little Theater will present this excellent play April 24-27 and May 1-4 at the Workshop.

The title comes from the world of mathematics, in which a proof is a deductive argument for a mathematical statement of fact.

Robert is renowned for his genius, his work being beautiful, fluid, fast and quite amazing to others in the mathematics world.  Robert also has gone through what plagues many in the highest level of mathematics: he has lost his mind.

His daughters Catherine and Claire are both very smart and superior with numbers – Catherine especially, who has continued to live with and care for  Robert at their home near the University of Chicago, while Claire has moved to New York for a career of her own.

Catherine fears she will follow her father mentally since she clearly inherited much of his math genius.

Enter Hal, who worked under Robert as his major professor while completing his own PhD.  Now Hal wants to see all the notebooks Robert worked in the past several years to discover any great proofs – results – Robert may have developed during this period.

While this all sounds terribly serious and heavy, the playwright has managed to infuse “Proof” with a great deal of humor and a lot of laughter is heard at rehearsals.

New to the TLT stage is Molly Brown, who is cast in the pivotal role of Catherine.

Brown trained at London’s Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, and brings extensive acting experience to this production.

Also making his TLT debut as Hal is Allen Law, who holds a BFA in Acting from Shenandoah Conservatory, and who has acting credits ranging from musical comedy to Shakespeare to mysteries to comedies to improv.

Appearing in her second consecutive TLT production is Shay Carlson as Claire, who just played the actual fiddler in TLT’s “Fiddler on the Roof.”  A seasoned actress, she too has several regional acting credits. And rounding out the cast is TLT veteran Elvin Clark as Robert.

Connie Clark said she has the privilege of directing this production, with Jody McPherson as producer/stage manager.

The box office for “Proof” will open at the Workshop, 516 South Trade Street on Monday, April 14.

 

– article submitted 

by Connie Clark