The Wooden Breeks

PLAYWRIGHT
Glen Berger

DIRECTOR
Wier Harman

March 4 – April 10, 2002

Gut-busting, in-your-face comedy!

SYNOPSIS

Lovemaking and undertaking are both major elements in Actor’s
Express’ The Wooden Breeks, but in its simplest terms, the play is
the tale of a quirky town. It unfolds as a hearthside story told by a
cynical tinker (Theo Harness) to a much-abused orphan boy
(Andrew Bracken), who find themselves both audience and
participants in the tale’s telling. The narrative self-consciousness
is just one of The Wooden Breeks’ heady, ambitious touches, not
all of which catches fire.
Playwright Glen Berger places the action in Brood, a benighted
British village populated by Dickensian archetypes. Its citizens
include a mousy vicar (Bill Murphey) desperately in love with a
perpetually mourning widow (Joanna Daniel) who has a comic
fascination with suicide. The town’s bullying gravedigger (Matt
Stanton) moonlights as a grave robber who wears the finery of
the disinterred, while a pair of facile lovers (Jessie Andary and
Nathan Mobley) coos romantic trifles at one another.
Things are bad in Brood in the best of times, but they get worse

when the poverty-stricken town gets caught up in the 19th-
century phobia of premature burial. The fear is stoked as a ploy to

sell special coffins outfitted with bells to be rung by “corpses” who
are not quite dead yet. The townsfolk are shocked to learn that
the coffin saleslady, Miss Spoon (Jennifer Crumbley-Bonder), is a
dead ringer — pun intended — for the orphan’s late mother.
Miss Spoon’s strongest and strangest sales pitch is to the
lighthouse-keeper (Daniel May), a young scholar who never
sleeps or goes outdoors and spends all his time with his books.
But Miss Spoon begins sending him beguiling letters that inject
sex into his scholarship and derail his train of thought.
The title draws on an obsolete slang term for a coffin, and Berger
employs songs, rhymed verse and antiquated turns of phrase
reminiscent of Naomi Wallace or Caryl Churchill. A complex work
of worthy ambition, The Wooden Breeks attempts much with its
poetry and theatricality, but at times the grasp is not equal to the
reach.

“ALL THE MORE POWERFUL FOR BEING SO FEARLESSLY UNPREDICTABLE.”

– Los Angeles TIMES

“SEARING AND SENSATIONALLY FUNNY!”

– New York Times

“EXPLOSIVE. INSANELY ENTERTAINING AND COMPLETELY ENGAGING.”

– New York Magazine

Cast & Creative Team

Daniel MAy

Lighthouse-Keeper

Caleb Clark

Actor five

COREY J. FINLEY

PETER UNDERSTUDY

ABBEY KINCHELOE

LYDIA UNDERSTUDY

JESSE SMITH

COACH UNDERSTUDY

PLAYWRIGHT

Glen Berger

DIRECTOR

Weir Harman

Sound DESIGNER

Albert Mcdonnell

LIGHTING & SET DESIGNER

Art Rotch

COSTUME DESIGNER

Miranda Hoffman

Co-Sound Designers

Jeremiah Davison &
WINSTON JOHNSON

PROPERTIES DESIGNER/ SET DECORATOR

NICK BATTAGLIA

Stage Manager

Joan Foster McMarty

INTIMACY CHOREOGRAPHER

ASH ANDERSON

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

WHITNEY NELSON

Stage Manager

Joan Foster McMarty

PRODUCTION MANAGER

SEAMUS M. BOURNE

TECHNICAL DIRECTOR

D. CONNOR MCVEY

TECHNICAL DIRECTOR

ENGLISH BRACKETT

PRODUCTION ELECTRICIAN

TOM PRIESTER

ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER

ELIZA CRAFT

CASTING DIRECTOR

SHEILA OLIVER

CASTING ASSOCIATE

JUSTIN KALIN

CHARGE SCENIC ARTIST

AMANDA NERBY

WIG DESIGNER

LAMONT SAMUELS

RUNNING TIME

Two hours with one intermission

CONTENT ADVISORY

Audience Advisory: This production contains full nudity, strong adult language and descriptions and depictions of sensitive and intense issues and situations. For more detailed information about potential trigger warnings, please click HERE

SEATING

There is open seating for this production.

PERFORMANCES

Previews

May 12 & 13 at 8 pm

Opening Night

May 14 at 8 pm

Regular Performances

May 14 – June 12, 2022
Wednesdays – Saturdays at 8 pm
Sundays at 2 pm

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