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
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
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