Fall Community Theater Comes into Full Swing
Community theater companies throughout the East End hit the boards as the weather began to turn in September for the launch of a new season of musicals, dramas and who-done-its throughout the region.
First to open this season are the North Fork Community Theatre’s production of “Little Women: The Musical” on Thursday, Feb. 10, and Center Stage at the Southampton Cultural Center’s “Disney’s The Little Mermaid” on Friday, Oct. 11.
Quogue’s Hampton Theatre Company jumps into the fray just in time for Halloween with a production of Ken Ludwig’s “Baskerville,” a new take on a Sherlock Holmes Mystery, opening Oct. 24.
The Riverhead Faculty and Community Theatre launches “Bright Star,” Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s bluegrass musical tale of love and writerly aspirations in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, on Friday, Nov. 1.
NFCT’s “Little Women: The Musical,” which was on Broadway in 2005, is based on Louisa May Alcott’s classic 1869 semi-autobiographical novel about the four March sisters— traditional Meg, wild, aspiring writer Jo, timid Beth and romantic Amy,— and their beloved Marmee, at home in Concord, Massachusetts while their father is away serving as a Union Army chaplain during the Civil War.
Showtimes are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., with Sunday matinees at 2:30 p.m. through Oct. 27. General admission tickets are $25 and more information is online at nfct.com.
“The Little Mermaid” at Southampton Cultural Center opens Friday, Oct. 11, with showtimes Thursdays through Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through Oct. 27.
Based on one of Hans Christian Andersen’s most beloved stories and the classic animated Disney film, tickets are $30 for general admission and $15 for students, and are online at scc-arts.org.
The play’s afoot in Ken Ludwig’s transformation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles into a murderously funny adventure in “Baskerville” at the Hampton Theatre Company, playing Thursdays & Fridays at 7 p.m., Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sunday matinees at 2:30 p.m. through Nov. 10, with a special Saturday matinee at 2:30 p.m. Nov. 9.
Ken Ludwig has Sherlock Holmes on the case as the male heirs of the Baskerville line are being dispatched one by one. In the search for the ingenious killer, Holmes and Watson must try to sort out a dizzying web of clues, disguises, and deceit as three actors in the cast of five deftly portray some 40 characters.
Tickets are online at hamptontheatre.org.
“Bright Star,” which the RFCT launches Nov. 1 through Nov. 10, at Riverhead High School, is set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina in the 1940s, where after a chance encounter with a young, aspiring author just home from World War II, literary editor Alice Murphy relives the harrowing journey that helped shape her.
“Bright Star” ran briefly on Broadway in 2016 and received numerous Tony Award nominations.
Showtimes are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through Nov. 10.
Tickets are $15 for general admission and $10 for students and are available online at rfct.org.
