Somerset Valley Players (SVP) will celebrate reopening night on Sept. 10, as Hillsborough’s community theater begins offering live performances after an 18-month closure due to COVID.
The three-show 2021 season will kick off with the comedy “Don’t Dress for Dinner.”
“I’m honored to have been chosen to direct the first live show after the COVID closure,” Director Todd Bennington said in a prepared statement. “Being back in the director’s chair has invigorated me. It’s like getting back on the proverbial horse. My actors and I are ready to jump back in the saddle and deliver an amazing show.”
The three shows that SVP will present in 2021 are all comedies.
“It was very important for us to reopen with a slate of comedy shows,” SVP President Roberta Steve said in the statement. “We follow up ‘Don’t Dress for Dinner’ with the classic comedy ‘Harvey’ and round out the year with the crowd pleaser ‘A Christmas Story.’ We want our audiences to laugh, smile, and feel good again.”
“Don’t Dress for Dinner” is a companion piece to the comedy “Boeing, Boeing,” which SVP produced in 2016.
Bennington, who also directed that production, said in the statement, “’Don’t Dress for Dinner’ isn’t a sequel, even though it features the same lead characters, Bernard and Robert The two shows definitely stand alone, although they are both hilarious, door slamming, mistaken identities farces.”
Set in a French farmhouse in the 1960s, the play involves three couples caught up in various degrees of adultery, lying, romance, and French cuisine.
“My production team and I have loved recreating the 1960s style via our set design, props and costumes,” Bennington said in the statement. “It’s such a fun era and we love to be able to transport audiences back to that time.”
“The past year and a half have been a serious challenge we’ve all endured,” Bennington added. “Our patrons have really supported us throughout the entire closure. They’ve been telling us they’re excited to sit in the theater and enjoy live performances again – and you know what? We’re just as excited to do it again.”
“Don’t Dress for Dinner” opens Sept. 10 and runs weekends through Sept. 26.
Produced by Bennington and Holly Lessing and stage managed by Lessing, “Don’t Dress for Dinner” will be on stage at the Somerset Valley Players theater on 689 Amwell Road (Route 514) in Hillsborough. Friday and Saturday performances begin at 8 p.m.; Sunday matinees start at 2 p.m.
The theater is air conditioned, barrier free and wheelchair accessible.
Tickets are $20 per adult or $18 for students and seniors.
The theater is currently offering a special discount: Buy tickets to all three 2021 shows in one transaction and receive two dollars off each ticket.
For more information, visit www.svptheatre.org.
