MAYHEM AND CHAOS ON THE STAGE
Steel City Theatre Company Artistic Directors Acting Together Again!
Steel City Theatre Company is about to open its 8th Season this August with the Neil Simon play, Star Spangled Girl. After several dramas and musicals, SCTC is excited to be performing this classic comedy. In an added twist, the SCTC Artistic Directors, Jason Laughrey and Andrea Garrett, will both be performing in the three person show.
Laughrey and Garrett met in late 2002 during a production of Annie Get Your Gun in regional theatre. Six years later, they were brought back together with the opportunity to run SCTC. Starting in January 2008, the pair has been working together to raise the quality level of Pueblo theatre.
"This show will be really fun," says Garrett. "The last time (and only time) Jason and I were onstage together, we didn't even have a scene together. This time we get to act out a crazy love triangle. I can't wait!"
Star Spangled Girl is one of Neil Simon's lesser-known plays, set in San Francisco in the 1960s. The story is a love triangle, mixed with politics. Andy (played by Jason Laughrey) and Norman (played by local actor, Andrew Ritterling) are radicals who barely make a living working on their underground magazine, Fallout. Sophie, a former Olympic swimmer, is an all-American, Southern girl who moves into the apartment next door. It's love at first sight (or, as the play has it, first smell) for Norman, but his feelings are not reciprocated. Norman's obsession with Sophie makes Andy hire her just to keep the magazine going. Sophie falls for Andy, though they are at odds politically, threatening to destroy the magazine and the men's friendship.
"Star Spangled Girl is interesting because it's Neil Simon's least favorite of his plays," stated Garrett, also the director of the show. "It shows that when someone as genius Simon has an off day, it's still a play worth seeing. The script is fantastic and laugh out loud hilarious. What Jason and Andrew bring to cynical and eccentric Andy and Norman is great. It's kind of like a pre-cursor to the Odd Couple. And the Andy-Norman fight scene is worth the ticket price alone!"
Star Spangled Girl opens SCTC's 2008-2009 Season August 21, 22, 23, 28, 29, 30 at 7:30 pm at CSU-Pueblo's Hoag Hall. Tickets are $15 General Admission and $10 for Students and Seniors. Please call 719.289.0293 for tickets or visit www.sctcpueblo.com.
Featuring: Jason Laughrey (Andy), Andrew Ritterling (Norman), Andrea Garrett (Sophie)
SCTC exits to bring quality theatrical productions to the Pueblo community. SCTC strives to create a theatre environment in which actors, directors, volunteers and audience members have the opportunity to understand themselves, their world, and their art in a new and more profound way.
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If you would like more information on this topic, or to schedule an interview or reserve complimentary tickets for a reviewer, please call Andrea Garrett at (719)248-6908 or email at chaching77@hotmail.com.
