By Dylan Warren
The Play That Goes Wrong, Lincoln Community Playhouse, Friday May 3, 2024
…Is what you’ll cry out as you die from laughter at this brilliant work of live theater comedy. You may be familiar with The Goes Wrong Show on Amazon Prime Video but I can promise you it doesn’t hold a candle to the live performance. The characters in the play make up the members of a small acting troupe called the Cornley Drama Society. The members are putting on the play called The Murder at Haversham Manor. Through the performance of this play we are treated with a bevy of wacky situations where things go just a little bit wrong.
The Lincoln Community Playhouse has pulled an incredible feat in the realm of live theater. The Play That Goes Wrong is well known as a monster of a play to put on for any theater and LCP has put together an amazing team to make it work. The recent hiring of Jeff Maldavs as their new Technical Director proves to have been a majorly strong choice. He had primarily been the Technical Director for Pinewood Performing Arts and brought his expertise with large sets to bear for this show.
LCP has also recently hired Maralee Maldavs as their Costume Designer who has had extensive experience doing costumes for theaters all over also primarily helping with Pinewood Performing Arts. Maralee has always had a great vision for unifying wardrobe for her shows and does great work here.
A shout out to the lighting designer Sierra Smith for creating great looks and fantastic use of practical lights on the various set pieces. This show has many great lighting cues for comedic affect and very good use of lights for separating the stage for different moments.
Michelle Zinke leads a fantastic crew as the stage manager for this wonderful show. Her crew is made up of many returning LCP members, Beth Anne Viessman and Matthew Bejjani fill roles of assistant stage managers, while Tory Petz, Scott Clark, Natalie Doering and Erik Heydrick fill out the rest of the necessary crew for such an epic technical feat. Treat yourself to a bit of pre-show fun watching the crew prep the stage for the performance.
This show performs with a large ensemble of equally important characters and LCP has put together a tremendously talented ensemble which is crucial to the success of the performance. Many of the actors are returning talent with the LCP debut going to Aaron Harrel playing Max playing Cecil Haversham/Arthur the Gardner. Putting on a strong performance as the crowd pleasing member of the troupe, Aaron doesn’t mind leaning into a little crowd participation. Tim Andersen is a returning LCP talent with one of his prominent past roles being Shakespeare in Something Rotten at LCP. He brings to life the slightly overt actor Robert playing Thomas Colleymore. Michael Booton brings us Dennis playing Perkins the butler, the often forgetful troupe member and easily the funniest of the bunch. Jason Query brings us the determined troupe leader Chris Bean playing the Director and Inspector Carter. Jack Tyson performs Jonathan playing Charles Haversham. Chloe Schwarting performs Sandra playing Florence Colleymore who shares that role with Francoise Traxler’s Annie the crew member. Noah Mason returns to LCP to play Trevor the troupe stage manager with some deep seated issues. There would be specific things to say about the whole of the ensemble and things about each character but the show works so beautifully together it’s simply better to see it yourself.
Morrie Enders has brought another fantastic show to the stage, putting together a marvelous cast, crew and production team. You simply must see it yourself because you won’t believe the stories you may hear about it.
If you go: This show within a show performs through May 5th then the 10th-12th at the Lincoln Community Playhouse. Showtime is 7:30pm Fri-Sat and 2pm on Sundays. Ticket information at https://www.lincolnplayhouse.com.
Dylan Warren holds a BFA in theater and film design and has worked at many local theaters as a prop master and as a volunteer actor and stagehand.
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