Sherman Players’ 75th Season: It’s All There

SHERMAN — Music, suspense, mystery, merriment and magic are all covered in the five productions scheduled by The Sherman Players in 2001, which also marks the 75th anniversary season for the venerable troupe.

The season opens April 6 with Stephen Sondheim’s landmark musical Company and runs through December 8, the closing night of Athol Fugard’s The Road to Mecca.

Lanny Mitchell will direct Company, with music and lyrics by Sondheim and book by George Furth. The musical is an exploration of relationships as witnessed by Robert who, by his 35th birthday, realizes that having it all but having nobody with whom to share it is not the definition of being alive.

Already cast and in rehearsal, Company will open April 6 and run Friday and Saturday nights at 8:30, with two Sunday matinees at 3, through May 5.

Wait Until Dark, by Frederick Knot and directed by Bruce Thomson, will be presented June 15 to July 7. The play, described by The New York Post as “a real shocker,” concerns a young blind woman, a doll filled with heroin and a ruthless conman who will stop at nothing to get the doll back.

Ravenscroft, a Gothic thriller by Don Nigro and directed by Jocelyn Beard, will open August 3 and run through August 25. The scene of the action is a remote house where Inspector Ruffing is called to investigate the headlong fatal plunge of Patrick Roarke down the main staircase.

Five alluring women lead him through contradictory versions of Patrick’s demise. Both funny and frightening, Ravenscroft keeps the audience guessing to the final curtain.

To inject a bit of British-style sophistication into the season, Jane Farnol will direct Noel Coward’s comedy, Hay Fever — “an evening of intoxicating escape,” to quote The New York Times. Hay Fever will open September 28 and run through October 20.

Judith and David Bliss are hosting a weekend at their country house. Judith has invited a handsome young man and her husband, “a sweet young thing.” Their smart and sophisticated son and daughter, Simon and Sorel, add to the mayhem with their own guests.

The Road to Mecca, by Athol Fugard, will be the final offering of the season. Directed by Francis A. Daley, it opens November 16 and runs through December 8.

Miss Helen, an elderly Boer artist, lives along in the South African boondocks, where she makes odd concrete sculptures. She calls the display of these artifacts her “Mecca.” A young woman friend has traveled hundreds of miles to help her fight the local authorities and a minister who would take away her independence and place her in a facility for the elderly.

Ticket prices for plays are $14 for adults, $12 for seniors and students; for musicals, tickets are $16 and $14 respectively.

Sherman Playhouse is at the junction of routes 37 and 39, behind Sherman Firehouse. For more information, call 860/354-3622, write to PO Box 471, Sherman, CT 06748, or visit The Sherman Players’ Web site at www.shermanplayhouse.org.