Town Players of Newtown will open its 2025 season with a production of Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, late March through mid-April.

Noises Off takes a fond look at the follies of theatre folk, whose susceptibility to out-of-control egos, memory loss, and passionate affairs turn every performance into a high-risk adventure.

The play-within-a-play captures a touring theatre troupe’s production of Nothing On in three stages: dress rehearsal, the opening performance, and a performance towards the end of a debilitating run.

Act One is set at the technical rehearsal at the (fictional) Grand Theatre in Weston-super-Mare. It is midnight, the night before the first performance and the cast is hopelessly unready.

Baffled by entrances and exits, missed cues, missed lines, and bothersome props, including several plates of sardines, the actors drive Director Lloyd Dallas (being played by Hugh Tucker), into a seething rage and back several times during the run.

Act Two shows a Wednesday matinée performance one month later, at the Theatre Royal in Ashton-under-Lyne. In this act, the play is seen from backstage, providing a view that emphasizes the deteriorating relationships between the cast.

Romantic rivalries, lovers’ tiffs and personal quarrels lead to offstage shenanigans, onstage bedlam and the occasional attack with a fire axe.

Act Three depicts a performance near the end of the ten-week run, at the (fictional) Municipal Theatre in Stockton-on-Tees. Relationships between the cast have soured considerably, the set is breaking down and props are winding up in the wrong hands, on the floor, and in the way.

The actors remain determined at all costs to cover up the mounting chaos, but it is not long before the plot has to be abandoned entirely and the more coherent characters are obliged to take a lead in ad-libbing towards some sort of end.

The Town Players cast will additionally feature Brian DeToma as the actor Frederick Fellowes, who plays Phillip Brent in play-within-the-play Nothing On; Bob Filipowich as Selsdon Mowbray/Burglar; Rich Lamkin as Stage Manager Tim Allgood; Katerina Levasseur as actress Brooke Ashton/Vicki; Eric Lyga as actor Garry Lejeune/Roger Tramplemain; Kristi McKeever as actor and de facto peacemaker Belinda Blair/Flavia Brent; Missy Slaymaker-Hanlon as actress and producer Dotty Otley/Mrs Clackett; and Vicki Sosbe as Assistant Stage Manager Poppy Norton-Taylor.

Opening night is Friday, March 28. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm to April 12; and Sundays, March 30 and April 6, at 2 pm. There is also a Thursday evening performance, 8 pm curtain, scheduled for April 10.

Tickets are $30 in advance, with a senior discount for tickets purchased at the door. Performances are at The Little Theatre, 18 Orchard Hill Road in Newtown. Reservations and additional information are available at newtownplayers.org.