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Ritz Community Theatre actors (l-r) Dava Robbins, Bill Martin, Glenn Burns and Rachel Lentz rehearse a scene from Play On!, which opens at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Snyder’s community theatre troupe is putting on a play about a community theatre troupe putting on a play. Consider it art imitating, well, art.
The Ritz Community Theatre will stage Play On!, a Richard Abbott-penned comedy, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and April 29, as well as 2 p.m. April 30.
Play On! chronicles the trials and tribulations of a small-town theater group trying its best to put on a play despite the maddening interference of the author, who keeps revising the script. Act I is a rehearsal of the dreadful show, Act II is the near-disastrous dress rehearsal and the final act is the actual performance in which just about anything that can go wrong does.
Kyle Rosson, who is directing the production, said the farcical play-within-a-play is not meant to be true to life, although some theater-goers could be forgiven if they think otherwise.
“Every cliche you’ve ever heard about community theater is in this show,” Rosson said. “We’ve got divas, we’ve got people who keep forgetting their lines, it’s just a little bit of a look into the life of people in the theatre.”
He said the play is not so much a train wreck waiting to happen as it is one non-stop train wreck.
“You’ll see us actually rehearsing the play in the first act, then comes the dress rehearsal, and then the author goes down to see what’s going on, and he keeps re-writing everybody’s lines,” Rosson said. “Mayhem ensues. Everything that can happen, does happen, even with the sound effects.”
Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for students. Tickets will be available at the door.