We Brighten Winter with Neil Simon “Sunshine”
Willie Clark and Al Lewis were two of the premier
stars of Vaudeville. Traveling the circuit as the team of “Lewis and
Clark”, everywhere they played the audiences loved them. Success was great
for them with one exception, Willie and Al did not get along and that
animosity grew to the point where they would only speak to each other while
on stage during their last year together as a team.
It is 1972 as Neil Simon’s wonderful comedy
The Sunshine Boys
picks up with them, a full 12 years after the last time “Lewis and Clark”
performed. Ben Silverman has the task of getting Clark, his uncle, to
reunite with Lewis one more time. It seems that CBS wants the team to
perform their famous “Doctor” routine for a special they are putting
together on the history of comedy.
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Director Hunting guides actors Don
Kuehlhorn as Willie Clark and Alissa Korson as the Nurse
This is not an easy task. Willie Clark still holds a lot of resentment
towards Al Lewis because it was Lewis who decided to leave show business,
forcing Clark into retirement against his will. Now, Clark has become
reclusive in a small room in the Ansonia Hotel where Ben visits him each
Wednesday and brings him cigars and the latest issue of Variety. And Al, he
lives with his daughter in New Jersey.
Getting these two to agree to get back together again is just the start of
the laughs that
The Sunshine Boys
delivers. Things escalate from there once Lewis and Clark find themselves
in the same room together for a rehearsal. Even this is just a prelude to
antics that these two pull once the broadcast begins.
Our first production of 2009,
The Sunshine Boys
is directed by
Denni Don Hunting.
In assembling a cast, she has placed
Don Kuehlhorn as
Willie Clark and
Rob Ford as Al
Lewis.
Rodney Woodring
will be playing Ben Silverman and
Karen Haspas is
the Registered Nurse. Filling out the cast is
Alissa and Juston Korson
as the nurse, Eddie and a patient.
The Sunshine Boys
will be staged at our own Grand Trunk
Theatre
at the Historic Railroad Depot in Traverse City. Performances are scheduled
for February 27 & 28, March 1, 5 thru 8, and 12 thru 14. Showtime is 8pm
except for the two Sunday matinees that will start at 3pm.
