The Play's the Thing at Theatre 40

Theatre 40, at the Reuben Cordova Theatre, will present The Play's The Thing from May 12 - June 12. In The Play's the Thing, a playwright named Sandor Turai comes up with a plan to save the engagement between his nephew Albert and an actress named Ilona after Albert overhears a flirtatious conversation between Ilona and Almady, an obnoxious actor (and Ilona's former lover). Sandor has only hours to rescue Ilona and Albert's romance from utter devastation. Sandor goes to work and hilarity ensues.

P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) is the playwright. Best known for his Jeeves and Wooster stories which have been the basis for multiple motion pictures and television shows, he was a prolific lyricist and wrote the books for the musicals Anything Goes and Oh, Kay! He wrote a total of 43 produced plays.

The Play's the Thing was first produced on Broadway in 1926 and received three subsequent Broadway productions. It was adapted from a 1924 Hungarian play by Ferenc Molnar, Play at the Castle.

Melanie MacQueen directs. Her directing credits at Theatre 40 include Taming the Lion, Engaging Shaw, The Drawer Boy, Months on End, On Borrowed Time, Separate Beds and Roses in December. Her directing career spans several decades, and includes the award-wining musical that she also wrote and produced, In the Name of God, or Honk If You Love Satire, which moved from the Valley to Off-Broadway. Also an actor, Theatre 40 audiences might know her best from her appearances in the perennial cast of The Manor.

Her cast for The Play's the Thing includes Todd Andrew Ball, Milda Dacys, Eric Keitel, Dan Leslie, Michael Robb, Kristin Towers-Rowles and David Hunt Stafford.