Last chance to see ‘The Play that Goes Wrong’

The Bigfork Community Players start their season by poking fun at the fictional Cornley Drama Society, who in their attempt to produce a drama, Murder at Haversham Manor, instead produce a wild comedy of errors in The Play That Goes Wrong. (Of course, this is a wild exaggeration of anything that might happen in a real community theater production.) 

As you watch from the perspective of the audience, a community theater’s attempt to produce a serious play is quickly going from bad to utterly disastrous. The underlying 1920s whodunit is plagued by everything a serious company never wants in a show, including an unconscious leading lady, a corpse that can’t play dead, and actors who trip over everything (including their lines). But, true to the theater maxim, the show must go on and the accident-prone Thespians battle against all odds to make it through to their final curtain call. With hilarious consequences! Part Monty Python, part Sherlock Holmes, this Olivier Award–winning comedy opened Friday, Oct. 25. 

“The Bigfork Community Players consider themselves specialists in comedy,” says its current president, Charlotte Vaillancourt. “We believe today’s six-clock news delivers plenty of hardcore drama. Our productions are intended to provide some momentary relief from that.” 

“I’ve directed a dozen plays with the Bigfork Community Players,” says director Michele Mank, “and I’ve never experienced one that went as completely awry as this one. That said, however, many of the disastrous elements that are concentrated in this production do have a certain ring of truth as I look back on my directing experience as a whole.” 

The comedy will have its final performances at Bigfork Center for the Performing Arts this weekend, 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and a matinee at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are available at Bigfork Drug, at the door, and online at BigforkCommunityPlayers.com.