Debi Durst (Madame Arcati) and Nicole Martin (Elvira)

Blithe Spirit

Directed by Cornelia Burdick Thompson 

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Preview: Friday, June 10

Opening Gala: June 11 

Cornelia Burdick Thompson makes her directing debut with Palo Alto Players. When asked what drew her to Coward's comedy, Burdick says, "I love Coward's writing, and I have a secret wish that the story could really happen!"    

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Director, Casey Stangl

As part of their 20^th Anniversary season, The Antaeus Company of North Hollywood, CA is presenting the world premi�re of NCS member Barry Creyton's adaptation of No�l Coward's Peace in Our Time, directed by Casey Stangl and choreographed by Harry Groener.

About Director Stangl  

  "Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story. "  - Casey Stengel

For those of you familiar with legendary figures of American baseball, the name "Casey Stengel" pops out of the park. No doubt Ms. Casey Stangl's parents were baseball fans with high hopes for their infant daughter's sports ability.  Sports aside, she has demonstrated great talent as a team player.   

Ms. Stengl is an award-winning director of theatre, opera and film.  Recent projects include the West Coast premi�re of Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play at South Coast Repertory and the world premi�re of Susan Johnston's How Cissy Grew at the El Portal Theatre, named Best New Play at the 2009 LA Weekly Theater awards.  Nationally, Casey's work has been seen at the Guthrie Theater, Denver Center Theatre Company, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Portland Stage, HERE in New York, Minnesota Opera, Juilliard Opera Center and many others.  

Wild About Harry

Harry Groener & Twiggy

Broadway favorite Harry Groener -- currently wowing  audiences in The Madness of King George III at Chicago Shakespeare Theater --  has a long and happy history with Coward's work, including Antaeus' 2007-8 production of Tonight at 8:30 and the Off-Broadway show If Love Were All with Twiggy, presented in 1999.    

Twiggy's recent CD, Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance (released September 2009) features Harry in five of Coward's songs: "Has Anybody Seen Our Ship?", "Men About Town," "A Room with a View," "You Were There," and  "Mad About the Boy."   (Available on disc and as an MP3 download.)  

Adaptation and Casting

For the opening of ClassicsFest on July 6, 2010, Antaeus produced a workshop of Creyton's adaptation, which showcased young actors and young director Jessica Bard in Phase II of The Young Idea Project. (The Young Idea Project is funded in part by the No�l Coward Foundation.)

In a recent phone conversation, Jeanie Hackett (Antaeus' Artistic Director) praised Casey Stangl's skills as a collaborative director and her extensive experience with new plays. Jeanie also described plans for casting:

"All Antaeus productions are fully double cast, with two equally talented actors sharing a role. This means that audiences rarely see an understudy and frequently come back to see each show a second time in order to see the same play in the hands of an equally good but very different set of actors.

Members of the company and its board span a wide range of age, ethnicity and experience; they have performed on Broadway, at major regional theaters across the country, in film and television, and on local stages, and are the recipients of multiple accolades including Tony, Los Angeles and New York Drama Critics Circle, Ovation, LA Weekly, and Back Stage Garland nominations and awards."

Blithe Spirit

• Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre, Victoria, BC. June 7-19.  Blue Bridge Repertory 

• Palo Alto Players, Lucie Stern Theatre, Palo Alto, CA. June 11 - 26. Palo Alto Players 

• ICT, Long Beach, CA. August 23 - September 18.  ICT Long Beach 

• Santa Clara University, Louis B. Mayer Theatre, Santa Clara, CA, May 27-29 and June 1-4.  Santa Clara University Hay Fever

Peace in Our Time