Get Out

'Beyond Therapy' Closes This Weekend

Everything you need to plan your weekend.

Welcome to the Get Out/Grab & Go column! For your convenience Patch has combined these two columns and will run them Thursdays , so you can plan your weekends with some of the many activities happening in the Chatham area. Here are this week's picks: ‘Beyond Therapy’ by the Chatham Community Players Where/When: On Friday and Saturday, at 8 p.m. at Chatham Playhouse. Why Go: Because the play is about relationships, psychology, and the unexpected effects that therapy can have on someone who is looking for romance. Pricing: $20; $18 for people younger than 18 or 65 or older Gail Chesnut Plaque Dedication Where/When: On Saturday at 8 p.m, at the Chatham High School A/B Gym. Why Go: Because Gail Chesnut taught physical education at Chatham High…

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On Stage: A Peek At The Performing Arts

There’s No Easy Answer When It Comes to 'Sniper'

Bonnie Culver’s play inspired by a 1970s high school shooting takes stage in Somerset.

On Dec. 30, 1974, Bonnie Culver got into her car in a parking lot in Olean, N.Y. and headed back to her home in Port Allegany, Pa. It was about 10 minutes into her drive when an emergency broadcasting system alert came over the radio. Shots had been fired out of Olean High School toward the parking lot from which Culver—then a recent college graduate—had just driven away. The shots were fired by Anthony Barbaro, a 17-year-old student, and the incident is generally acknowledged as the first high school shooting. It is, of course, something that stayed with Culver, who went on to become a writer and teacher. She first tried writing a play about the shooting in the 1980s, put it away and wrote about 10 other plays before going back to it. “…

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On Stage: A Peek At The Performing Arts

1980s Tale: Timeless Love, Dated Phones

Chatham Players finds laughter in romance and psychiatry with Christopher Durang's "Beyond Therapy."

The Chatham Community Players are taking audiences back to the 1980s, and they’re not using a souped-up DeLorean or a hot tub time machine to get there. Instead, the group is closing out its 2010-11 season with Christopher Durang’s Reagan-era comedy “Beyond Therapy” at the Chatham Playhouse through May 21. And while the play’s tale of two people trying to find love is timeless, other elements are steeped in the decade that gave us Huey Lewis, leg warmers and the Rubik’s Cube. Scott Tyler and Tara Cioletti star as Bruce and Prudence, two New York singles who are both in therapy, hoping that it will help them find the right someone. They meet after Bruce’s shrink suggests he place a personal ad in the newspaper. That’s right, an ad in an …

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Chatham Community Players Performance Goes Above and 'Beyond'

'Beyond Therapy' begins three-week run at Chatham Playhouse.

As Bruce, the male protagonist of “Beyond Therapy,” describes his reasons for wanting to marry uptight female protagonist Prudence, he describes himself as constantly fluctuating between traditional and normal actions and those that could be considered extreme or insane. That constant fluctuation fits the description of just about every aspect of the play, as well as the performances brought to the stage this weekend by the Chatham Community Players for the first part of the show’s three-week run. The play focuses on Bruce and Prudence—he a positive thinker who does and says exactly comes to his mind, and she an uptight woman looking to find companionship by answering—as they try to balance their unusual relationship. Complicating the …

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On Stage: A Peek At The Performing Arts

Ready to Shed $12 And A Few Tears? See 'The Velveteen Rabbit'

Director promises an emotional experience.

If Hilde Steinberg has her way, emotions and tears alike will be flowing during the Somerset Valley Players’ production of "The Velveteen Rabbit." "We are going to take the audience on an emotional roller coaster,” Steinberg said. “They’re going to be happy one moment, surprised another moment. It’s going to be a magical ride.” Steinberg is directing Anita Larsen’s adaptation of Margery Williams’ 1922 children’s classic at the Hillsborough theater Feb. 18 to March 6. For those who are unfamiliar with the tale (and the emotions it can stir), the original story is about a boy who receives a toy rabbit as a Christmas gift and, just like in the Toy Story movies, the toys come to life when people aren’t around. The rabbit becomes a constant …

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