At the beginning of June, the Kansas City Actors Theatre embarked on an ambitious project, performing three plays in rotating repertory. Tonight (Friday, June 23), they'll open 5th of July, the second of Missouri playwright Lanford Wilson's Talley Plays. KCUR's Laura Spencer talked to members of the cast and the director of Talley's Folly, the first play to open the series. By Laura Spencer
Kansas City, MO – Kansas City Actors Theatre presents Lanford Wilson's
The Talley Plays in rotating repertory through September 3.
Talley's Folly
Previews May 26
Opens June 2
Talley's Folly is a romantic comedy set on July 4th in 1944 in Lebanon, Missouri. The play dances through one evening in the courtship of two unlikely lovers, Sally Talley and Matt Friedman. Sally is from a conservative, small-town, wealthy family of bigoted Protestants, and Matt is a Jewish accountant twelve years her senior. Talley?s Folly is winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play.
Fifth of July
Previews June 16
Opens June 23
Fifth of July jumps over 30 years to 1977, where a group of friends who came of age in the '60s gather for a reunion at the old Talley place. They expose the shattered hopes of their college days and the unhealed trauma of the Vietnam War. At once poignant and marvelously funny, Fifth of July depicts a generation trying to transcend the disillusionment of the '70s.
Talley & Son
Previews July 21
Opens July 28
Talley & Son takes a trenchant look at what the rest of the Talleys are doing up at the main house while Matt and Sally are courting in the boathouse on that fateful July 4th. The family copes with the death of a family member in World War II and with the probable dissolution of the family business.