Hands Across the Pond Theatre rehearses audio version of The Canterville Ghost over Zoom
Hands Across the Pond Theatre
Premieres Wednesday, March 24, free (donations welcome)
www.opendoorplayhouse.org
springlineamdram.podbean.com
Since September 2020, Open-Door Playhouse has produced more than two dozen short audio plays, primarily by new and emerging playwrights. The company was founded by filmmaker, playwright, and director Bernadette Armstrong, whose Custody was scheduled to premiere at the Secret Rose Theater in North Hollywood last September. Canceled because of the pandemic lockdown, the play instead was reimagined as Open-Door’s inaugural audio work, which you can listen to here.
The company is now looking to the past for its next show, a family-friendly adaptation of the first short story Oscar Wilde ever published, the 1887 classic The Canterville Ghost. The supernatural tale has been made into numerous stage and screen productions, including a 1944 film with Charles Laughton, Margaret O’Brien, and Robert Young; a 1966 TV musical with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Peter Noone, and Michael Redgrave; several TV movies featuring such stars as John Gielgud, Andrea Marcovicci, David Niven, Richard Kiley, Patrick Stewart, Neve Campbell, Ian Richardson, and Celia Imrie; and a long-awaited, soon-to-be-released British animated version with Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, and Miranda Hart.
The new audio play is from Hands Across the Pond Theatre, a collaboration between Open-Door Playhouse from Glendale, California, and Our Kid and Me Productions, from Oxfordshire, England, adapted for the theater by Gareth Thomas and for audio by Armstrong with John and David Hunter, directed by Armstrong. The cast, which rehearsed over Zoom, consists of Jennie Cosgrave as Mrs. Umney, John Hunter as Sir Simon de Canterville, Thomas as Lord Canterville, Amir Abdullah as Hiram Otis, Elaine Mello-Clarke as Elizabeth Otis, Franco Machado as Washington Otis, McKenna Koledo as Virginia Otis, Matthew Scott Montgomery as Roger, and Gary Reed as Roland. The play premieres March 24 on the Open-Door Playhouse Podcast and the Springline Radio Players Podcast; admission is free, with donations welcome.
“Can’t we go to bed one night without talking about that horrible apparition?” Elizabeth asks, referring to the haunted house they are in. Washington responds, “The more we talk about it, Elizabeth, the less it should frighten you. You don’t see me or even the twins shuddering and screaming.” Be prepared for some shuddering as the creepy narrative, complete with sound effects, unfolds.