By Misty Cryer
In this season of ghouls and goblins, Carlsbad Community Theatre presents a comedic thriller by Peter Colley, “I’ll Be Back Before Midnight.” Take note that showtimes have changed from prior seasons, with evening shows on October 11, 12, 18, and 19 at 7 p.m. and matinees at 2:30 p.m. on October 13 and 20.
The play has a fair amount of comedy in it,” said Matt Fletcher, director of the productions. “It is more of a suspense thriller at heart. It is, by design, a pretty frightening play,” he said.
Fletcher recommended parental discretion for young kids, describing the play as having a “Hitchcockian” feel.
“It has a lot of disorienting twists and turns—elements of mystery and suspense—built-in with the comedy. Nothing is as it appears at first glance,” he said.
There are four characters in the play: “two women and two men,” said Fletcher. It is an ensemble cast, he said. “All of the characters are really strong characters that play a major role in the story.” Fletcher described the characters in the story, with information about the cast members coming from the program for the productions.
Reagan Warren, a 12th-grade homeschool student, plays Jan Sanderson. “Her character—she’s a young wife who has spent the last four months in a mental institution, having had a nervous breakdown. She has moved into this spooky old farmhouse with her husband Greg, out in the country—she’s from the city,” said Fletcher. “When these frightening events start to happen in the house, it kind of leaves the audience wondering, is she just imagining these things are happening, or are they really happening?’” he said.
“The next character is Greg, who is Jan’s husband,” Fletcher said. This role is played by Michael Kostedt who is a science major at Southeast New Mexico College. “His character —he’s an archaeologist who is working on his PhD, which is part of the reason why they moved out to this house in the country. There’s a rock quarry nearby that he goes out to frequently to collect samples for a study that he’s doing on how ancient people made tools out of flint. He is into his PhD work, and he ends up also having to try to help Jan overcome her illness,” he said.
“Greg has a sister named Laura Sanderson, who comes to visit while they are in the house,” said Fletcher. This character is played by Elena Munoz, a stay-at-home mom of two boys and the wife of Lieutenant Dylan Munoz of the Carlsbad Fire Department. “Greg and his sister Laura—there’s a complicated relationship between those two, to say the least—it creates a lot of tension between Jan and Laura and drives Jan to have some fits of jealousy and anger. Greg is kind of caught in the middle between the two of them—trying to appease two women that are at odds with each other and have different motives,” said Fletcher.
“Then we have George Willowby,” said Fletcher. This character is played by Don Knealing, who is the owner and manager of Clean Air Authority HVAC Services in Carlsbad. “George is a local farmer, but he also is the next-door neighbor where Jan and Greg are living; he is also their landlord. He has a pretty eccentric character; he is a fun-loving guy and comes across as being kind of simple-minded. He takes great pleasure in telling some very disturbing stories about ghosts and murders that have occurred in the house in which they are now living. Of course, that doesn’t help Jan’s state of mind much. Most of the comedy that occurs in the play is the result of George’s character because he’s very funny, and the stories that he tells are pretty outrageous in the way that he tells them,” Fletcher said.
“All of these characters are multi-dimensional. You think you have a handle on these characters—you don’t really know—there is another side to all of them that eventually will come out in the play,” said Fletcher.
“It’s pretty interesting. That’s a tough thing to do as an actor to play these different dimensions of a character and have that evolve over a couple of hours. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to do, but they are doing it, and they are doing it beautifully,” Fletcher said.
Tickets are available in advance from The Blue House Bakery and Café, Angee’s Flowers, and Treasured Moments. They can also be purchased online at www.carlsbadnmtheatre.com and are available at the door if not sold out.
Auditions for the Christmas play, “An O. Henry Christmas,” are scheduled for 6 p.m. October 15 at Carlsbad Community Theatre, 4713 National Parks Highway.
Comments