Fringe Theater Key West presents “Good Night time, Oscar” by Doug Wright on the Key West Armory, Feb. 18 to March 1. The play, which ran for 123 performances on Broadway, is impressed by true occasions and crammed with real-life characters.
The yr is 1958, and Jack Paar hosts “The Tonight Present” on NBC. It’s sweeps week, when rankings are essential, and Paar has scheduled one in every of his favourite visitors, Oscar Levant. Actor, composer, pianist and TV character, Levant guarantees an unpredictable and infrequently outrageous night of wisecracks and music. “It’s a high-quality line between genius and madness,” Levant used to quip about his real-life struggles with drug dependancy and psychological sickness. However tonight isn’t just any night time. What may presumably go unsuitable?
“Our board president noticed ‘Good Night time, Oscar’ in Chicago earlier than it went to Broadway, and was so excited by the story that he known as me on his means house,” stated Rebecca Tomlinson, Fringe’s managing inventive director and the present’s director. “‘Fringe has to do that present,’ he informed me. And some brief years later, right here we’re.”
“Good Night time, Oscar” juxtaposes the private and non-private realms, exploring how far folks will go to get the chortle, the rankings, the notoriety that sustains them. And at what value? At what level does leisure grow to be exploitation? Doug Wright’s script is wise, humorous and well timed.
The present options Don Bearden because the eccentric Oscar Levant and Liz Cloud as his spouse June Levant. In actual life, Oscar and June have been generally known as “The Battling Levants,” partially as a result of they every hosted their very own native TV speak reveals within the mid-Nineteen Fifties. However they have been typically at odds due to Oscar’s efficiency schedule, his dependancy and his time out and in of psych wards. That high-quality line between genius and madness may very well be crossed on nationwide tv.
Ray West performs “The Tonight Present” host Paar, who was the second host for the late-night speak present. Jim Argoudelis performs his boss, NBC president, Bob Sarnoff. The 2 males need various things for the night time, the present and the function tv performs in folks’s lives. The solid is rounded out by Christopher Massicotte, who performs Jack’s assistant. Gregory James performs Oscar’s medical companion and Thomas Masat performs George Gershwin, who actually haunts Oscar Levant.
“Good Night time, Oscar” runs Feb. 18 to March 1 at 7 p.m. on the Key West Armory, 600 White St. Tickets for could be bought at.fringetheater.org or by calling the KeysTix field workplace at 305-295-7676. Seating is restricted.
