The Western Wayne Drama Club will present the musical comedy Nice Work If You Can Get It that is set in the 1920s and features music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin. Book is by Joe DiPietro. The show is inspired by material by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse.
Set in the 1920s, Nice Work is the story of wealthy man-about-town Jimmy Winter, who meets female bootlegger Billie Bendix on the weekend of his wedding. Thinking Jimmy will be out of town, Billie and her gang then hides something in the basement of his Long Island mansion. But when Jimmy, his wife-to-be, and her prohibitionist family show up, Billie and her cohorts pose as servants who cause hijinks galore. Nice Work is loosely based on the 1926 Gershwin musical Oh, Kay! and features a score of classic Gershwin songs some of which audiences will surely recognize like “Someone to Watch Over Me” and “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.”
“Originally produced on Broadway by” Scott Landis, Roger Berlind, Sonia Friedman Productions, Roy Furman, Standing CO Vation, Candy Spelling, Freddy DeMann, Ronald Frankel, Harold Newman, Jon B. Platt, Raise the Roof 8, Takonkiet Viravan, William Berlind/ Ed Burke, Carol L. Haber/ Susan Carusi, Buddy and Barbara Freitag/ Sanford Robertson, Jim Herbert/ Under the Wire, Emanuel Azenberg, and The Shubert Organization.
Performances by Western Wayne students will take place Friday, April 27 at 7 p.m.; Saturday, April 28 at 7 p.m.; and Sunday, April 29 at 3 p.m. in the newly renovated Western Wayne Veterans Memorial Auditorium located at 1970A Easton Turnpike, Lake Ariel, PA 18436. Students and senior citizens $3 dollars for tickets and adults $5 for tickets. Western Wayne students are admitted free with a student ID.
Over the past two years, the Western Wayne School District has installed a new state-of-the-art light and sound system along with putting in new curtains, a stage floor, seating, and carpeting. This past November the auditorium was publicly dedicated to all veterans who selflessly serve our country.
This school year Western Wayne formed a year-round drama club for students in grades 8 through 12 called Wildcat Curtain Call. Students in a variety of areas of the performing arts are involved in the club and participation in the musical is not required.
“We are all so excited about the wonderful, new opportunities for performing arts students at Western Wayne,” Mrs. Jessica McLaughlin, musical director, said. “We look forward to putting on our production of Nice Work along with putting together other drama club events.”
Front row, from left: Rhonda Fenkner, who plays Jeannie; Sam Pritzlaff, who plays the Duchess; Ty Alpaugh, who plays Billie; Calla Shaffer, who plays Eileen; and Lindsey Karwacki, who plays Millicent. Back row, from left: John Kear, who plays Cookie; Honour Shaffer, who plays Duke; R.J. Clemens, who plays Jimmy; Jake Jones, who plays the Senator; and Marty Spewak, who plays the Chief.
