One new California law promotes heat illness education in schools; another, rolling out this month, requires rules for outdoor activity during extreme heat. Still missing: money for the upgrades that matter.
REDLANDS, Calif. — Footlighters Theatre will bring mistaken identities, cross-dressing comedy and romantic mix-ups to the stage this month with Ken Ludwig's Leading Ladies, opening Friday and running through Aug. 23.
Directed by Hedley Duncan, the play comes from Ken Ludwig, the Tony Award-winning playwright known for comedies including Lend Me a Tenor and Moon Over Buffalo.
The production opens Footlighters Theatre's 81st season. The Redlands community theater has entertained audiences for more than eight decades with volunteer-driven productions of plays and musicals.
The story follows Jack and Leo, two struggling English Shakespearean actors whose careers have dwindled to performing “Scenes from Shakespeare” on the Moose Lodge circuit in the Amish country of Pennsylvania.
After learning that an elderly woman plans to leave her fortune to her two long-lost English nephews, the pair devise a scheme to pass themselves off as her beloved relatives and claim the inheritance.
Their plan quickly unravels when they discover the missing relatives are nieces – not nephews – forcing the actors into elaborate disguises and a series of increasingly complicated misunderstandings.
As the deception grows, romance enters the picture when Leo falls in love with the woman's spirited niece, Meg, who is engaged to the local minister. Meg dreams of a wider world beyond her small town, but it isn't until she meets "Maxine and Stephanie" that she finally gets a taste of it.
Leading Ladies will be presented at Footlighters Theatre from Aug. 7 through Aug. 23.
The production is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French Inc.
