Show City Rep produces Star Wagon 4 l I 5 r M v iii I it Ji I Ij j. I 1 v C r 4 i 4 01 1 I. I It r rr I 1 I tC f r a e I Two innovative but exploited senior citizen inventors have taken to for to the City Rep stage a Future time travel fantasy The Star Wagon Michael Hohl and Nels Homgren play the inventors of an incredible traveling time-traveling machine which leads them via Maxwell Andersen's 1936 script as Stephen Minch and Hanus Wicks respectively respective respective- ly back into their past to relive their lives as they wish they might have been But for those in the audience who might be saying If only I could live my life over differently again this time there is a lesson to be learned in the lives and in the repeat lives of Stephen and Hanus For Pulitzer winning Prize-winning playwright Maxwell Andersen more renowned for his verse and prose dramas dealing with social questions injustice and political corruption What Price Glory Both Your Houses The Star Wagon is a light piece with comedic twists Stephen Minch is an idealistic dreamer who is supposed to be working working working work work- ing on a new rubber formula for a mile tire Instead he has managed to come with a formula for fora a mile tire much to the then chagrin of his boss a former boyhood friend who believes that inventing inventing inventing in in- venting lasting commodities will run his company out of business Stephen Minch along with his lifelong lifelong lifelong life life- long compatriot Hanus has also been working g in his spare moments on a machine which can take people back in time And when his boss finds out that he has been wasting company time decides to fire him and scrap the machine Stephen and Hanus try to remove it from the laboratory late one night with the help of a pair of hired thugs Their plans go awry however and they use the machine to escape Jennifer plays the role of Martha Minch frustrated with her idealistic husband and his eccentric friend Hanus who lives with them Jodie Fisher plays Hallie Arlington the rich girl Stephen might have married and married and does Gerry Graves plays the role of Charles Duffy the power and money-hungry money boss Yvonne Elaine Skinner plays Angela and The Herb Woman a character that appears in a a. a pivotal dream se se- se- se quence r The Star Wagon had its first performance performance performance per per- in Buffalo New York in September 1937 starring Lillian Gish as Martha Minch Burgess Meredith as Stephen Minch and Muriel Starr Edmund OBrien O'Brien Charles Forrester and Mildred Natwick in the supporting supporting supporting support support- ing cast It went on to a Broadway run and was a very popular offering in community and summer stock theatre prior to World War II It was produced as a PBS drama in the late with Orson Bean as Stephen Minch and Dustin Hoffman as Hanus It was the PBS special that brought the now out of print play to the attention of City Rep Artistic Director Joanne Parker and particularly particularly particularly par par- the genius of Hoffman who had not yet b been en discovered in his role in The Graduate Mrs Parker got an opportunity last summer to discuss the role of Hanus and The Star Wagon in a p per r chance meeting with Hoffman in a hotel lobby in Las Vegas were he Jie was filming his Academy Award rd winning role in i t tRain iRain Rain Man Ike li e seem seemed d very pleased that the play was play was being produced again particularly in Salt Lake City Hoffman wished City Rep well in its production and hoped that our audiences would particularly enjoy this wonderful Maxwell Anderson story Shellie Waters director for this production states This is a wonderful wonder- wonder ful piece of theatre and a real challenge challenge challenge chal chal- lenge for the actors to play They j have to play their characters as elderly elderly elder- elder J ly men and women teenagers at a achurch church choir picnic middle age j f people at the apex of their professional professional professional roles and then elderly men and women again The play is incredibly incredibly incredibly in in- credibly powerful because it has such i intense emotions Its It's like wanting t more for the future hoping to f change it through the past losing I sight of what's important then j learning it takes more than a palace t tto to make a king yet theres there's many a aking aking f king with no palace t Tickets for the production are j available for selected ev evening performances performances performances l mances April 24 and 28 and May 4 at pm One Saturday matinee will be held on May 6 at pm Ticket prices range from 5 to S 10 10 with discounts for students senior citizens and children The Box Office Office Office Of Of- fice may be reached by calling between 10 and 5 S Monday through Friday and 10 and 2 2 on Saturday L I c L r r w r 1 |