Unusually Rich Theater Season Unfolding here

By Betty O’Neal Giboney

Area theater openings are following closely, one upon the other, as an unusually rich season unfolds. For years without any summer theater entertainment, we now have two resident companies presenting musicals and straight comedies in New Castle and Hagerstown .

Thursday night, Raintree County Opera House Guild, Inc., had its second opening of the week after its season began on Tuesday. Presented was Neil Simon’s romantic triangle, or, if you count another character who does not appear, quadrangle, involving two protest writers who meet an All-American Olympic swimmer.

Raintree presented its production at its Summer Theater in the Park, the Shelter House in Memorial Park. And don’t let the humid heat keep you away. As this reviewer found out, an aisle seat on the south side of the Shelter House was in the air path of a well-placed fan.

The Star Spangled Girl was just about the best acted, most tightly directed theater piece seen here in recent years. As written, the play doesn’t waste words. Everyone has a purpose to either carry forward the plot, provide a laugh, or both.

Phil Barr as Andy Hobart and Jim Baird as Norman Cornell, the writers and Vicki Horn as Sophie Rauschmeyer, the girl next door, produce an evening of great entertainment—enough to forget the heat.

The play will be repeated today at 8 p.m. with the musical “Two by Two” returning on Saturday. Next Tuesday, Theater in the Park will premier yet another production, “The Prince from Pendelpoop,” an original musical by Dick Willis, director of the company.