Waterworks announces next season’s lineup

Published 1:49 pm Thursday, October 5, 2017

Waterworks Players Community Theatre announced their 2017-18 season, entitled “Secrets and Lies.” According to a press release, the five productions feature a diverse range of characters that have something to hide, in genres spanning from suspense-thriller to light-hearted comedy.

The season opens with “Shrek: the Musical.”

“With music by Jeanine Tesori and book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire — and based on the movie — this show follows the exploits of the ogre Shrek and his companion Donkey as they rescue Princess Fiona,” officials said in the release. “Someone’s got a secret, and it’s a big one, and in revealing the secret the characters discover that fairy tales sometimes come true in unexpected ways.”

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Directed by Zachary Glasscock, a senior theatre major at Longwood University in his Waterworks directorial debut, this show is family-appropriate and fun for all ages, and will run the last two weekends in October.

“In what is now an established Farmville tradition lovingly borrowed from our British friends, Waterworks will present its holiday pantomime the first two weekends in December,” officials said in the release. “This year the show will be Aladdin.”

According to the release, as with all panto productions, this show features a lot of audience interaction and is especially appropriate for children, even very young ones, but it still has plenty to offer for the adults too. It will again be directed by Mary Jo Stockton who also directed the production of “Legally Blonde” this past April, and is often seen both on and off-stage in a variety of roles.

“Our third production is ‘The Charitable Sisterhood of the Second Trinity Victory Church,’ a light comedy by Richmond’s Bo Wilson that premiered at the Virginia Rep’s Hanover Tavern in 2014,” officials said in the release. “Five wisecracking women sort donations in the church basement and unravel a mystery in this funny and heartwarming comedy.”

It will be directed by Dudley Sauve, the theater’s artistic director and director of — and occasionally actor in — hundreds of the theater’s shows over the years since founding the group. The show will run at the end of February.

“In April, we will present ‘Angel Street’ by Patrick Hamilton, originally released as ‘Gaslight,’ and adapted into multiple movies under that name,” officials said in the release.

For more information about any of the upcoming productions, check their website at www.waterplayers.org, or Like them on Facebook. Auditions for shows will be announced two to three months in advance of the show dates. For the more technically inclined, they often need offstage help as well; and both on- and off-stage they welcome newcomers to the theatre.