CHATS welcomes you to

  our next play reading

  of Joseph Kesselring's 

  Arsenic and Old Lace

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    to be held on Friday August 19

Cary Grant starred in the movie version of this black comedy

Aug 19 | 7:00pm

Venue : Ken & Anne McClenahan's home

Townhouse 3

17 Charlesworth Bay Road, Coffs Harbour

RSVP to info@CHATS.org.au to confirm your attendance and to help us with catering numbers - a light supper and refreshments will be provided. 

CHATS is proud to announce it will hold a fun social evening to have a play-reading of Joseph Kesselring's farcical black comedy ARSENIC AND OLD LACE.

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There are plenty of great roles for men and women in this much loved classic play, so we encourage you to attend and enjoy the dark humour and interesting characters in the play.

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The play is a farcical black comedy revolving around the Brewster family, descended from the Mayflower settlers but now composed of maniacs, most of them homicidal. The hero, Mortimer Brewster, is a drama critic who must deal with his crazy, murderous family and local police in Brooklyn, New York, as he debates whether to go through with his recent promise to marry the woman he loves, Elaine Harper, who lives next door and is the daughter of the local minister.

His family includes two spinster aunts, Abby and Martha Brewster, who have taken to murdering lonely old men by poisoning them with a glass of home-made elderberry wine laced with arsenic, strychnine, and "just a pinch" of cyanide; a brother, Teddy, who believes he is Theodore Roosevelt and digs locks for the Panama Canal in the cellar of the Brewster home (which then serve as graves for the aunts' victims; he thinks that they died of yellow fever); and a murderous brother, Jonathan, who has received plastic surgery performed by an alcoholic accomplice, Dr. Einstein (a character based on real-life gangland surgeon Joseph Moran) to conceal his identity, and now looks like horror-film actor Boris Karloff (a self-referential joke, as the part was originally played on Broadway by Karloff).

Throughout the play, Jonathan is plotting to kill his brother, in fact almost does in one scene. Mortimer is struggling to find solutions to rid his family of the crazy, eventually sending Teddy and his Aunts to a senior living home and letting Officer O'Hara deal with his brother.

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The Coffs Harbour & Clarence CanDo Cancer Trust supports patients and families attending the North Coast Cancer Institute.
In an effort to ensure funds remain in the local area and help those most in need, the CanDo Cancer Trust Committee, along with the generous support of the Coffs Coast Freemasons, established the Trust to distribute funds to patients and families affected by cancer.
 

For more information go to CanDo Cancer Trust – Supporting Patients and Families attending the North Coast Cancer Institute

CHATS ran a very succesful puppetry workshop at the theatre on Sunday July17th). This ties in with our plans for a show next year.

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Why puppets? Productions such as Warhorse, Shrek, The Lion King and The Very Hungry Caterpillar all use puppets to bring a sense of wonder and magic to the performance. Puppets can help an audience to suspend their disbelief as they enter a new realm of unreality during a show, and puppets can bring to life animals, scenes or concepts that would be difficult to portray with human actors.

And if you're looking for another reason, puppets will be a major feature of at least one upcoming CHATS production in 2023.

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