What ho, Jeeves! : 'Stolen Venus' finds its way to the Town Hall stage

CORNWALL — A frightfully smashing production by the Town Hall Players is shaping up. An adaptation of P.G. Wodehouse’s “Jeeves and the Stolen Venus� will be presented March 12, 13 and 14 on the Town Hall stage.

As the cast gathered for a recent rehearsal, the mood was one of excitement, with a little bit of nerves mixed in. They are reaching that point where they need to get their lines memorized, and where they are beginning to envision being on stage before a large crowd (which the Players always attract).

Dave Cadwell plays one of the leads: Jeeves’ “gentleman� employer, Bertie Wooster. Cadwell was sorting index cards filled with his lines.

“I memorize them with an American accent first,� he said, with a wry smile, “then I translate it into a British accent.�

For anyone who is a fan of classic British comedy, and for those yet to discover it, this show promises to be a blast.

A good indicator of where this is going: Cast members couldn’t keep a straight face while trying out some of their lines. It didn’t help when director Joe Harnett, who wrote the adaptation, demonstrated his solution to the problem of knocking Cadwell in the back of the head with a silver platter, without really hurting him. (You had to be there.)

Harnett’s directorial approach is to allow his actors to find their own way into their characters, to truly understand them.

Cadwell said he just “wants to get people laughing from the very beginning,� which shouldn’t be a problem. He added that, while he has one of the biggest parts, he gets through all his lines rather quickly.

“I get knocked out cold about two-thirds of the way through, and I’m unconscious almost until the end.�

The cast includes Ron Dukenski, Jandi Hanna, Larry Stevens, John Perry, Michael Coraggio and Keith Martin.

It promises to be a jolly good show. A reminder: If cold, hard seats are not your cup of tea, seats for Players’ productions come with cushions (Hurrah!).

Tickets are still just $10, with a portion of proceeds going, as always, to the Cornwall Food and Fuel Bank. The curtain goes up at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, March 12, and Saturday, March 13, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 14.

For more information, call 860-672-6762.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less