Director Assembles 'Friends' for June 'Dinner'

Posted: Sunday, March 6, 2011, 2:24pm

Director Keely Kurtas-Chapman has announced the cast for the Curtain Players staging of DINNER WITH FRIENDS. The 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Donald Margulies will be staged at the Harlem Road playhouse in June.

Open auditions were conducted February 27. Amy Anderson, James F. Petsche, Mark Schuliger, and Jill Taylor were chosen for the ensemble. Rehearsals will begin in April in anticipation of opening night Friday, June 3.

Gabe (played by Petsche) and Karen (Taylor) are a pair of wedded food writers who more than a decade ago introduced their close friends Tom (Schuliger) and Beth (Anderson). Tom and Beth fell in love and got married, but one night as Gabe and Karen are making dinner, they receive startling news from Beth — Tom has left her for another woman, and the two are filing for divorce. Gabe and Karen soon feel as if they are being forced to take sides in the heated battle between Tom and Beth, and as the combative couple separates and both parties move on to new relationships, Gabe and Karen find themselves taking a long, hard look at their own marriage.

This is Kurtas-Chapman’s first directing effort at Curtain Players. She has directed with Actor’s Theatre of Columbus and, as an undergraduate, at Kenyon College.