Good Theater Opens LUCKY STIFF

Good Theater will close out its 17th season with the zany musical comedy, Lucky Stiff. The show opens March 27 and runs for five weeks through April 28. Good Theater is the professional theater company in residence at the St. Lawrence Arts Center, 76 Congress Street, Portland. For tickets and information contact the box office at 207-835-0895 or go to the company's website, www.goodtheater.com.

Lucky Stiff plays six performances per week at Good Theater: Wednesdays at 7:00 ($25), Thursdays at 7:00 ($25), Fridays at 7:30 ($25), Saturdays at 3:00 ($32) & 7:30 ($32) and Sundays at 2:00 ($32).

Lucky Stiff is the first show created by the writing team of Stephen Flaherty (music) and Lynn Ahrens (book & lyrics). The show is based on the 1983 novel The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo by Michael Butterworth. It was created and performed at Playwrights Horizons off-Broadway in 1988, and won the Richard Rodgers Award for that year.

Lucky Stiff is an offbeat, hilarious murder mystery farce, complete with mistaken identities, six million bucks in diamonds and a corpse in a wheelchair. The story revolves around an unassuming English shoe salesman who is forced to take the embalmed body of his recently murdered uncle on a vacation to Monte Carlo. Should he succeed in passing his uncle off as alive, Harry Witherspoon stands to inherit $6,000,000. If not, the money goes to the Universal Dog Home of Brooklyn... or else his uncle's gun-toting ex!

The Good Theater production of Lucky Stiff stars Daniel Patrick Smith as Harry the hapless shoe salesman who inherits the money; Shannon Thurston as Annabel, the representative from the Universal Dog Home; Lynne McGhee as Rita, the near-sighted, gun-toting ex-girl friend; Mark Rubin as Vinnie, Rita's optometrist brother; Craig Capone as Luigi Guidi; Glenn Anderson as the corpse; and Gusta Johnson, John Lanham, Conor Riordan Martin and Jen Means as everyone else.

Lucky Stiff is directed by Brian P. Allen. Victoria Stubbs in the musical director and the onstage pianist and Betsy Melarkey Dunphy is the choreographer. Steve Underwood is designing the colorful set; Justin Cote is the costume designer; Iain Odlin is the lighting designer; Michael Lynch is the production stage manager; Jared Mongeau is creating the props and Craig Robinson is the technical director.

"Lucky Stiff has been on my bucket list for awhile," says Artistic Director Allen. "I keep a running list of shows I want to do at some point in my career. Every year, I try to get at least one from my bucket list into our schedule, and this year it is Lucky Stiff. I love the madcap farcical nature of the show, the actors who play multiple characters and the great score. Audiences are going to have a blast with this one. A perfect ending to our 17th season!"

Good Theater began its season in the fall with the acclaimed production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. That was followed by the world premiere of Homer Bound; the Maine premiere of An Act of God; and the Portland premiere of A Doll's House Part 2.

Next year for the company's 18th season, audiences will see: Admissions by Joshua Harmon, Boxes by Jule Selbo, Popcorn Falls by James Hindman, Pack of Lies by Hugh Whitemore and Desperate Measures book & lyrics by Peter Kellogg and music by David Friedman, plus Second Stage productions of Who's Holiday by Matthew Lombardo, Murderers by Jeffrey Hatcher and Men - Things That Go Bump in the Night, an original cabaret. In December the company will offer its annual Broadway at Good Theater concerts a tribute to 1940s Broadway.