Tickets are now on sale online for the October 6-8 Guilford Center Stage production of To Their Appointed End, four short plays by Jean Stewart McLean. These plays were written about 70 years ago, and have never before been performed. The production commemorates the centenary of the playwright, the mother of Center Stage co-founder Don McLean.
Performances are Friday and Saturday, October 6 & 7, at 7:30 pm, and Sunday the 8th at 2 pm, upstairs at Broad Brook Grange, 3940 Guilford Center Rd.
A cast of 17 community actors will perform the plays, which average about 20 minutes in length. William Stearns directs.
The future playwright was born in Rahway, New Jersey in 1917. The family lived in the rectory of the Episcopal church where her father was the minister, thus she grew up in a setting which particularly informs two of these plays.
The show opens with The Vine, a drama about a young man who has a deep-seated dependence on a large vine growing outside his family home.
Two of the plays are based on the author’s upbringing in a church family. In To Their Appointed End, an aged minister faces the possibility he will have to retire. In a sort of sequel, the comedy, Where the Saints Have Trod finds a young minister challenged by his new congregation’s fond memories of his much-beloved predecessor.
The finale, Happy Hollidays, is a fast-paced comedy about the Hollidays, a theatrical couple who host a radio show from their New York apartment. To their listeners, they are a happy couple. Off the air is a different matter.
General admission is $10. Cash or check will be accepted at the box office. For those wishing to use a credit or debit card, you may go to Brown Paper Tickets at bpt.me/2792780 or 1-800-838-3006.
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