Lost in Yonkers
Lost In Yonkers Opens the 2008 Season at
The Round Barn Theatre® at Amish Acres®
The
Round Barn Theatre at Amish Acres will open its 2008 season with the
second stage production of Neil Simon’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony
Award winning play Lost In Yonkers. It is the coming of age
tale of two brothers, Arty and Jay, who are left in the care of their
Grandma Kurnitz and Aunt Bella in Yonkers, New York by their desperate
father Eddie, who needs to work as a traveling salesman to pay off
debts incurred following his wife’s death. Grandma is a severe,
frightfully intimidating immigrant who terrified her children as they
were growing up, damaging each of them to varying degrees. Bella is
a sweet but mentally slow and highly excitable woman who longs to marry
an usher at the local movie house so she can escape the oppressive
household and create a life and family of her own. Her brother Louie
is a small-time, tough talking hoodlum who is on the lam, while her
sister Gert suffers from a breathing problem with causes more psychological
than physical.
Lost In Yonkers was a critical and popular Broadway success that led to a film adaptation in 1993. Although many of Simon’s plays had won major dramatic awards before this, Lost In Yonkers was the first Simon play to win the Pulitzer Prize. Many critics consider the play to be Simon’s best work and the pinnacle of his career. Although the play is technically labeled a comedy, it is in fact a hybrid. The deep levels of pain that Simon explores in his characters and humorous dialogue ultimately help the play to strike a balance between tragedy and comedy.
Lost In Yonkers is the 5th play produced as a Second Stage production of The Round Barn Theatre. The Second Stage production series began in 2004 as the brain child of Round Barn Theatre veteran and second year Artistic Director, Jeremy Littlejohn. The intimate venue of The Locke Township Meeting Hall located in the Greeting Barn gift shop was the original home of Plain and Fancy and was therefore the perfect location to launch an entirely new theatre program. “The whole idea behind starting this series was to give the audience a taste of something different,” Littlejohn comments. “We strip these works down to the bare essentials and focus on the actors and the language. It’s acting in its most pure form.” Second Stage productions have included The Glass Menagerie, Driving Miss Daisy, Enter Laughing and Steel Magnolias. Because of the overwhelming demand for tickets to the 2007 production of Steel Magnolias, the number of shows for Lost In Yonkers has been increased from 6 to 14. Lost In Yonkers opens on Saturday, March 1st at 7 p.m. and continues every Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through March 30th. It is directed by Jeremy Littlejohn and tickets are $15 for adults and $6 for students up to 17 years old. Reservations can be made be calling the Box Office at 800-800-4942, extension 2 or on line at AmishAcres.com.
Once again, the opening of The Round Barn Theatre season will coincide with the opening of Amish Acres Historic Farm & Heritage Resort on March 1st. Famous family style Threshers Dinner will be served in the century old barn restaurant along with tours of the historic house and farm and 9 quaint shops. Amish Acres is open Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with Threshers Dinner served from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. with Threshers Dinner served from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
2008 Round Barn Theatre season tickets remain on sale and include a season of grand musical classics including The Fantasticks, Plain and Fancy celebrating its 22nd
anniversary at Amish Acres, The Music Man, Carousel, Kiss Me Kate, and for the Holiday season, A Wonderful Life. All six of these dynamic and entertaining musicals plus Lost In Yonkers, a staged reading of Carmelina and for the first time, a non-musical play Our Town, will be produced on the Joseph Stein Stage of The Round Barn Theatre. This entire season can be purchased for $99.22 by calling the Box Office at 800-800-4942, extension 2. Season subscriptions can also be combined with Threshers Dinner or the popular Friday Night Theme Buffet. The unique Theme Buffet menu is designed to reflect and compliment each of the six musicals. Theatre and Theme Buffet schedules and menus can be found at AmishAcres.com or by calling the Box Office at 800-800-4942, extension 2.
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