College, Dolphin Players collaborate on ‘Death Lite’

The Dolphin Players and Southwestern Oregon Community College Theater Department will be exploring humor and bereavement in a funny triple bill of one-act plays – Death Lite: Three One-Act Comedies about Death – scheduled May 9, 10, 11, 16 and 17 at the Hales Center for the Performing Arts on the Coos Bay campus.

The curtain opens at 7 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, with a 3 p.m. matinee scheduled on Sunday, May 11. General admission is $8; $6 for seniors; and free for students, faculty and staff members.

How do a widow and two stepchildren gather to celebrate the life of a cantankerous family patriarch? This simple premise is the subject of Elinor Jones’ comedy “Under Control.” Set on a lagoon in Florida, son David (Byrell Justice) and daughter Connie (Amy Katrina) fly in to attend the interment of their father’s ashes but following the instructions of second wife Frances (Joyce Kemp), they soon discover that dispensing of their dad’s ashes will be no simple matter.

Corinne Jacker’s “Bits and Pieces” slides back and forth in time, depicting both the last years in the life of a well-known academic (Justin McCarley) as well as its aftermath. His widow (ReGina Moreno) is shocked to discover that her deceased spouse has donated his entire body to science and sets off in an attempt to visit his “bits and pieces.” Chelsee Carter, Kevin Thurkow, Tim Novotny, Cheri Valentine, Katherine Andreasen and Levi Goodman also star in the production.

Finally, in a tour-de-force monologue, Clara Radcliffe stars as Virginia in Jeffrey Hatcher’s “Thirteen Things about Ed Carpolotti.” Set in a funeral parlor shortly after her husband’s death, the play relates the disasters that befall the grieving widow, as well as the surprise comic turnaround that results from a certain letter slipped under her door.

The current production of “Death Lite” is the sixth collaboration between the Dolphin Players – who were organized in 1979 to present quality theater in an intimate space – and the Southwestern Theater Department in recent years. Productions such as “Lie of the Mind,” “Proof,” “Waiting for Godot” and “Hamlet” have established the reputation of the Southwestern Theater Department for quality productions, staged with imagination and intense theatricality.

Press Release Date: April 24, 2008