Prelude to a Kiss premieres as Strawberry Theatre Workshop’s first show of the season.
In a shocking change of events, Prelude to a Kiss will be replacing Reckless as Strawberry Theatre Workshop’s Fall show. Strawberry’s Fall show has changed due to wrongful and offensive uses of American Sign Language within Reckless. As the show must go on, the same artistic cast and crew of Reckless have whipped together the heartfelt Prelude to a Kiss in merely sixteen days.
Craig Lucas’s Prelude (written in response to the 80’s AIDS epidemic) centers around the relationship of Peter and Rita who fall in love with each other instantly. During their wedding reception, an old man appears out of the blue and asks Rita to kiss him. Unforeseen to anyone’s wildest expectations, this kiss leads to the corkscrew life-altering supernatural event of Rita and the old man switching bodies. As Peter desperately searches for a way to switch them back, he must learn to truly love Rita in a new way in the body of a terminally ill man.
This show is a fairly standard simple rendition of the script, and is not that artistically complex. Being that the show was produced in merely sixteen days, this is to be expected. This being said though, the acting performances in this play surpassed standard expectations of sixteen days of acting work. I think the actors do a great job at performing this play, and did not find there to be a dull moment during the show. I thought the scenes of body switching were moving and thought provoking. I recommend seeing this show you are in the mood to see a lovely romantic play, or have the extra time and money.
For tickets and more information about the show click here, or visit http://www.strawshop.org/prelude