Bit of a Poser Theme for Comedy

 "Is she perfectly revealed, or perfectly concealed…" Said by Nina in Amy Rosenthal's Sitting Pretty - coming to a theater near you!

Following their successful production of Calendar Girls, The Sharon Players once again enlist their skills in achieving the delicate balance of concealment.

Imagine you've innocently answered an ad to pose for an art class, only to discover on arrival, much to your horror, that you're expected to pose in the nude. This was the dilemma facing Nancy, 50, pudgy, single and deeply depressed after having been made redundant. Nina, her very active sister, had been pushing her to get out of the house and do something, anything, to overcome her depression, and Nancy finally acquiesced. Although she'd always been the kind of person who wouldn't even disrobe in a shared fitting room, Nancy was now in a desperate state. Against all her strongest instincts and better judgement, she takes the plunge. Much to her sister's dismay over the sudden change in Nancy's character, it seems the experience has stripped away much more than her clothes. Nancy gradually sheds a lifetime of inhibitions and self-defeating armor.

Now imagine you're an artist who always felt he had to develop a "special relationship" with his models, but who hasn't produced anything significant in years except a list of disappointed women. Phillip, the play's creatively blocked artist, decides he needs a different kind of model… and Nancy was certainly that!

Amy Rosenthal's bitter-sweet comedy is about relationships – between two middle-aged, single sisters; between an artist and his string of heart-broken lovers; between a woman and her past; and between their present and the courage to forge a new future. First performed in November 1999, the play later had a run throughout the UK with Rosenthal's mother, popular actress Maureen Lipman, playing Nina.

Sitting Pretty will be The Sharon Players' 51^st production! The theater company has been staging plays in English in the Sharon area for over 35 years. It began with a small enthusiastic group presenting animated play readings, often in cooperation with ESRA among its earliest audiences, and progressed to a recognized NFP community theater company producing fully staged productions.

Its long history is peppered with memorable events - from Neil Simon's sold-out Last of the Red Hot Lovers, to G.B. Shaw's Arms and the Man performed on the eve of the outbreak of the first Gulf War, with actors arriving home just in time to don their gas masks for the first time - or the extravaganza bilingual production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in cooperation with the Raanana municipality, including dancers and a children's choir, during which an over-productive smoke machine made the forest scenes magical – and happily did not set off the theater's smoke alarms until the intermission.

We are pleased to be welcoming new talented members into our ranks with this production, and equally pleased to be providing parts for some of our original members who are still strutting the boards. The seasoned and skilled Phil Cohen, who first joined us as director of our previous production of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple (Female Version), is once again directing our excellent cast: Linda Goldstein (Nancy), Frances Thaler (Nina), Albert Levi (Max), Yohan Segev (Phillip), Dalia Librus (Zelda), Judy Baily (Josie), Linda Silverstone (Bridget), Leslie Steinman (Martin), Robin Reiss (Sylvia), Michael Singer (Luka), with the backstage team managed by Mimi Tanaman and including Penny Pulik, Renee Singer and Candy Shinaar.

Performances will be held in Tel Aviv's Yad Lebanim on Wednesday and Thursday, March 22 and 23, and in Raanana's Mishkan theater on Monday, March 27.

For tickets, call 054 448 7175 (Robin), or the ESRA office: 09 748 2957.

Support ESRA, support community theater, and have an enjoyable theater night out.