Monica Mula ’10
Web Opinions Editor

The year 2010 raises the curtain on the 80th Anniversary season for the Westport Country Playhouse.

Though the season doesn’t officially begin until April, there is never a dull moment for directors, cast, and crew.

Currently, the Playhouse is featuring “Family Festivities”— productions based off of popular children’s books.

February and March offer “Laura Ingalls Wilder,” “Charlotte’s Web,” and “Are You My Mother,” classics alive with morals that children can appreciate and absorb.

The Westport Country Playhouse accommodates extraordinarily for their younger viewers, choosing to negate intermissions and keep characters and sets lively.

In addition, student matinees are an educational and captivating curriculum choice for local teachers.

Productions featuring Anne Frank and Martin Luther King Jr. all fulfill the Playhouse mission of “enriching the experience of each audience member.”

David Kennedy, associate artistic director, said it is important to “offer a real variety” of genres and styles.

Already, he is preparing for the main season.

“The whole season is a celebration,” Kennedy said. “Performing the five productions this season is a great opportunity for the Playhouse.”

This year’s productions, beginning April 20, include two musicals and three plays.

“We open with ‘She Loves Me,’ which will include great music, clever subtleties, and three–dimensional characters,” Kennedy said.

This old fashioned, complicated love story is often known by the recent reincarnation, “You’ve Got Mail.”

Next comes “Dinner with Friends,” produced by a local writer from New Haven.

It offers a snapshot of a stressful divorce, showing the strain on all involved parties.

“This will be a very real performance,” Kennedy said. “It is both funny, and moving.”

After that, theater patrons will be uplifted by the protagonist’s optimism in “Happy Days,” which Kennedy clarifies “has nothing to do with the 70s sitcom.”

Rather, it portrays a woman with an irrepressible spirit no matter what the situation.

This play by Nobel Prize winning author Samuel Beckett, best known for his absurdist theater piece “Waiting for Godot,” will captivate and intrigue Westporters.

The fourth play, “I Do! I Do!,” is modeled after the book by Tom Jones. It portrays many different decades, keeping continuity by highlighting one couple’s marriage throughout.

“It charts the inherent ups and downs of relationships,” Kennedy said.

The season closes with a production of the timeless and poignant “The Diary of Anne Frank.” The play highlights both her personal endeavors and coming–of–age through her diary, while giving historical context.

“It is a very rich experience,” Kennedy said.

Rehearsals for these productions will begin at the end of March.

Until then, Kennedy says that the Playhouse will focus on what they call “80th Events”— 80 community outreach events held in honor of their anniversary season.

The Westport Country Playhouse is thankful for Westport’s continued support, and thus gives back through charity benefits and fundraisers.

“We are very proud that we have managed to thrive,” Kennedy said of the 80 year mark. “It means a great deal to us.”