Wednesday, November 19, 2003

WILMINGTON, NC - The Last Night of Ballyhoo by Alfred Uhry is the UNCW University Theatre’s second show of the 2003-2004 season. The performances will be at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20 through Saturday, Nov. 22 and at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 23 in Kenan Auditorium.

Tickets are $8 for general admission and $2 for UNCW students with a valid ID. There is a group rate of $5 for groups of 15 or more. For more information or group ticket sales, call 962-3500.

Renée Vincent, award-winning director and associate professor of art and theatre, directs the cast of seven UNCW undergraduates in this comedy.

Winner of the 1997 Tony Award for Best Play, The Last Night of Ballyhoo takes place in Atlanta, Ga., in December of 1939. Hitler is invading Poland, and Gone with the Wind is having its world premier, while Atlanta’s elitist German Jews are much more concerned with who is going to Ballyhoo, the social event of the season. The story revolves around the Freitag family, bachelor Adolph, (played by senior Kevin Gilligan), his widowed sister, Beulah (Boo) Levy (senior Jessica Fulbright), and their also widowed sister-in-law, Reba (Bonnie Thayer). In a last ditch effort to find her daughter Lala (played by Lila Cannizzarro) a suitable social husband, Boo is determined to get her to Ballyhoo. Charmed by the new New Yorker working for the family, Joe (Joe Pistone), Lala hints at being taken to Ballyhoo, but is turned down. This enrages Boo, and matters get worse for Joe when he falls in love with Sunny, Reba’s daughter who is home from Wellesley (Pamela Redford). The family gets pulled apart and then mended together with comedy, romance and revelations along the way.

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