Over the weekend, Westmoor Theater staged the production of Stage Door, a 1963 play by Edna Ferber and George Kaufman. The play was directed by drama teacher Peter Panagopoulos and co-directed by senior Michelle Rodriguez, and involves a cast of over thirty Westmoor students.

Opening night was on Friday, November 3rd at 7:00pm, and the second performance was on Saturday. There are two more shows scheduled:

Thursday, November 9th at 4:00pm
Saturday, November 11th at 7:00pm

Tickets can be purchased at the door. Information on pre-sale tickets (possibly)

Information about Stage Door from the Director's Notes:

Welcome to Stage Door. The Play was written by Edna Ferber and George Kaufman and was performed for the first time seventy years ago in 1936. On the one hand the play tells the story of the difference between live acting on the New York Broadway stage and acting in Hollywood. On the other hand, the story is about women's lives and the sacrifices they are required to make in order to have a career. What is remarkable is that today the message of the play is just as true as it was seventy years ago.

A major theme in the play is that live acting in the theater involves an actor memorizing his lines, courageously getting up on a stage and becoming somebody else for long periods of time, risking embarrassment in front of an audience. The reward for this effort is having created an experience for the audience very similar to watching acrobats perform without a net - there is excitement and richness in the danger. The play makes a comparison with making movies (at that time in Hollywood) where there is no audience and when the actor makes a mistake the film company just shoots the film again. The problem of course is that live theater in New York pays very poorly and the actors struggle while in Hollywood those selected for the movies get paid and live very well.

Stage Door is very much a play about the lives of young women. The setting of the story is a residence hotel for women. The hotel is located in New York's theater district. Seventy years ago, as today, young people would come to the big city to realize their dreams. And so it is in the play. A whole cast of characters are introduced, each one looking for success as an actor. The play contains some not-so-subtle comments about the choices women are required to make whether you play the role of "wife" and all that it entails in the middle class. Ferber and Kaufman have created a depiction of the struggles of youth that has endured because of its continued truth.

Full resolution files:
Apologies for the image host. I'm in the process of trying to get them hosted locally. If you're really interested in the full-resolution files, send me an email and I'll get you a more direct link.
Images 1-10: theater_stagedoor_1.zip (42.7 MB)
Images 11-21: theater_stagedoor_2.zip (39.9 MB)

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