Wry tales of middle-age and marriage are served up with a comedic touch in the Neil Simon classic, “Plaza Suite,” to be presented by Yardley Players at Kelsey Theater. This revival of the 1968 Broadway hit opens on Friday, July 16, with a reception with the cast and crew following the performance.
The setting is Room 719 at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, where three separate stories reveal the trials and entanglements of marriage and romance. The first vignette portrays a marriage gone stale and the wife’s attempts to rekindle the spark in the face of her husband’s major midlife crisis. In the second scene, an amusingly awkward tryst takes place between a Hollywood producer and his childhood sweetheart — now a married woman from New Jersey.
The final act features a couple bickering over how to get their terrified daughter, who fears becoming like them, out of the locked bathroom on her wedding day.
Michele Kallman of Plainsboro portrays Muriel Tate in act two. “She is a married woman with three kids from New Jersey who decides to visit her high school boyfriend — now a movie producer,” she says. “She is nervous and has feelings that she does not want to acknowledge.”
Raised in East Windsor, Kallman found her love of theater as a young girl studying at Princeton Ballet School and George Street Theater. After graduating from Hightstown High School and the Mercer County High School of Performing Arts, she received a bachelor’s degree in speech, arts, and drama from Rowan University and a second education certification in speech, arts, dramatics, and English. Kallman has taught English and drama at Manalapan High School for 10 years.
Kallman, who has lived in Plainsboro since 2007, has also directed and taught in summer programs. “The students are my children,” she says. Neil Simon style is not new to her as she has directed his plays, “Barefoot in the Park” and “The Good Doctor,” among the many plays and musicals she has directed, produced, and cast at Manalapan High School.
Kallman often presents poetry readings and comedy at Grovers Mill Coffee House. Her recent on stage theater background includes lead roles in “Men Are Dogs,” “6 Rms Riv Vu,” and “Twentieth Century,” as well as the current “Plaza Suite” role.
“This is one the Neil Simon plays with universal comedy and emotional depth,” she says. “There are conflicts of love and heartbreak when lovers and marriages lose their spark.” This is her first time with Yardley Players and her first time at Kelsey since acting in “Cinderella” many years ago. “It’s a welcome return. After directing so many shows I realized I missed acting,” she says.
— Lynn Miller
Plaza Suite, Kelsey Theater, West Windsor, 609-570-3333, www.kelseytheatre.net. $14. Weekends, Friday, July 16, to Sunday, July 25.
