Welcome to our new web site!

To give our readers a chance to experience all that our new website has to offer, we have made all content freely avaiable, through October 1, 2018.

During this time, print and digital subscribers will not need to log in to view our stories or e-editions.

BLACK BOX THEATRE

‘A Coupla White Chicks’ has a lot of pluck; don’t miss it

Posted

There is a lot to enjoy and appreciate about Black Box Theatre’s (BBT) current production of “A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking,” by playwright John Ford Noonan.

This one-act, 70-minute play is set in Westchester County in southeast New York state, but it could take place anytime and anywhere. You can easily imagine Maude Mix (Karen Buerdsell) and Hanna Mae Bindler (Gina DeMondo) in an adobe-walled kitchen in Las Cruces or Mesilla, although Maude might be baking biscochos instead of chocolate-chip cookies as the play opens.

This is a timeless tale of two “mortally wounded suburban housewives,” as one of the characters so poignantly describes them. It is a study in contrasts between two very different women, played in this production by two very talented actors. 

Gold stars go to Karen and Gina, who already had on-stage chemistry, having worked together in BBT’s 2019 production of “The Mrs. Wheatland Pageant.” They are wonderful as neighbors whose backdoors are a few feet apart but whose lives, at least when they first meet, are worlds apart.

Maude and Hanna Mae share their husband-inflicted wounds with each other in a friendship that is prickly at best to begin with but blossoms, pretty much because Hanna Mae won’t give up on Maude. They both take a beating, physically and emotionally, but keep answering the bell for the next round.

It is story of survival, and one of the things I like best about this play is that Maude and Hanna Mae are the only two characters in it. Everything is from their point of view.

Another gold star goes to first-time director Robert “Bobcat” Young. He clearly knew the talent he had in Gina and Karen, and he let them shine.

Kudos also to technical director Peter Herman, light and soundboard operator Bekah Taulbee, set builder Joshua Taulbee, costumer designers Misty Morton and Gillian B. Scarbrough, stage manager and properties designer Darlene DeMondo and stage crew Cassandra Galban.

You can also enjoy the work of local artists in BBT’s theater gallery. During the run of the current production, the art show is “Chicks and Chicks,” and features the works of more than a dozen local artists.

The show continues through Aug. 22 and I encourage you to see it.

Remaining performances at BBT, 430 N. Main St. Downtown, are at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Aug. 13-14 and 20-21; 2:30 p.m. Sundays, Aug. 15 and 22; and 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 19.

Tickets are $15 regular admission, $12 for students and for seniors over age 65; and $10 for the Thursday, Aug. 19, show only.

Masks are required for everyone except the on-stage actors.

Call 575-523-1223 to reserve tickets or buy tickets online at www.tktassistant.com/Tix/?u=NSTC. For more information, visit no-strings.org.

A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking, Black Box Theatre

X