"WILD OATS"
A Comedy by James McLure

SPRING PLAY 2010

• Directed by: Barbara Ridenour
• When: April 8, 9, 10
• Where: North Attic Playhouse

URBANA — Director Barbara Ridenour has announced the cast of this year's spring play, "Wild Oats," a comedy by James McLure set in the Old West.

McLure adapted the story from Irish playwright John O'Keeffe's 1791 drawing-room comedy of the same name.

The Americanized version debuted in Los Angeles in 1983 and was first published in 1985.

The following cast will perform the play April 8, 9, and 10 in the North Attic Playhouse:

• Piano Player: Daniel Cheng
• Bartender: Chris Yoder
• Innkeeper's Daughter: TBA
• Liberty: Jack Gillette
• Wilson: Aaron Wilson
• Angel Eyes: Ben Zehr
• Colonel Croftus Thunder: Zack Goldberg
• Corporal Crow: Cameron Cornell
• Ephraim Smooth: Andrew LaPointe
• Kate Thunder: Nora Peterson
• Harry Thunder: Ethan Schiller
• Muz: Vivian Robison
• Jack Rover: Will Erickson
• Ike Gammon: Jared Doyle
• Sim Gammon: Danny Ge
• Jane Gammon: Kahlilah Cooke
• Señor Morales: Charlie Newman-Johnson
• Sheriff: Maia Gersten
• Mr. Kleigle: TBA
• Mr. Leako: TBA
• Amelia Dolores Morales: Anna Gooler
• Marshall: Stirling Hobgood
• Bear, Gamblers, Cowpokes, Dancehall girls, etc.: Mary Campbell, Andrew Ferguson, Izzy Fitzpatrick, Hadley Hauser, Sam LeRoy, Diana Liu, Ella Lubienski, Matthew Meyer, Charlotte Popetz, Kate Popetz, Emmanuel Pratt-Clarke, Evan Ramos, Arch Robison, Max Sigalov, Kaila Simpson, Alex Valdez

The Playwrights Database includes this description of the play:

Switching the locale of the action from the drawing room of Restoration England to the saloons and prairies of the Old West, and transforming the characters from scheming servants and lustful gentry to music hall girls and stalwart cavalrymen, the playwright holds onto the hilariously convoluted structure which has made the original play a timeless delight. As Edwa, in Variety, puts it: "Plot elements include standard mistaken identities, long lost son reunited with parents, long estranged parents finding each other, evil landlord foreclosing at the drop of a tumbleweed, an F Troop type of cavalry, an Indian guide who speaks with an Irish brogue, a crusty colonel who's planted progeny all over the Wild West, a hero who stops a speeding train with one hand, a lustful and slithery preacher, a foppish son who's been kicked out of more military schools than he can count, ad histrionicum." And so it goes — resulting happily enough, in a slambang, wildly funny farce which provides both a field day for performers, and an experience of sheer delight for audiences.

Rehearsals begin this week and will continue through tech week, with the exception of spring break (March 22-26), when no rehearsals will be held.