New Hampshire Theatre Project presents

Stage Door

By George S. Kaufman & Edna Ferber

Directed by Genevieve Aichele

Performed by the Senior Youth Repertory with professional lighting, costume, set and sound design. This delightful 1936 play takes place at the Footlights Club in New York City, a home for “girls of the stage.” The kind of Broadway play one never sees on Broadway anymore!

Stage Door premiered at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway in 1936.  Modeled on the actual Rehearsal Club in Manhattan, the play focuses on a group of aspiring actresses who live in the Footlights Club, a popular boarding house for young theatricals.  Seventy years later, the dramatic adventures of these girls (and their various gentlemen callers) still reflect the experience of would-be thespians as they struggle with poverty, personal lives, and the eternal struggle between artistic ideals and commercial work. Inside the boarding house, we get to know dancers, actors, and plenty of waitresses, some  who quit show business and go back home, others who stick it out for big hopes and little reward. The fast-paced, witty humor of the script shows both the light and dark sides of a nostalgic time in American history.

The Senior Youth Repertory production of Stage Door celebrates the art of theatre and the life of the theatre artist, with its never-ending cycle of excitements, disappointments, and everyday struggles. The 1936 debut of Stage Door, touting the message “real actors work on the stage”, stimulated great controversy because of its reproach of the film industry; the question “What defines art?” is discussed with equal fervor today. Stage Door tells the stories of many unique characters, and several of the Senior Youth Repertory company actors play more than one character in this romantic and fun piece.