Aficionados of live comedy may be in for a treat beginning this week. Neil Simon’s 1976 comedy, “California Suite” will open Friday at Madera High Sch-ool’s Coyote Arena Theatre for a six-day run.
Under the direction of drama teacher Duncan Needham, the school theater has been transformed into an upscale suite in a posh Los Angeles hotel. In that setting, 11 high school actresses and actors will play out a variety of dilemmas that hit four groups of visitors who successively experience their own predicaments in the suite.
In the first playlet, “Visitor from New York,” a Manhattan workaholic Hannah Warren (Ashley Bull-finch) flies to Los Angeles to retrieve her teenaged daughter, Jenny, after she has left home and gone to live with her father, William (Ricardo Sanchez), who is a successful screenwriter. The divorced couple is pulled through the eye of a needle trying to decide what living arrangements are best for their daughter.
The second act, “Visitors from Philadelphia,” deals with a conservative, middle-aged businessman, Marvin (Vince Singsing), who checks into the hotel and occupies the suite. After consuming a bottle of vodka, he wakes up in the morning to discover he is sharing his bed with a prostitute, Bunny (Jessica Figueroa). Meanwhile, he is expecting his wife, Millie (Regan Dyer), at any moment, and pulls out all of the stops to hide his indiscretion...