Members of the cast and crew for “Deathtrap” include, on front row, from left, Morgan McFalls of Oxford, Ashley McEntee of Oxford, Keyante Lindsey of Oxford, Jerome Bulluck of Henderson and Tia Garren of Henderson; and on back row, from left, Malachi Glass of Henderson, Jessie Hartley of Oxford, Michael Frink of Raleigh, Jordan Bunting of Rocky Mount, Brittney Patterson of Henderson and TaJuan Glenn of Oxford. Not pictured: Jamie McGinn, Allen Young and Spencer Nunn. (VGCC photo)
Vance-Granville Community College has announced the cast and crew for “Deathtrap,” a comedy-thriller that will be the college’s fourth annual Dinner Theater event.
The dinner theater is scheduled for the evenings of Thursday, April 28, and Friday, April 29, in the Civic Center on VGCC’s Main Campus in Vance County. Dinner begins at 6 p.m. each night. Then, on Saturday, April 30, at 2 p.m., there will be a special encore matinee performance of the play, without dinner, at the same location.
For the first time, the dinner theater will incorporate two casts in order to provide more opportunities for students to participate. On Thursday and Friday, the cast will include Spencer Nunn of Warrenton as Sidney Bruhl, Jessie Hartley of Oxford as Myra Bruhl, Morgan McFalls of Oxford as Clifford Anderson, and Jordan Bunting of Rocky Mount as Porter Milgrim. For the Saturday matinee, the cast will feature TaJuan (“Taj”) Glenn of Oxford as Sidney Bruhl, Tia Garren of Henderson as Myra Bruhl, Malachi Glass of Henderson as Clifford Anderson, and Keyante Lindsey of Oxford as Porter Milgrim. Brittney Patterson of Henderson will play the part of Helga ten Dorp in both casts.
The crew includes Jerome Bulluck of Henderson, who is serving as stage manager, sound designer and lighting engineer; Michael Frink of Raleigh, the sound engineer who is also helping with props; and Ashley McEntee of Oxford, who is supervising props and costumes, with assistance from Jamie McGinn of Wake Forest and Allen Young of Henderson.
All are current students at the college, except for Garren, a VGCC alumna who is now on the staff of the college’s Continuing Education division.
Betsy Henderson, VGCC’s Department Chair/Instructor of Humanities and Fine Arts, is the director of the play.
Written by the late playwright and novelist Ira Levin, Deathtrap enjoyed a successful original Broadway run from 1978 through 1982 and was then adapted into a feature film. Skillfully blending thrills and laughter, the plot concerns the devious machinations of Sidney Bruhl, a writer of thrillers whose recent offerings have been flops, and who is prepared to go to any lengths to improve his fortunes. He receives a script from a student, Clifford Anderson, and immediately recognizes the thriller as a potential hit, setting in motion a suspenseful chain of events.
Tickets are scheduled to go on sale on March 15. For more information, visit www.vgcc.edu/dinnertheater.