Mesquite Community Theatre announces 2009 season

by Shawn Parikh

Having just closed their 2008 season, Mesquite Community Theatre has announced the shows for their 2009 year. All shows are performed at Mesquite Arts Center. Here is the lineup, so mark your calendars:

• Don’t Dress for Dinner by Marc Camoletti. From February 20 - March 7. Bernard is planning a weekend with his mistress at a quaint country farm house. He has hired a gourmet cook, is packing his wife Jacqueline off to her mother's, and has invited his best friend, Robert, to provide an alibi. It is foolproof. What could possibly go wrong? Well….suppose Robert doesn't know why he has been invited? Suppose unbeknownst to Bernard, Robert and Jacqueline are secret lovers? Suppose the cook is mistaken for the mistress and the mistress for the cook and then suppose that the mistress can't cook! Mix well these ingredients and you have the recipe for an evening of pratfalls, mistaken identity and hilarious confusion... an evening where anything goes but nothing goes right! Directed by Mark C. Guerra.
• To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday by Michael Brady. From April 10 - 25. David loves his wife, Gillian. Unfortunately, she died two years ago. David deals with his grief by continuing his romance with Gillian during walks with her "ghost" on the beach at night. While David lives in the past, other family problems crop up in the present in the real world. Directed by Brad Stephens.
• The Dining Room by A. R. Gurney. From June 5 - 20. Set in a single dining room where 18 scenes from different households overlap and intertwine. Presumably, each story is focused around a different family during different time periods who has in their possession the same dining room furniture set, manufactured in 1898. Directed by Doug Luke.
• Belles by Mark Dunn. From August 7 - 22. The six Walker sisters hail from Memphis, but now they are scattered all over the country. Only Peggy still lives in Memphis, where she cares for Mama. When the play begins, Peggy is phoning her sisters to tell them that Mama is in the hospital. Nothing serious-- she just ate some bad tuna. An intriguing story of vivid characters and involving conflict emerges in the ensuing phone calls among the sisters. Directed by Lois Sheeler.
• The Butler Did It by Tim Kelly. From October 23 - November 7. This is a spoof of English mysteries. Miss Maple, a social elite noted for her imaginative weekend parties, awaits a group of detective writers who are invited to Ravenswood Manor where they are to assume the personalities of their fictional characters. Then a real murder takes place and the guests realize they're all marked for death. Directed by Byron Holder.