Colonial Players

Colonial Players' current production of "The Diviners" is a powerful, poetic one. Winner of the 1979 American College Theater Festival, and written by Jim Leonard while in his mid-20s, "The Diviners" raises profound questions about faith, fear and family that remain relevant. Set in the fictional Indiana town of Zion during the Great Depression, the play centers around 14-year-old farm boy Buddy Layman, who has special abilities and handicaps. When the boy appears in the opening scene, he is about to discover underground water with his divining rod, seemingly a miraculous talent to the witnessing neighbors.

Colonial Players' 64th season has been a banquet of stimulating plays, and the season closes this month with a delightful dessert in British playwright Alan Ayckbourn's 1979 farce "Taking Steps. " The show is indeed a comic confection, and seems to have been destined for Colonial Players, presented in-the-round on a single level designed to simulate a three-story Victorian home with attic, bedroom level and living room area. Here, the cast of two couples, a solicitor and a real estate agent continually run up and down imaginary stairs while avoiding each other — all in the span of one night.

W ith Colonial Players' latest, "The Lion in Winter," director Mickey Handwerger again proves why he collects awards for CP, Bowie Community Theatre and others in the 20 Maryland theater productions he has directed over the past 15 years. Handwerger somehow makes James Goldman's drama, set around Christmas 1183, current and alive. The play centers around King Henry II of England and his estranged wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, released from prison to celebrate Christmas with him and their three sons in Chinon, France.

Triathlon The seventh annual Emily Schindler Memorial Triathlon will be held Saturday, April 20, at the Community Center in Severna Park. The 800-yard swim, 9.5-mile bike ride and 3-mile run will be held at the SPY Aquatics Center, 623 Baltimore/Annapolis Blvd. and the Baltimore/Annapolis Trail. Participants can also sign up for the Flamingo Feat distance, consisting of a 1,600-yard swim, 18-mile bike and 6-mile run. Check-in begins at 6 a.m. and the first wave of swimmers will hit the pool at 7 a.m. Cost is $50 for individuals, $90 for a relay team of two and $135 for a three-person relay team.

Colonial Players' 64th season has been a banquet of stimulating plays, and the season closes this month with a delightful dessert in British playwright Alan Ayckbourn's 1979 farce "Taking Steps. " The show is indeed a comic confection, and seems to have been destined for Colonial Players, presented in-the-round on a single level designed to simulate a three-story Victorian home with attic, bedroom level and living room area. Here, the cast of two couples, a solicitor and a real estate agent continually run up and down imaginary stairs while avoiding each other — all in the span of one night.

For its annual musical this season, Colonial Players chose the award-winning "Company," which runs through April 16 at its theater at 108 East St. in Annapolis. An inspired choice and Stephen Sondheim's first major success, "Company" first appeared in 1970 to change the Broadway musical from a standard integrated book format to an episodic structure. The production was based on a collection of one-act plays by George Furth. It seems appropriate that this new twist in the Broadway musical was devised by Sondheim, who is the legitimate successor to giants Cole Porter and Leonard Bernstein in his ability to create haunting melodies wedded to brilliant lyrics.

For its next-to-last show of the 2009-2010 season, Colonial Players is presenting Doris Baizley's "Mrs. California," which depicts a televised contest of 1950s homemaking skills. Although the play is a better choice than the previously scheduled "Kitchen Witches," it lacks the substance of CP's first five shows of the season. Baizley, who wrote the play in 1986, sets the action in 1955, a decade after millions of veterans had returned to their careers and their wives had left their wartime jobs for full-time home and family care duties.

The folks at Colonial Players have found a foolproof recipe for feel-good entertainment at "The Spitfire Grill. " The players' current musical presentation is based on TV writer/director Lee David Zlotoff's 1996 Sundance Film Festival's Audience Award-winning film. The musical version won the Richard Rogers Production Award in New Jersey before opening on Broadway in September 2001. It closed after four weeks, a victim of 9/ll. Over the past decade "The Spitfire Grill" has spread its uplifting message of renewal and redemption, reinforced by its intriguing score, to a growing number of appreciative audiences.

In "Going to St. Ives," Colonial Players offers a powerful story about two women becoming acquainted over tea — a discussion that touches on dictatorships in post-colonial Africa while offering insights into the plight of two grieving mothers reminiscent of classic Greek drama. The first act of Lee Blessing's drama is set near Cambridge, England, where two powerful women meet. World-renowned British eye surgeon Dr. Cora Gage has invited May N'Kame, empress of an African country ruled by her ruthless son, for a consultation to consider the benefits of laser treatment for glaucoma.

A fter a brutal winter, Colonial Players welcomes spring with its latest production, mindful that this is the season when our thoughts turn lightly to love. All stages of love are explored in "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" by Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts. The show is marketed as delving into "everything you have ever secretly thought about dating, romance, marriage, lovers, husbands, wives and in-laws, but were afraid to admit." Love and relationships are revealed in a series of vignettes, from dating to marriage to widowed partners dealing with their loss, all tied together by Roberts' music and DiPietro's lyrics.

Congress' inability to agree on matters of import isn't exactly a new phenomenon, but the Colonial Players' current production of the musical "1776" reminds us that fiery debate has been a part of our nation from the outset. Sherman Edwards' 1969 Tony Award winner for best musical, with book by Peter Stone, chronicles the vote for independence by the Continental Congress in the summer of 1776. Director Beth Terranova says the musical reveals "the enormity of the task our founding fathers set out for themselves.

Colonial Players offers a gem in historical and dramatic substance in its current production of Joanna McClelland Glass' "Trying," continuing through March 2 in Annapolis. This two-person "memory play" is set in 1967 and finds Judge Francis Biddle, 81, a nonfiction character, trying to finish his memoirs with assistance from newly hired Canadian secretary Sarah Schorr, 25. She has been forced on Biddle by his wife, and the two spend the play learning to adjust to each other. Glass waited until she was in her 60s to write of her experiences as secretary to Biddle, the Harvard-educated Philadelphia patrician who became her mentor.

Colonial Players' second offering of its 64th season is Sharr White's 2009 award-winning play "Sunlight. " This enduring all-volunteer company's bold choice of a topical drama examining controversial issues is laudable, although its timing, when many people are experiencing presidential election overload, seems awkward. "Sunlight" illuminates the evolution of one family after 9/11. The father, Matthew Gibbon, is an eccentric, aging liberal lion who for 30 years has served as president of a midsize college.