The Academy for the Performing Arts presents Leading Ladies

                The Academy for the Performing Arts will be presenting the hilarious comedy Leading Ladies by Ken Ludwig on November 17,18 and 19 at 7:30 pm and November 20 at 2:00 at the Huntington Beach High School’s historic auditorium at 1905 Main Street in Huntington Beach.  Imagine a bit of Some Like It Hot put together with some scrambled Shakespeare and a lot of laughs and you have a couple hours of fun.

Two Shakespearean actors, Leo Clark and Jack Gable, are not having success playing Scenes from Shakespeare at the Moose Lodge in York, Pennsylvania in the spring of 1958. When the audience turns on them they find themselves out of money. They read in the newspaper about a local woman planning to leave her millions to her two long lost heirs in England.   The men plan to pass themselves off at the nephews only to find out that the missing relatives are actually nieces.  Undaunted they decide to proceed with their plan.  Leo is played by Bryce Miller who won the 2011 Cappies Award for Best Comic Actor in a play for his memorable performance as the Highwayman in Tom Jones.   Zack Carlson, who won an National Youth Arts Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor as Billy Flynn in Play Ball. 

“Maxine” and “Stephanie” show up on Aunt Florence’s (Kaitlyn Glenn) doorstep where Leo falls for Meg (Lauren Eliot) at first sight.  Unfortunately she is engaged to a fussy minister Duncan (Naftali Wayne) who has plans for the millions himself and sets out to find out what it is that is so odd about the two English girls.  Jack fell for the bubble headed Audrey (Alyssa Grimaldi) the minute she roller-skated into his life on the train but now find out that she is spoken for by the equally dimwitted Butch (Stephen Stanec) whose father, Doc (Chris Willis) wants his son to hold out for someone with more money, like Stephanie.  Eventually the entire cast finds themselves in a production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night unlike any other.   The ensemble of Justin Bliss alternating with Garrett Brown, Tara Coffey, Cheyenne Derr, Christian Hutcherson, Kelsey Kato, Kate Morton, and Daniel Pascoe complete the cast.  Live music will be performed by Emma Fowler, Anthony Grisham, Troy Hanson, Laura Mandich and Thomas Niekamp.

Robert Rotenberry directs Leading Ladies.  Diane Makas choreographs the tango and waltz dances in the show.   Joe Batte is the technical director, Courtney Suter  is the costume director and Gregg Gilboe is the orchestra director.  The student design team includes: Set Designers- Alyssa Grimaldi and Kevin Schow; Lighting Designers- Quinn Owen and Danielle Watson; Costume Designers- Keani Hopgood, Jeanna Lego and Monica Wilson; Sound Designer- Danielle Kisner; and Make up Designer- Jamie Kompleski.  Bradley Smith is the Stage Manager.

Tickets are $20.00 for adults and $15.00 for students and senior citizens.  Students can get a special $5.00 ticket for the Thursday night show only by showing their i.d. card at the box office.  For information go to the APA website, www.hbapa.org or call the APA office at (714) 536-2514 Ext. 4025.