Expect no sword fights or love scenes at Theatre in the Rough this fall. Instead, they\u2019re opening their 25th season with the quieter scenes of life in \u201c84 Charing Cross Road,\u201d the story of a bookish New York screenwriter and her London book buyer\u2019s 20-year friendship carried out in letters.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a love story but something rarer: the story of two kindred souls, said Theatre in the Rough co-founder Katie Jensen. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a lost art to have friendship that doesn\u2019t involve any kind of love interest,\u201d Jensen said, \u201cbut does involve the art of letter writing and the love of literature during a time when the (World War II) had just destroyed the entire world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jensen plays Helene Hanff who began writing to Frank Doel, played by Theatre in the Rough\u2019s other co-founder Aaron Elmore, at Marks & Co. Booksellers in 1949. Hanff has a taste for some outr\u00e9 and very specific books and as Doel hunts them down for her, they spark a friendship that grows to include others on bookstore\u2019s staff. Hanff soon realizes, due to Britain\u2019s post-war rationing, that her new friends on the other side of the Atlantic lack the things she takes for granted like meat and eggs, and she begins to send them regular packages. Zeb Bodine, Becky Orford and Sierra Trinchet make up the rest of the cast.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think one of the most amazing things about it, is it\u2019s a true story,\u201d Elmore said, \u201cabout a real woman and a real bookshop and it happens not so very long ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
The events in the play are small, he said. \u201cThey\u2019re personal, it\u2019s about getting a job, it\u2019s about finding something marvelous, a book.\u201d<\/p>\n
The small scale of the play has given the actors the chance to really focus on bringing the characters to life.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of them are fairly esoteric,\u201d Elmore said, but because the play is based on their real letters, \u201cyou get the chance to hear some of their words as well \u2026 and they\u2019re just as real and just as human as you.\u201d<\/p>\n
This November will be a busy time at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church on Fourth and Gold where Theatre in the Rough holds their plays in McPhetres Hall. The Glory Hole will be using some of the space to pack their Thanksgiving boxes and the church will cook about 300 pies in a single \u201cherculean\u201d effort the last Saturday of the play\u2019s run.<\/p>\n
All these activities going on around them \u201cand realizing there was this marvelous act of charity at the heart of this piece that we\u2019re doing about strangers sending food to each other across vast differences,\u201d Elmore said, inspired Theatre in the Rough to get in on the giving. Theatre-goers are encouraged to bring in a non-perishable food item in return for a $2 discount on their ticket. And even for those who don\u2019t bring anything, Theatre in the Rough will donate $2 to the Glory Hole and Head Start Families. <\/p>\n
\u201c84 Charing Cross Road\u201d premiered last week and runs 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through Nov. 19, with two Sunday matinees on Nov. 12 and 20 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $15-20 and can be bought at www.jahc.org, any of the local bookstores or at the door. For more information, go to theatreinthrough.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Expect no sword fights or love scenes at Theatre in the Rough this fall. Instead, they\u2019re opening their 25th season with the quieter scenes of life in \u201c84 Charing Cross Road,\u201d the story of a bookish New York screenwriter and her London book buyer\u2019s 20-year friendship carried out in letters. It\u2019s not a love story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":26454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-26453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26453"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=26453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}