ALLEGANY, N.Y. — When several local actors from the area performed in “The Great American Trailer Park Musical” a few years ago, they had so much fun with the spicy comedy they couldn’t resist staging it again.
The benefit dinner theater show, directed by Eric VanDruff and produced by Paula Bernstein, will be performed Jan. 13 and 14 at the Premiere Banquet Center on Constitution Avenue in Olean and Jan. 20 and 21 at the Limestone Community Center on Main Street. Dinner will be served at 6 p.m. with the show staged at 7:30 p.m. at both venues.
The show is for adults 21 and older because the material and language are for mature audiences. Admission is $30 and includes dinner as well as the performance. Proceeds from the Olean show will benefit the Olean Community Theatre and The Pink Pumpkin Project. Proceeds from the Limestone show will benefit the Limestone Volunteer Fire Department and Bradford (Pa.) Little Theatre.
Wymer, who came up with the idea for the benefit show, said the performance is amusing, if somewhat risque. Wymer played piano in the local production several years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it.
“We had so much fun doing it three years ago that we couldn’t wait to do it again,” she said of the previous benefit show.
Shane Oschman of Bradford, who portrays the lead performer, Norbert, said the show is fun and “cute.” Oschman plays opposite of Wymer, of Olean, who plays his wife, Jeannie.
“It takes place in Stark County, Florida, and the synopsis is Norbert, a tax collector, and his wife, Jeannie, live in a trailer park, but their child was kidnapped when he was a baby,” Oschman said. “Therefore, (Jeannie) became an agoraphobic and has been unwilling to leave the trailer for the past 20 years.”
As a result, Norbert strays and has an affair with a woman named Pippi, an exotic dancer portrayed by Emily Sullivan, who comes to Starke to escape her crazy, marker-sniffing boyfriend, Duke, portrayed by Clay Nolan, who has a secret to reveal.
Also in the hilarious line-up is Linoleum, portrayed by Tanaka Losey, named as such because her “mama” gave birth to her on the kitchen floor.
The show is rounded out by other characters who include “Pickles,” played by Bridgette Martin, who is “dumber than a box of hair” as she describes herself. And finally there’s Betty, portrayed by Joy Wilber, the leasing manager of the trailer park who had her husband buried in the back yard.
Wymer said the set for the show will consist of a couple of trailers with Christmas lights on them, and a set of mailboxes between them. There’s also a cooler in front and some of those “real nice” lawn chairs with the woven strips of fabric on metal frames, she added.
Wymer said tickets for the Olean performance can be obtained online at oleancommunitytheatre.com. Tickets for the Limestone show can be purchased at the Limestone Firemen’s Club, or in Bradford at Graham’s Florist and Togi’s Family Restaurant. Corporate tables are available for $300, and the business name can be listed in the program. For more information, contact Van Druff at (716) 307-1910.
