"This is the play that you can take your friends and out of town guests to with confidence. It is a wild and hilarious theatrical roller coaster ride with many unexpected twists and turns, reaching fast and dizzying speeds as you hang on to your seat."
                            - Larry Murray, Berkshire Fine Arts

Charles Morey's wild, fun-filled farce The Ladies Man opens at Centenary Stage Company on February 17th at the David and Carol Lackland Center in Hackettstown. Set in the golden age of Paris, the action of the play evolves around a charming doctor and the madness that ensues after he tells "one, tiny, little, hardly noticeable lie" to cover an innocent but embarrassing indiscretion. Soon pandemonium breaks out, and no one is left unscathed as the plot unravels and mistaken identities and unexpected connections run rampant. Adapted from Georges Feydeau's comedy "The Ladies' Dressmaker," the author once said, "Whenever two of my characters absolutely, positively under any circumstances shouldn't meet, I put them in the same room together."

by George Feydeau
Adapted by Charles Morey

"This is as close to ROTFL (Rolling on the Floor Laughing) as you will probably ever experience at a live show," raved critic Larry Murray of Berkshire Fine Arts about "The Ladies Man," and The Wall Street Journal declared "I can't recall the last time I laughed so hard." The production will be directed by CSC Artistic Director Carl Wallnau, who is known for his masterful comedic direction of numerous plays over the past two decades. Wallnau, who will also lead the cast as the doctor, is a veteran theatre professional, having performed in the first national Broadway tour of the musical "Titanic", performed many seasons with the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, and been seen on regional stages of the Paper Mill Playhouse, NYC's Second Stage, People's Light, The Lark Theatre, Hartford Stage, Bristol Riverside, and Orlando Shakespeare Company. Wallnau has won numerous awards over the years, including outstanding direction in productions of Springtime for Henry, Quartermaines Terms and Pygmalion.

The Cast
Direct from the Broadway run of Mike Nichols, Ethan Coen and Woody Allen's Relatively Speaking, Allen Lewis Rickman, returns to CSC to star as the doctor's sputtering patient, Bassinet. CSC audiences will remember Rickman from his performances in CSC's The Prisoner of Second Avenue, My Three Angels, Below the Belt, and The Small Empire Music Hall which he co-wrote and directed. Rickman's film and television work includes the Coen Brothers' Oscar-nominated A Serious Man, Martin Scorsese's HBO series Boardwalk Empire, and Barry Levinson's Emmy-nominated You Don't Know Jack.

The cast also includes New Jersey favorite Liz Zazzi (Montclair) returning to the CSC stage to play Madame Aigreville. Critically acclaimed for his comedic acting and directing skills, Artistic Director Carl Wallnau will play Doctor Molineux, and his wife will be played by Alycia Kunkle (Lehighton, Pennsylvania). Last seen on the CSC stage in the World Premiere of How to Pray, Colin Ryan (Hoboken) returns to play the blustering Gustav Aubin. Ryan is also a regular on the stages of the Actors Shakespeare Company in Jersey City. Graduates of the Acting program at Montclaire State University, Ashley Kowzun (Kenvil) and Jacklyn Ingoglia (North Caldwell) make their debuts in Hackettstown as Suzanne and Marie. Ingoglia recently won the NJ OBIE Award for Best Actress in a Musical. The part of the ever-suffering attaché, Etienne, will be played by Robert Anthony Jones (New York).

The Set
The Ladies Man's elegant set will be designed by Emmy Award winner Bob Phillips, who designed CSC's recent productions of Moss Hart's Light Up the Sky and Theresa Rebeck's Bad Dates. Phillips designs regularly for the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, The Arts Center of Coastal Carolina, Alpine Theatre Project, Florida Studio Theatre, and numerous New York and regional theatre companies. He has been the Resident Designer at the Orlando Shakespeare Festival for the past 17 years, where he has designed over 75 sets. Phillips has received Outer Critic Circle, Madison, Village and Lillian Stoates awards for his theatre work, and six Emmy awards for his television designs, including 4 for his work on Sesame Street, where he has designed for more than a decade.