In honor of Pegasus Theatre’s 30th anniversary, we continue our countdown of the Top 30 Shows with number 23, A Girl’s Guide To Chaos by Cynthia Heimel, produced for the first time in Dallas by Pegasus Theatre in 1988.
Kurt gets ideas for shows in a variety of ways. For the Living Black & White™ series, his inspiration tends to come from researching old movies of the 1930s and 1940s. For other shows that we’ve produced over the years, Kurt uses multiple sources:
- Plays submitted by the playwright
- Plays he has ordered from a play service
- Plays we have seen while traveling to New York or another city
A Girl’s Guide to Chaos fell into the second category. The title and the plot summary were appealing, so Kurt ordered a copy from the play service representing the playwright. He read the script and loved it! It featured three women going through the various stages of dating, with a fourth female (a cleaning woman) and one male (an Every Man character) providing commentary on the side.
It was delightful! And the cast was spectacular: Carolyn Ryberg (now Reis Myers McCormick), Cindee Mayfield, and Kathryn Graybill played the triumvirate, while Rosemary Baxter and Anthony Ridley provided welcome diversions as the side characters.
But an odd thing happened when rehearsals started. This incredible cast wasn’t finding the humor in the script, which pretty much means death to a comedy. Kurt was directing and tried various approaches to shift the focus, with little success. Finally he hit upon an unusual idea. We bought five pairs of fake glasses with fake noses attached. And Kurt had the cast wear them at the next rehearsal.
It worked. Oh, not right away. No, that was a VERY uncomfortable rehearsal as the cast came to grips with the misalignment between their physical appearance wearing fake glasses/noses and their rather serious line readings. It took the cast 24 hours to process what they had experienced. When they returned for the next day’s rehearsal, they were primed for comedy!
And what a tremendous job they did! Audiences loved it and we played to packed houses. Critics loved it too, and the playwright even came to see the show.
We revived the show a year later with a slightly different cast, and it was again popular and well-received. But we have especially fond memories of that first production, walking down a new path with a trusting cast and striking a chord with the audience and critics. These are moments when all the elements come together and all is right with the world.