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On Friday evening, April 3, the Sherman Community Players will open their fourth show of the 2008-09 Season with Ernest Thompson’s critically and popularly acclaimed ON GOLDEN POND. The comedy is a touching, funny and warmly perceptive study of a spirited and lovable elderly couple facing their twilight years. It was a smash Broadway hit and an Oscar-winning movie starring Katherine Hepburn and Henry and Jane Fonda. A recent television special featured Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews in the leading roles.
Norman and Ethel Thayer are returning to their summer home on Golden Pond for the 40th year. He is a retired professor, nearing eighty, with heart palpitations and a failing memory, but still as tart-tongued, observant and eager for life as ever. Ethel, ten years younger and the perfect foil for Norman, delights in all the small things which have enriched, and continue to enrich their long life together. She and Norman are the best of friends, with a keen understanding of each other. She fills the empty spaces when he grows quiet. This play is their love story.
Heading the cast as Norman is Dick Malnory, who will be reprising the role he created in the Players’1985 production. He is joined by local Sherman attorney Avo Butler as Ethel. Rounding out the six-member cast are Beverly Dunn as their daughter Chelsea, Jerry Gundersheimer as her fiancé, Cain Williams as his son and Larry Winters as Chelsea’s childhood boyfriend. The play is directed by SCP managing and artistic director Ron Cassady.
ON GOLDEN POND plays Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 p.m., and Sunday afternoons at 2 p.m. through April 19 in the Finley Theatre at 500 N. Elm in Sherman. Tickets range in price from $7 to $14, and reservations may be made by calling the box office at 903-892-8818. For budget-minded theatergoers, there will be a preview performance on Thursday evening, April 2 at 8 p.m. Tickets for the preview are $5 and may be purchased at the door.
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