
IROQUOIS – It’s just four weeks until the Iroquois-Matilda Lions Club production of the mad cap comedy, Drop Dead!, comes to the stage at Upper Canada Playhouse. The community can look forward to a show full of laughs, double/triple/quadruple entendres, merry mixups, hilarious antics – and, yes, perhaps a dead body or two.
Drop Dead! represents a milestone for the Iroquois-Matilda Club – their 20th theatrical production. Their very first show, The Haunted House, was staged at Seaway District High School in 1984: the club had been exploring new approaches to fund raising, and someone suggested “putting on a show.” The response from the community to The Haunted House was so warm and strong, that a new tradition was born. Every other year since 1984, Lions and spouses have taken to the stage to put on a live show. And in the process, the Club has raised thousands of dollars, funds which have all been invested right back into our community through Lions events, charities and support groups.
The Drop Dead! cast of ten actors has been hard at work rehearsing with director Wendy Gibb, at the Playhouse. There is lots of activity backstage as well, as sets are built and the technical/sound plot designed. Gibb commented that “this show is really coming together. And it is very funny. The actors are creating some very memorable ‘characters’, who will leave everyone laughing.”
The play, by Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore, is set in 1959. Third rate director Victor Le Pewe has brought together a cast of third (even fifth) rate actors to stage what is supposed to be a “traditional British murder mystery set at Barrington Manor in the dead of winter.” The show has some decidedly “shady money” backing it: the playwright is disrupting the rehearsals: there’s no funds for set design or back stage staff: opening night is three days away. And this doesn’t even take into account that some of the corpses suddenly appearing on set may just be…real!
Don’t miss your chance to enjoy a terrific, and hilarious show, presented by the Iroquois-Matilda Lions Club. Drop Dead! runs for four shows only, April 27-April 29, 2023, at Upper Canada Playhouse.
