Island Players Present Self Help by Norm Foster...
A married couple, of second-rate theater actors no less, re-invent themselves as nationally renowned self-help gurus.
It's the Island Players 61st season and they have quite the line-up scheduled.
Early in the New Year, they present Norm Foster's 'Self Help'.
January 21-February 7, 2010 - 'Self Help' is an Adult Comedy.
Self Help by Norm Foster
Any self-help guru would agree: laughter is the best therapy around! Belly laughs will abound when the curtain goes up for Self-Help, by "Canada's preeminent comic playwright" Norm Foster.
There's a body in the study, a detective in the hall and a nosy Sun reporter prowling the second floor. What are stressed out, self-help gurus Cindy and Hal Savage to do? Have sex on the pool table, of course.
We are in the fantasyland of stage farce. Everything about this wacky Norm Foster comedy is amplified through the distorting lens of a magnificent magnifying glass.
Take a naked body in the study, a romantically-challenged detective in the hall, a tabloid reporter digging for dirt on the second floor, a stressed-out maid in the kitchen, a couple of actors-turned-self-help gurus running around trying to manage it all, then toss in a wise-cracking gritty agent and what do you have? The perfect way to launch yourself into spring!
Hal and Cindy Savage are a couple of second-rate actors who long for a first-class life. They are weary of scraping out a meager living by plying their trade in second-rate theatres. The best thing they have is their love for each other. Cindy has an epiphany involving a pithy self-help book and a bad night at yet another uninspiring dinner theatre… voila!
They re-invent themselves as all-knowing gurus of personal and professional development, and are a runaway success.
Sadly, love is the victim as their bank account grows and their love for each other dwindles. Enter an amorous gardener, a sudden death, surprise visits from their agent, a policeman and a nosey reporter on their idealistic new maid's first day on the job!
Fasten your seatbelts and prepare yourself for a roller-coaster ride of insightful zingers, witty asides and bawdy humour!
One critic called Foster's, Self Help, a Black Hearted Farce worth the price of admission.
"Getting off some insightful zingers about these oily practitioners who make emotional healing a grandstand success, Foster is at the top of his game. He's never been funnier. Eschewing the sentimental warmth of works like Ethan Claymore and the silly affectations of comedies like The Affections of May, Foster goes for the funnybone and the jugular. "
"Self Help, which has had audiences rolling happily in the aisles since its debute, is a sensational, black-hearted farce worth the price of admission."
Be sure to catch Norm Fosters, Self Help, presented by the Anna Maria Island Players.
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