Summer stage

Princeton Summer Theater season continues with The Glass Menagerie For Shawn Fennell ’10, Douglas Lavanture ’09, and the handful of other students and recent graduates who run Princeton Summer Theater (PST), July has meant 14-hour days in the cozy confines of Murray Dodge Hall and a schedule filled with rehearsals, set construction, and a range of odd jobs, from manning the ticket counter to designing playbills. Each day may be tiring, says Fennell, the company's artistic director, but with four plays in a span of nine weeks, the performers "never get tired" of the material. In mid-June, on the day PST debuted the musical Urinetown, the Musical , cast members also had their first read-through of the Tennessee Williams play The Glass Menagerie , which will begin its two-weekend run July 9. Also on the PST schedule: No Time for Comedy (July 23-Aug. 2), a 1939 S.N. Behrman play that also was made into a film starring Jimmy Stewart ’32; and The Underpants (Aug. 6-16), Steve Martin's adaptation of a German play from the early 1900s. PST, now in its 41st year, offers valuable experience to young performers and gives students a chance to run their own business. Lavanture, the company's publicity director, said the group his hoping the recession could help draw people to PST shows this year. Affordable, close-to-home entertainment is in demand, he reasons. Urinetown , the PST opener, was the company's most ambitious production in memory, with a cast of 16 performers, including seven Princeton students or alumni. The Glass Menagerie , Fennell says, will be a smaller, more intimate production. The set includes a large screen for projected images that follow the instructions in Williams' original script.   Above, a young Amanda (Sara-Ashley Bischoff ’09) waits for a gentleman caller in one of the projected images used in Princeton Summer Theater's production of The Glass Menagerie . (Photo courtesy Princeton Summer Theater)   For more information about tickets, visit the Princeton Summer Theater Web site .