USU's Lyric Repertory Company Opens Season with 'The Foreigner'

Old Lyric Repertory Company in the Caine School of the Arts at Utah State University opens its season June 11 with a favorite comedy, The Foreigner. Other shows in rolling repertory this season are You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, The Importance of Being Earnest and An Inspector Calls. Performances are June 11-Aug 1 in the historic Caine Lyric Theatre (28 W. Center Street, Logan).

Tickets range from $19-$25 and senior/youth/USU faculty staff discounts are available by calling the Caine School of the Arts Box Office at 435-797-8022 or 435-752-1500. Tickets are available online or at the door prior to performances.

 

Directed by Adrianne Moore and starring W. Lee Daily, The Foreigner promises laughter and charm, but mostly laughter, the director said.

 

The action is set at a rustic Georgia inn, and Charlie Baker (W. Lee Daily) shouldn’t have come. Charlie, a 27-year veteran proofreader for a London science fiction magazine shouldn’t have left his wife Mary’s side in the hospital. Her doctors have given her just six months to live. And, despite the fact that she finds Charlie, well, boring, he shouldn’t have tagged along on a trip to the backwoods of Georgia to Betty Meeks’s (Keri Larsen) fishing lodge with his old Army buddy, demolitions expert Froggy LeSueur (Phillip Lowe), who’s conducting training sessions at nearby military base.

 

Terrified that he will have to engage in idle conversation with Betty and the other lodge guests, the pathologically shy Charlie begs Froggy to save him from having to speak. Froggy concocts an innovative solution to the problem. He tells Betty that Charlie is a foreigner who speaks no English. Froggy departs, secure in the belief that no one will attempt to engage Charlie in conversation. Horrified at the prospect of carrying out the charade, Charlie plans to come clean. But, before he can talk to Betty, Charlie overhears a painfully private conversation between the Simms Prepared Meats heiress Catherine Simms (Aubrey Campbell) and her fiancé Rev. David Marshall Lee (Daniel B. Thompson), and “Cha-oo-lee” is born.

 

The Foreigner has delighted audiences for more than two decades. Originally performed to sold-out houses at Milwaukee Rep before moving to New York for a long off-Broadway run, Shue’s play won two Obie Awards and two Outer Critics Circles Awards for Best New Play and Best Off-Broadway Production.

 

“A devilishly clever idea,” proclaimed the New York Post. “I laughed start to finish at one comic surprise after another,” added The New Yorker.

 

The Foreigner opens June 11 at the Caine Lyric Theatre, home to the Old Lyric Repertory Company, and performances continue June 12 and 13 with additional dates during the summer schedule. It is joined Wednesday, June 17, with You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.

 

For information on the OLRC, including group ticket sales, call Public Relations and Marketing Director Sally Okelberry, (435) 797-1500, or email sally.okelberry@usu.edu.