TCAN Stages Table Manners This Weekend

NATICK, MA - Annie has arranged to spend an illicit weekend with her sister Ruth's husband Norman, and for this reason, suitably disguised, has asked her elder brother Reg and his wife Sarah to look after their widowed mother and the house.

Find out how is all works out in the tremendously funny TCAN Players’ production of Alan Ayckbourn’s award-winning play, Table Manners, at The Center for Arts in Natick.

The play includes Framingham residents Kurt Fusaris as Norman and Sue Scannell-Gilbert as Sarah.

Table Manners performances are March 11-12 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, March 13 at 2 p.m.

Fusaris is making his first appearance with the TCAN Players. Professionally he is a speech-language pathologist and his hobbies include reading, writing, traveling, and getting involved with local politics.

Scannell-Gilbert, a Massachusetts native, also is making her TCAN Players debut.

However, she is no stranger to acting, having lived in both New York and Los Angeles where she has had a few contracted television roles.

Some of her favorite stage roles include Sister Aloysius in Doubt, Jean Horton in Jean Horton, Velma Von Tussle in Hairspray, and Baroness Elsa Schraeder in The Sound of Music.

The first in the trilogy of comedies in Ayckborn's Norman Conquests, Table Manners is the story of a philandering loser and the lives he brightens and smudges. In this rollicking comedy, Annie has arranged to spend an illicit weekend with her sister Ruth's husband Norman but their plans go awry when other family members interfere.

Table Manners won the 2009 Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critic’s Circle Award for best revival of a play. Audiences will remember the TCAN Players’ production of Ayckbourn’s play Improbable Fiction, which packed the firehouse in 2013.

The production is directed by Paul Dixon and is sponsored by MutualOne Bank.

Tickets are $22/$20 for members. Senior and student discounts are available through the box office (508.647.0097); or at www.natickarts.org.

The Center for Arts in Natick is located at 14 Summer Street, Natick, in a restored 1875 firehouse. The theatre is wheelchair accessible.

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Photo by Worrest Photography

CAPTION: Will all go well, when the family arrives? Find out in the TCAN Players’ production of Alan Ayckbourn’s rollicking comedy, “Table Manners”, March 4-13. Sarah (Sue Scannell-Gilbert), Ruth ( Ginny Carpenter), and Annie (Julia Trueblood). Sitting L-R Reg (Phil Doherty), Norman (Kurt Fusaris), and Tom (Greg White)