Café theatre brewing

BY HOLLIE WATSON

For over 20 years, the Lakeshore Players have been presenting high-quality entertainment in an intimate setting via Café Theatre, an annual event which has proved consistently popular with West Island audiences.

Café Theatre traditionally follows on the heels of its current season, which wrapped up last month, according to Donna Byrne, who will direct two of the five witty and quick-paced plays being staged beginning June 5. “It’s a very laid-back atmosphere, with tables set up café-style. People can buy drinks and snacks, and there’s music at intervals,” said the Kirkland resident, who is directing Café Theatre for the third time.

One of its aims is “to provide an opportunity for both seasoned and less experienced actors to explore different aspects of the theatre, whether back stage or on stage,” explained Byrne, who directed Hudson Players’ most recent production and appeared in the company’s Trap for a Lonely Man last March.

Relationships are the common thread underlying the hilarious one-act plays on the 2008 bill of fare.

Byrne is directing The Wedding Story, “a play about life as a fairy tale, until the rearing of reality’s ugly head. “In A Matter of Husbands, a wife discovers evidence that her husband has been unfaithful, but things are not always what they seem.”

Check Please is being directed by Ricky Zurif, who has directed and acted with Café Theatre and main stage productions as well. The play looks at the trials and tribulations of blind dating – especially when that date turns out to be a kleptomaniac or a mime.

Lakeshore Players veteran Peter Cook directs Post-its (Notes on a Marriage) – an updated version of A.L. Gurney’s Love Letters, as well as the comedy Controlling Interest, which examines what happens when a group of professionals “indulge their inner children.” Café Theatre performances will be held at the Sarto Desnoyers Community Centre, 1335 Lakeshore Dr. in Dorval, from June 5 through 7. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., with curtain time at 8. Cash bar and other refreshments will be available. Tickets are $10 and will be sold at the door.