Vanities!

Let's take a trip down memory lane.... 

I just found this press release from the first show I directed. Ah, nostalgia.

Nine years later... Lauren and I have teamed up again to direct The Vagina Monologues. 

Note: the following press release is from 2002, please don't try to buy tickets....

I'm sorry to report, you totally missed the boat on that one.

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Vanities

Presented this Weekend (August 16, 2002)

At Brundage Park Playhouse

Photos By Joe Gigli

Randolph - Jack Heifner's hit play VANITIES, to be presented by the Brundage Park Playhouse, directed by Andrea Bartola, assistant director, Lauren Balaban, is a laugh-out-loud yet bittersweet comedy about the growth of a friendship among three small town women coming of age in the 1960s and '70s. 

Randolph - Jack Heifner's hit play VANITIES, to be presented by the Brundage Park Playhouse, directed by Andrea Bertola, assistant director, Lauren Balaban, is a laugh-out-loud yet bittersweet comedy about the growth of a friendship among three small town women coming of age in the 1960s and '70s.

Remember those high school vows between close friends to stick together and never change? But then you begin college, experience different things and realize the sentiments which you once shared have sadly diverged on different paths. Just when you've made that adjustment and settled into university life, adapting to new friends' oddities, you have to make yet another change - this time into the "real" world.

The play reflects each woman's personal evolution from adolescence to adulthood as well as society's evolution from the assassination of John F. Kennedy to the Watergate scandal. The first scene brings the audience in on the girls' lives while they are still high school students, the second carries them forward to 1968 college life -- at which time they are still intimately interconnected -- and the third reunites them after several years of separation. By that time -- 1974 -- they are

living in the New York City area, and their lives have taken different turns, at least on the surface.

Kathy, played by Gwynne Crowley, is the organizer who gives form to all their plans. While not at all sure what she really wants in life, she guesses that she'll probably become a Physical Education teacher until the right guy comes along.

Lauren Delaney is portraying the role of Joanne, a naïve girl and future happy homemaker. She sees college not so much as an opportunity for learning, but as a means to sustain the relationship with her cherished pals -- and to stay close to her dream guy -- until she finally gets the family life that she believes will be idyllic. She works hard to maintain a view of the world that no seriously disruptive thoughts or events can penetrate.

In contrast to Joanne, Mary is a seething volcano, constantly trembling on the verge of eruption -- and possible extinction -- as she desperately seeks ways to gain freedom from parents whose resources are liberating, but whose control is stifling. Played by Melissa Crecca, shocking events and rebellious thoughts are Mary's specialty.

The original New York production of Heifner's play ran for five years and became one of the longest running plays in Off-Broadway history.

The show will run Friday and Saturday, August 16 and 17, 2002 at 8:00 p.m. in the playhouse on Carrell Road in Randolph. Admission will be $5.00. For more information and/or reservations call the playhouse at (973) 989-7092.

(left) Lauren DeLaney, as Joanne. (right) Melissa Crecca, as Mary. (center) Gwynne Crowley, as Kathy.