JACKSON, Tenn. — Aug. 21, 2002 — The 51社区 Players and Alpha Psi Omega will present the female version of The Odd Couple, Thursday, Aug. 29 鈥� Sunday, Sept. 1, in the W.D. Powell Theater on Union鈥檚 Jackson campus.
Directed by Union senior Hannah Burke of Jackson, show times for each night are 8 p.m. with a 2:30 p.m. matinee for the Sunday performance. A special dinner theatre will be offered before the Saturday performance beginning at 6 p.m. in the Coburn Dining Room of the Barefoot Student Union Building benefiting the Jackson Soccer Club.
Best known for its main characters, Oscar and Felix, The Odd Couple, one of Neil Simon's many hits, won four Tony awards in 1965 and seeded a movie and a long-running television series.
While mention of Oscar and Felix brings visions of Tony Randall and Jack Klugman to mind, in the 1980s Simon gave in to requests to allow female productions of the play, and reworked the play himself so that it would retain its structure but with his characters rewritten to be "real women not women behaving as men as played by women." Since that version's Broadway debut, starring Sally Struthers and Rita Moreno, quite a number of productions of this all-female Odd Couple have been mounted.
Tickets for the dinner theatre are $15, which includes both dinner and show. Regular tickets are $3 for students and $7 for the general public, with an additional dollar for reserved seating.
For ticket reservations, call the Union box office at (731) 661-5105 or (731) 661-5287.