Theater to present ‘Leading Ladies’

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Youngstown State University Theater will present the Ken Ludwig farce “Leading Ladies” at Spotlight Arena Theater. The play opens Thursday and runs for two weekends.

In “Leading Ladies,” two English Shakespearean actors, Jack and Leo, find themselves so down on their luck that they are performing on the Moose Lodge circuit in the Amish country of Pennsylvania.

When they hear that an old lady in York, Pa., is about to die and leave her fortune to her two long-lost English nephews, they resolve to pass themselves off as her beloved relatives and get the cash.

The trouble is, when they get to York, they find out that the relatives aren’t nephews, but nieces.

Romantic entanglements begin when Leo falls in love with the old lady’s vivacious niece, Meg, who’s engaged to the local minister. Ludwig, the playwright, is also the author of “Lend Me A Tenor and “Moon Over Buffalo.”

The cast of the YSU production includes Deanna Scott, Toronto, Ohio; Aaron Kubicina, Cortland; Daniel Temelkoff, Liberty; Cheney Morgan, Boardman,; Brittany Grant, Campbell; Zachary Campbell, East Liverpool; Joshua Green, Youngstown,; and Rebecca Anderson, Cortland.

Dennis Henneman, professor of theater and dance, is the director.