'On Golden Pond'

The Whitefish Theatre Co. will perform the classic drama “On Golden Pond” over two weekends, beginning Friday, April 14.

All performances will be at the O’Shaughnessy Center in Whitefish, April 14, 15, 20, 21 and 22 at 7:30 p.m., and April 16 at 4 p.m. A sneak preview will take place Thursday, April 13 at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets for the shows are $18 for adults, $16 for seniors and $10 for students, with reserved seating. To purchase, stop by the O’Shaughnessy Center box office, call (406) 862-5371 or visit www.whitefishtheatreco.org. Tickets to the sneak preview are $10 and available only at the door on the day of the show.

FULL OF heart and hope, Ernest Thompson’s “On Golden Pond” is the touching story of lovable curmudgeon Norman Thayer and his spirited wife, Ethel. Upon returning to their summer lake home in Maine, their vacation is interrupted with the unexpected arrival of their estranged daughter, her uptight fiancé and his rebellious teenage son. Over the course of the summer, an unlikely friendship develops between Norman and the boy, bringing together generations and the lessons they learn from each other. The story is a celebration of life, love and family and a show that Variety calls “a rare and memorable theatrical experience.”

Broadway actor and off-Broadway director David Ackroyd will direct the show.

“Most people know ‘On Golden Pond’ from the 1981 movie starring Katherine Hepburn and Henry and Jane Fonda,” Ackroyd said in a press release. “But as always happens when a play is turned into a film, producers feel the need to, as they say, ‘open it up,’ which basically means taking it outdoors, adding cinematic sexiness, casting major stars and doing everything they can to make the script more pleasing to a mass audience.

“Don’t get me wrong, the film version is a fine movie, but it ain’t the play.”

“Of course, Hepburn and both Fondas have become synonymous with ‘On Golden Pond’ but in actuality our cast is much closer to the original in type and temperament,” Ackroyd continued. “Stars always tend to overshadow the roles they play and Hepburn’s steeliness and Fonda’s charm inevitably altered playwright Ernest Thompson’s concept of the characters that were based on his own grandparents.”

Coincidentally, Ackroyd has a history with the original actors in the Broadway production of “On Golden Pond.”

“The original Broadway cast included Frannie Sternhagen as Ethel and Tom Aldredge as Norman, both primarily stage actors with long and distinguished careers,” Ackroyd said in the release. “A hundred years ago, I worked with both of them on TV and, trust me, neither of them is even remotely like their counterparts in the film.

“Frannie is small and feisty, as capable of a pratfall as bringing an audience to tears, and Tom was a wiry, versatile chameleon, at home in dramatic, comic and musical roles. And in temperament they strike me as quite similar to our leads, Susi Kohler and Tony Hernandez. In fact, I may be biased, but I think the entire cast is ideally suited for their roles.”

The production features Hernandez as Norman, Kohler as Ethel, Kim Krueger as daughter Chelsea, David Reese as fiancé Charlie, Dashiell Schindler as young Billy Ray, and Corey Burke as the older Bill Ray.

“The fun of working with these actors has been in watching them discover the deep roots of the familial conflict at the heart of the play,” Ackroyd added. “’As Tolstoy famously wrote, ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ In this particular family, the challenge has been to find the balance between its dysfunction and each member’s fundamental decency.

“It’s tricky because the tone of ‘On Golden Pond’ is mostly light and Norman is one of the funniest old codgers in the history of theatre, but at its core, the play is about the effort to resolve long-standing issues that have affected this family for more than 30 years.”

FOR MORE information, visit www.whitefishtheatreco.org.