The
Orleans Older Players are at it again. The Orleans Young
Players Theatre School's class for mature (as in their
age) thespians have come up with another bit of quirkiness
in their latest production "Dying for a Cookie: A
Nanette Ninoon Mystery".
The play takes place in the Mega Magna
Cookie Company which has fallen on hard times and has
decided to hold a cookie contest in the hope of discovering
the next great cookie.
The
contestants are an eccentric bunch of budding bakers,
to say least. There's the identical twin biker chicks,
Em and Amy Goodwin, played by OOPS veterans Sue Ashton
and Céline Nadeau; Alpha Main, a waitress and aspiring
bakery owner, played by Sarah Benfield; perennial baking
champion and cookbook author Calla Bean, played by another
local theatre veteran Marni Hunt-Stephens who also wrote
the script; and last, but not least, Morden Famsey, a
nearsighted, obsessive/compulsive optometrist, who is
played by David Shackleton.
The
contestants are being judged by Nia Kosta, played by Susan
Flemming, Paoli Borges, played by Andre Lacasse, and Tanya
"Tan" Lee, played Pam Ryan.
Biz
MacDonald plays Vanessa E. Artifey who is running the
contest, while Lyne Shackleton rounds out the cast as
detective and Queen of the puns Nanette Ninoon.
The
production is an entertaining mix of song, humour and
drama provided by the demise of Paoli
Borges who eats a poisoned cookie.
As
it turns out, all five contestants have a motive. The
victim refused to endorse Calla Bean's latest cook book.
He neglected to leave Alpha Main a tip when she served
him at the restaurant she worked at. And he rejected a
crossword submitted by Em and Amy Goodwin's father for
a new crossword book, leaving only Morden Famsey, the
nearsighted optometrist who is obsessed with order, lacking
a motive.
Although
Detective Ninoon's is quick to pick up on the natural
order of the judging panel -- NIA
Kosta (Nea), loves strawberry, Paoli
Borges (poli) prefers chocolate and Tan Lee's (tan) favourite
ingredient is vanilla (Nea-ploi-tan) -- the matching flavours
force the obsessive Famsey off the deep end, because
as any fan of neapolitan ice cream will attest, vanilla
is always in the middle.
In
"Dying for a Cookie", Hunt Stephens delivers
yet another wonderfully eccentric and whimsical story
that the OOPS class brings to life in their own marvelously
quirky way.
Showtimes
are at at 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 16in the Richcraft Theatre of the Shenkmand Arts Centre.
Tickets are $10 each and are available at the door.
(This
story was made possible thanks to the generous support of
our local business partners.)