Even before the first line of the Pilgrim Players production of “The Little Dog Laughed,” opening Friday evening at the school, the audience is going to know a lot of work has gone into this comedy that revolves around a young woman returning home from college and applying classroom psychology to her family and friends. The set, one of the more ambitious undertaken by producer/director Richard Denningham, brings the audience inside the Huntington home where all the action takes place.
The Players customarily perform a musical and a play during the school year. Denningham said students wanted a play that was fun. “The Little Dog Laughed,” taken from the nursery rhyme, “Hey Diddle Diddle/The cat and the fiddle/The cow jumped over the moon/ The little dog laughed, to see such sport/And the dish ran away with the spoon,” fit the bill.
He said it also passed the “grandmother test” in that the language and content would not provoke protests from grandparents. The play has a cast of 15 and an additional 25 students on crew with most of them stage technicians, set design and scene artists, which explains the elaborate set.
Denningham estimates the cost of the show at $6,000 with major chunks of the money going toward the purchase of an additional four wireless microphones and furniture and materials for the set. Since taking on the role of producer/director for the players 12 years ago, Denningham estimates about $45,000 has been raised that all goes back into the school’s drama program.
Major supporters of the program are the Robert Shapiro Foundation, founded soon after the former superintendent of schools retired to benefit the performing arts in Warwick Schools and the William Bowling Jr. Foundation in memory of the late chairman of the Warwick School Committee.
Denningham said he has purposely kept ticket prices affordable – general admission is $8 and students and seniors are $5. They are available at the door. Show times are 7 p.m. this Friday and Saturday and at 2 p.m. on Sunday.
The cast includes Laura Huntington played by Mariah Hunt; Martha Huntington, Grace Pine; Sidney Huntington, Christian Tanguay; Wally Huntington, Jackson Bazarnick; Joan Wood, Sylvia Wood; Mark Bradford, Nathan Robideau; Lillian Wood, Sydney Blair and Ted Wood, Brian McKenna.
Also, Miss “Gus” Gustavesky, Kayley Hollingshead; Horatio P. Honeywell, Connor Williams; Walola Breckenridge, Brianna Callahan; Theresa Brown, Ava Malmberg; Grace Schoenbeck, Isabelle Boullier; Caroline Blakesly, Julia Bock and Amelia Dennis, Abbey Spolidoro.
(Text and photos by John Howell)