Chagrin Valley Little Theatre

Durang, Durang by Christopher Durang

Performance Dates & Tickets

About the Play

The fine art of parody returns to the theater in productions you can sink your teeth and mind into while laughing like an idiot...

The CVLT River Street Playhouse presents one-acts by silly, funny, over-the-top playwright Christopher Durang. These may include:

Mrs. Sorken, about a middle-aged suburban matron who is scheduled to lecture on the meaning of theatre, but has lost her notes;

For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls, a parody of Tennessee William’s classic The Glass Menagerie – a crackpot comedy of parent-child tensions;

A Stye of the Eye, a schizoid send-up of Sam Sheppard’s A Lie of the Mind, featuring Jake, a rage-oholic cowboy who has probably killed his wife, Beth (played by a male). Ma, his feisty, no-nonsense mother with a bad memory, and Jake's sister, Mae, who is in love with her brother;

Nina in the Morning, which presents a preposterously narcissistic wealthy woman, juxtaposing scenes from Nina's past misbehaviors with the present morning when she can't seem to get her butler to bring her a cruller;

Wanda’s Visit, in which Jim and Marsha, a bored married couple, have their lives thrown into disarray by a sudden visit from Wanda, Jim’s high school girl friend.  Wanda can’t stop talking, she flirts inappropriately with Jim, and tells long stories of her past promiscuity and various (possibly criminal) activities;

Business Lunch at the Russian Tea Room, about a writer, Chris, who has a business meeting at the Russian Tea Room with a new Hollywood hotshot, Melissa. At the Tea Room, Melissa pitches insane ideas to Chris who can't wait to just leave this meeting. Once home, he tries so hard to write up the idea of a priest and a rabbi who fall in love (and other complications) that they actually appear to him to help him through.

A master parodist, Durang’s works include the Obie Award-winning Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You, Bryond Therapy, Baby With The Bathwater and The Actor’s Nightmare.  Durang received a Tony Award nomination for Best Book of a Musical for A History of the American Film, and was a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Miss Witherspoon.

Durang/Durang was first presented at the Manhattan Theatre Club on November 14, 1994.

Sitting through “Durang/Durang” is a little like going on the bumper cars at an amusement park: you’re so caught up in the exhilarating hysteria that it doesn’t matter to you that you’re not actually going anywhere except – momentarily, blissfully – outside yourself.  
     – Nancy Franklin, The New Yorker