By Tonya Burton
Willie Wood, fifth time director from Westfield, successfully staged “I Married An Angel,” at the Carmel Community Playhouse as the final piece of the season. Although the small theater seats 120 people, the production seemed much larger. With imaginative use of space, including movable sets, the director, cast and crew brought the adapted 1938 play by Hungarian playwright Janos Vaszary to vigorous life. The Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart musical featured an all-volunteer cast, primarily music school graduates or current students. As a point of interest, MGM made the musical into a film in 1942, starring Jeannette Mac Donald and Nelson Eddy.
The play is about a love-weary banker who breaks off his engagement with his fiancé and says the only girl he could marry would be an angel. Voilà! A real angel appears in his life and he falls in love with her. However, problems arise because she is free of human failings that allow people to tolerate each other, such as little white lies, or circumventing the truth in order to be socially polite. The real problem arises when she unwittingly reveals hidden bank account numbers, causing her husband’s bank to face financial crisis and seemingly inevitable failure. Valerie Vincent is solicited to teach Angel how to be a human. Belinda, formerly Angel, learns the skills of social manipulation and feminine wiles, and in doing so, saves her husband’s business.
Lead roles in the CCP play featured: Scott Martin as Willie Perrin, hero banker; Jenny Mitchell as the angel who becomes the earthly Belinda; Vince Accetturo as Peter Mueller, worried banker; Jessamyn Anderson as Judy Wentworth, a formerly proper woman; Kyle Martin as Harry Horton, Las Vegas billionaire; and Jen Martin as Valerie Vincent, the woman who dominates her social group.
Of special note and celebration, Perry Hilficker, who plays Celeste in the play, is marrying Vince Accetturo, one of the featured actors and the producer of this play. This is their last performance together before their marriage on November 1st. Congratulations to Perry and Vince!
The 2014-15 season for the Carmel Community Players begins Sept. 19 with the musical “Ordinary Days,” a humorous play about four New Yorkers whose lives intersect in amazing ways. Willie Wood, director of this play, will direct another musical in May 2015. His upcoming “Dames at Sea” is described as a tap-happy celebration of the golden era of movie musicals. For inquiries about upcoming performances, other plays and season tickets, visit www.carmelplayers.org.
