Remember when you were a kid and you used to pretend?  Cowboys and Indians (Native Americans)? Selling things from your “store”?  Or serving dinner with plastic veggies?

Well sixty years later I am still doing this.  Starting tonight, my Kings Town Players friends and I are dressing up and playing with each other and putting on a show for you.   I am having great fun playing the role of Charlie Aiken. Over the past few weeks,  I have gradually transformed myself into the dope-smoking, beer-swigging upholsterer from the southern U. S. A. who is caught up in one of the most dysfunctional families you can imagine.

August: Osage County is an award winning play that was made into a popular movie starring Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts last year.  I loved the movie but I think that the play has an intensity that can only be felt with live theatre.  We all can identify with the Weston family to some degree.  Are any of our families totally “normal”?  Or is this kind of dynamic more what “normal” is on some level?

Mattie Fay and Charlie Aiken in Kings Town Players production of August: Osage County

There is a lot of very dark humour.  When we were rehearsing, I was almost embarrassed to laugh at some of the horrid things characters say to each other. The “ladies” are particularly foul-mouthed…and loving every moment of it.  We hope our audiences will relax and let go. You have permission to laugh out loud…in fact we are looking forward to hearing your guffaws.  Get ready for lots of startling moments as well.

The three-act play is also three hours long so come prepared to get your money’s worth.  You will feel like a voyeur, peeping through the windows of a family struggling with many demons.  Great live theatre.

We have worked hard to get this production ready. All we need now is an audience. Please join us for a dinner from hell.

August: Osage County runs Wednesday to Saturday from September 17 to 27 at the Rotunda Theatre, Theolological Hall, Queen’s University campus.  8 pm.  Tickets are $20 and available here ( http://www.kingstonboxoffice.com)or at the door.