Original Comedy By Talented Enfield Playwright Set For World Premiere
ENFIELD, CT — An original comedy written by a renowned Enfield resident is finally set to premiere on the world stage, nearly five years after its initial scheduled run.
Enfield’s Valley Rep Theater Company is hosting the premiere of “The Girl with One Red Shoe” on October 18, 19, 25 and 26 in the Asnuntuck Community College auditorium. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and curtain is at 7 p.m.
Penned by Glenn Reese, a longtime advisor to the Enfield Lamplighters theater group and a member of the Enfield Athletic Hall of Fame, “The Girl with One Red Shoe” is the story of Charlie Jones, an unassuming everyman who shares an apartment with his polar opposite yet best friend, Pete Strong. A dedicated (but not very talented) accountant by day, Charlie’s dream is to become a singer/songwriter like his idols in this madcap 1970s comedy.
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While Pete exhausts himself hitting the club scene, Charlie has been earnestly dating a single exhausting girl, Carol Steadman, since high school. He plans to marry her, make it as a musician, and live happily ever after.
Unlike hardworking Charlie, Carol gets everything in life handed to her and Charlie is blissfully unaware of Carol’s true, opportunistic nature. Her spoiled side is the product of her overprotective parents, Ed and Mary, who go from calm to combustible whenever they don’t see eye to eye.
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When not trying to impress Carol’s family, Charlie often finds himself being bolstered by his quirky downstairs neighbor, Cookie Rubens. As sweet as her name, Cookie has the uncanny ability to both pop in at the most inopportune times and not quite hide her true feelings from Charlie. Her subtle hints are easy to miss, though, when her visits are accompanied by the building’s new, exotic and seriously-flamboyant superintendent.
Although devastated by losing his job, Charlie holds strong to the plan by testing out his new songs at the same coffeehouse every Friday night to a lukewarm response. One week his usual set takes an unexpected turn towards stardom, when the ladies in the audience break into a swooning, clothes-tearing frenzy. Before he can fully process what has happened, Charlie returns to his apartment and impulsively misreads an interaction between Pete and Carol. As far as he can tell, his new adoring fans, dishonest roommate and jobless future make it nearly impossible to stick to any semblance of the plan. Against all odds, Pete and Cookie team up to help Charlie see things as they really are, and even help him find true happiness in the most unexpected of places.
“So like many, many guys in the 1970s, and I was one of them,” Reese told Patch in a recent interview. “The big draw back then was the singer/songwriters: Jim Croce, James Taylor, Harry Chapin, Cat Stevens. They had an acoustic guitar and you would sing along with the LP up in your bedroom. This is our protagonist, Charlie – an accountant by day, but an aspiring singer-songwriter during the evening.
“For some unknown reason, one day the women in the crowd go crazy over him, like Elvis crazy, because he sang a new song that he had never sung before. He’s trying to figure out what’s going on because now he’s thinking, well, maybe I’m going to be a big superstar like my hero, John Denver, and I’m going to play in stadiums and things like that.”
Reese said “The Girl with One Red Shoe” was actually the first full-length play he ever wrote. It was originally slated for production in early 2020, and had actually been cast and rehearsed for a month, but the onset of the global coronavirus pandemic brought a halt to those plans.
“What was initially going to be a two-week shutdown turned into a month, and eventually four and a half years,” Reese said. Late last year, he proposed producing it to the Valley Rep artistic director, who presented it to the board and was granted approval. Of the eight actors appearing in the play, just one is a holdover from the original cast.
Tickets to “The Girl with One Red Shoe” are $20 general admission and $15 for seniors and students. They may be reserved by visiting www.valleyrep.com or calling 860-810-6152. Tickets will also be available at the door.
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