Leave it to the Tred Avon Players to find some of the best directorial talent in the Mid-Atlantic for their productions. In this case, TAP has enlisted Pat Murphy Sheehy, the former artistic director of the highly regarded Source Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., to lead the local cast of Moss Hart’s witty backstage comedy Light Up the Sky at the Oxford Community Center this weekend and ending May 15.
Sheehy is now artistic director emeritus of the Source, where she directed, produced or performed in more than 100 plays over an 11-year stint with the renowned professional arts institution. Previously for TAP, she directed Beth Henley’s The Wake of Jamey Foster in 2006 and Ken Ludwig’s Leading Ladies in 2010.
The Spy caught up with Sheehy in Oxford late Friday afternoon to talk about Moss Hart, the fun and challenges of direction, and what she wants audiences to appreciate in the play takes place in the luxurious hotel suite of a Broadway actress prior to the out-of-town opening of a new production.
This video is approximately five minutes in length
Light Up the Sky
Oxford Community Center
Fridays and Saturdays, May 7, 13 and 14 at 8 p.m.
Sundays, May 8 and 15 at 2 p.m.
Tickets: $15 for adults, $5 for students
John Noble says
Please forward this comment to Pat Murphy Sheehy:
Last evening my wife and I enjoyed immensely being at the performance of “Light Up the Sky”. We thought that it was exceedingly well done. It was an amazing coincidence that prompted me to write today. For several weeks, because of some foot surgery, I have been confined most of the time to a chair with my foot elevated. This morning, in a very kind effort to relieve my boredom, my wife gave me to read a slender volume written by Christopher Morley in 1930 with the title of “Apologia Pro Sua Preoccupatione”. How the message of the first piece resonated against the background of last nights performance astonished me. If you have not read it, I commend it to you attention.
John Noble