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Event
Father of the Bride
Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Banks request the honor of your presence at the upcoming production of Father of the Bride, the tender romantic comedy by Caroline Francke. Cake will be served!
Stanley Banks is a happy suburban husband and father of two. One Sunday morning, his 21 year old daughter Kay announces to the family that shes getting married and Stanleys world is turned upside down. He realizes that he is no longer just a husband and a father he has become something that has instilled fear into the hearts of brave men since the beginning of time: He is now the Father of the Bride!
Everything starts out well when Kay and her fiancé say they want to keep things as simple -- a wedding with no fuss or feathers. They agree to limit the guest count to no more than fifty. But somehow, the invitation list soon balloons to over three hundred. How did that happen? But it gets worse. The Banks family has forgotten that the grooms family will want to invite guests as well! Soon, the entire Banks family is careening pell-mell toward their daughters special day, with misunderstandings, misadventures, and delightful confusion along the way. As these all-too-fallible characters try to cope with one of lifes milestones, Oil Lamp audiences will recognize many timeless truths about love, marriage and the bonds of family that hold us together.
Caroline Francke wrote this stage play in 1951 based on the 1949 novel by Edward Streeter, Father of the Bride. The story has delighted audiences for generations with its warm insights and wit. This tale has twice been made into a movie, first in 1950 with Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor, and again in 1991 with Steve Martin, Diane Keaton and Martin Short. Both of these films were followed up by sequels (Fathers Little Dividend and Father of the Bride, Part II), a television sitcom in the early 1960s, and various other adaptations. This story continues to touch the hearts of new generations of fathers, daughters and families as we carry on with the age-old challenges of coming to terms with love and marriage.
In a recent conversation about this play, Director Keith Gerth noted that Father of the Bride is the second in a trilogy of 2016 Oil Lamp productions that explore relationships between fathers and daughters. This show was preceded on our stage by Proof, a powerful drama about a daughters attempts to define her own identity while caring for her father, a mathematical genius on the edge of madness. It will be followed in mid-June by On Golden Pond, another powerful family drama that takes on the challenges faced by a married couple in their twilight years and their daughters efforts to reconnect with her father. Each of these shows helps us look at the relationships between fathers and daughters through its own lens, and allows us to see new dimensions in those relationships that we might not have considered before.
One of the joys of Father of the Bride is how it reveals so many basic truths about families all families, really and how we deal with life transitions like weddings. We always seem to start out with the best intentions, but things almost never go the way we thought. And somewhere, in the midst of all the planning, the celebrating and the chaos, we discover whats really important to us and that can be a revelation. Gerth added, with a twinkle in his eye, By the way, we want our audiences to know that every performance of this show really will be a celebration, and everyone will be invited to participate -- so wedding cake will be served at every performance. And dont be surprised if theres a bouquet toss, too. After all, its Kays wedding!
The performance runs 2 hours including intermission.
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LocationOil Lamp Theater (View)
1723 Glenview Road
Glenview, IL 60025
United States
Categories
Kid Friendly: Yes! |
Dog Friendly: No |
Non-Smoking: Yes! |
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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