Past Productions 2007-08

FATAL ATTRACTION: A GREEK TRAGEDY

by Alana McNair and Kate Wilkinson
May 11, 2007 - May 21, 2007

The play that won't be ignored!! A big-time corporate lawyer has a one-night stand with a strong minded (and badly permed) business woman while his wife and child are away. Add the park, the elevator, the bunny, the tub, dream ballet, and a greek chorus and you have...Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy. Miss this screen to stage adaptation at your own risk. Don't be the bunny.

Director - Joe Bailey, Stage Manager - James D Thomson; Set Design - Julanne Jacobs; Lighting Design - James D Thomson

SOUTHERN BAPTIST SISSIES

by Del Shores
June 1-25, 2007

Southern Baptist Sissies is a coming-of-age tale that explores how a man can stay true to his faith while remaining true to himself. It is an irreverent, introspective, wrenching and riotous exploration into striking a balance between religious ideal and real life; guilt and God. With a theme of religion clashing with sexuality, the play opened to rave reviews in Los Angeles during its original run in 2000 and became the most awarded play of the year, winning the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding LA Theater Production, as well as multiple LA Weekly Theater Awards, Los Angeles Critics Awards, Ovation Awards, Backstage West Garland Awards and Robby Awards.

REVIEWS

BETWEEN THE LINES
Review by Donald V. Calamia

AWARDS

2008 Wilde Award Winner
Best Actor in a LGBT Production - Joe Plambeck

2008 Wilde Award Nominee
Best Production with LGBT Themes or Characters

STEEL MAN-GOLIAS

by Robert Harling
A Staged Reading
June 8 & 9, 2007

Come spend a night at Truvy's beauty salon as six friends come together through laughter, love and tears. The Ringwald is pleased to announce the two night staged reading of Steel MAN-golias. 

Directed by Joe Bailey

Featuring: Adam Beckworth, John R. Petrie, Chad Hetzel, Joe Bailey, Joe Plambeck, and Joe Drake.

THREE DAYS OF RAIN

by Richard Greenberg
July 13 - 30, 2007

Who Wants Cake? is thrilled to present Three Days of Rain, a Pulitzer Prize runner-up by Richard Greenberg about a brother and sister who reunite in order to divvy up the estate of their late father. As the play unfolds, a skeleton or two drop out of the closet and an intriguing flashback brings the plot full circle to an even deeper resonance of mystery and bittersweet emotions.

REVIEWS

BETWEEN THE LINES
Review by D.A. Blackburn

Director - Joe Plambeck; Set Construction - James D Thomson; Lighting Design - James D Thomson; Set Design - Brian Dambacher

SOUTHERN BAPTIST SISSIES (07 Revival)

by Del Shores
Aug 10 - 27, 2007

Who Wants Cake? Theatre presented Southern Baptist Sissies in June of 2007. The response was so overwhelming that we had to bring it back! Don't miss your second chance to see the Sissies...and if you've seen it before, you gotta check it out! This revival sports two new actors and one new number for Miss Iona Traylor! So cap off the summer with a night at The Ringwald with a story that has made hundreds laugh and cry...Southern Baptist Sissies is not to be missed.

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Director - Joe Bailey; Set Design - Julanne Jacobs; Costume Design - Julanne Jacobs; Lighting Design - James D Thomson and Julanne Jacobs

CAST: Mark Lee Fuller - Chad Hetzel; T.J. Brooks - Steven West; Benny/Iona Traylor - Joe Drake; Andrew Ford - Joe Plambeck; Peanut LeRoy - Jamie Richards; Odette Barnett - Melissa Beckwith; Preacher - Joe Bailey; Mama - Cassandra McCarthy

RECENT TRAGIC EVENTS

by Craig Wright
Sept 14 - Oct 8, 2007

It is September 12, 2001 and Andrew, a shy bookstore clerk and Waverly, a self-possessed advertising executive, meet for the first time on a blind date. Along with Waverly's boisterous neighbor, his near-mute girlfriend and a famous novelist, they are thrust into an evening exploring the very nature of their existence.

REVIEWS

BETWEEN THE LINES
Review by Donald V. Calamia 

MULTIMEDIA

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Director - Joe Bailey; Stage Manager - James D Thomson

VAMPIRE LESBIANS OF SODOM and SLEEPING BEAUTY or COMA

by Charles Busch
Oct 12 - 29, 2007

Who Wants Cake? is about to take a bite out of late night Ferndale throughout the month of October. For the first time in its (six month) history, The Ringwald will offer up late night showings ...starting with the campy Charles Busch classic, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. Vampire follows the saga of two fatally seductive female vampires whose paths first collide in ancient Sodom. Their bitter rivalry endures for 2,000 years, with stops along the way in 1920s Hollywood and the bitchin 1980's Las Vegas.

BETTY'S SUMMER VACATION

by Christopher Durang
Nov 11 - Dec 3, 2007

Betty's Summer Vacation won the 1999 Obie Award for Best Off-Broadway Play. The New York Times proclaimed "... theater, praise be, can still go where other forms of art cannot ... an ecstatically angry new comedy ... relentlessly fierce, relentlessly funny ..." The New York Post called it "... the funniest new farce in years ... the play lifts off from the ground of brilliantly naturalistic comedy into the stratosphere of zany satire ... by far Durang's best."

REVIEWS

BETWEEN THE LINES 
Review by D.A. Blackburn

MULTIMEDIA

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Director - Joe Plambeck; Set Design/Assistant Director - Tom Bagz

THE SANTALAND DIARIES & SEASON'S GREETINGS

by David Sedaris
Dec 13 - 22, 2007

Who Wants Cake? is proud to announce David Sedaris’ side-splitting, anti-holiday double bill. The Santaland Diaries gives an horrific account of a resting actor (Joe Plambeck) and his seasonal employment in the Christmas Grotto in a famous department store. In Season's Greetings, meanwhile, a housewife (Joe Bailey) is composing her annual Christmas newsletter, detailing the important events of her year ... not least of which is the arrival of her husband's sexually precocious Vietnamese love child.

Directed by Jamie Richards

Featuring: Joe Plambeck as David/Crumpet; Joe Bailey as Jocelyn Dunbar

SOME MEN

by Terrence McNally
Jan 5 - 28, 2008

Although it begins at a gay wedding, Terrence McNally's Some Men is not about same-sex marriage per se. It’s about relationships between gay men and about gay life going back through the years. The play opens with guests arriving at the Waldorf-Astoria for the wedding, and the occasion prompts the men in attendance to reflect upon their lives. The play is composed of many separate pieces, like a patchwork quilt with patterns that run through it, relating some squares to each other. Some of the scenes represent the pasts of the various guests; but since the play encompasses about a century’s worth of history, ancestors of a few of the contemporary characters are also depicted. It is an antidote to spare, postmodern theatre.

REVIEWS

BETWEEN THE LINES
Review by Donald V. Calamia

MULTIMEDIA

AWARDS

2008 Wilde Award Nominee
Best Actor in a LGBT Production - Dan Morrison
Best Supporting Performer - Charles Van Hoose

BUG

by Tracy Letts
Feb 15 - Mar 10, 2008

Bug is a dark (and often funny) thriller set in a seedy Oklahoma City motel room, where Agnes, a divorced waitress with a fondness for isolation and cocaine, is hiding from her ex-con ex-husband. She is introduced to Peter, a handsome drifter who might be an AWOL Gulf War veteran, who begins to rant about conspiracy theories and overnment cover-ups. His theories engulf Agnes and the tension mounts as mysterious strangers appear at their door, past events haunt them at every turn and they begin to battle an onslaught of tiny bugs.

REVIEWS

ENCORE MICHIGAN
Review by Robert W. Bethune

MULTIMEDIA

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Director - Joe Bailey; Assistant Director - Michael Carnow

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Director - Joe Plambeck; Set Design - Joe Bailey and Dan Morrison; Sound Design - Joe Plambeck; Assistant -Tony Gross

DEBBIE DOES DALLAS: THE MUSICAL

Adapted by Erica Schmidt Music by Andrew Sherman Conceived by Susan L. Schwartz
March 28 - April 28, 2008

The most infamous adult film of all time provides the basis for this hilarious musical comedy satire about Debbie Benton who is invited to audition for the “Texas Cowgirls” cheerleader squad, but her parents won't give her the money to go. So she and her friends decide to “get jobs” to raise the money. This send-up of 70's porn is smart & funny, racy & risque with music and lyrics to match!

REVIEWS

ENCORE MICHIGAN
Review by Donald V Calamia

MULTIMEDIA

AWARDS

2008 Wilde Award Nominee
Best Actress in a Musical - Jessalyn Guizzotti

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Director - Jamie Richards; Music Director - Michael Smith; Choreographer - Jerry Haines; Assistant Director - Jamie Warrow; Stage Manager - Michael Carnow

JEFFREY

by Paul Rudnick
May 16 - June9 9, 2008

It's 1993 and Jeffrey, a gay actor/waiter, has sworn off sex after too many bouts with his partners about what is 'safe' and what is not. Suddenly, just after he's reconciled himself to celibacy, Jeffrey's flamboyant friends introduce him to the man of his dreams, who happens to be HIV-positive. What follows is an audacious and moving romantic comedy with a difference—one in which the quest for love and really fabulous clothes meet, and where unflagging humor prevails even when tragedy might be just around the corner.

REVIEWS

ENCORE MICHIGAN
Review by Donald V. Calamia 

MULTIMEDIA

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Director - Joe Bailey; Assistant Director - Jamie Warrow; Set Design - Dan Morrison

THE FACTS OF LIFE: THE LOST EPISODE

by Jamie Morris
July 12 - Aug 4, 2008

After sold-out runs across the nation, the wildly popular The Facts of Life: The Lost Episode comes to Detroit! Written by Jamie Morris, creator of the LA Weekly Theatre Award-winning comedy Mommie Queerest, Facts features an all-male cast as the girls from Eastland. The lost episode in question is titled "The Best Little Whorehouse in Peekskill." Budget cuts are threatening to force Mrs. Garrett to leave Eastland. Blair, Tootie, Natalie and Jo are willing to do anything to raise enough money for her to stay. Anything.

REVIEWS

ENCORE MICHIGAN
Review by Robert Bethune

CONFESSIONS OF A CRANKY CRITIC
Blog Posting from Donald V. Calamia

MULTIMEDIA

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Director - Joe Bailey