Season going out with a laugh, thanks to ‘Leading Ladies’
The Drama Group closes its 90th anniversary season with a comedy.
“Leading Ladies,” which is set in 1950s Pennsylvania, runs from Aug. 5 to 14 at the Milord Studio Theatre in Chicago Heights.
Showtimes are at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 5-6 and 11-13; 2 p.m. Aug. 7 and 14.
“It’s about two down-ontheir-luck English actors who live on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States,” said Chuck Kaffka, director of “Leading Ladies.”
“They’re broke and one of them reads in the newspaper that a little old lady who has a fortune is about to die. She wants to leave her millions to a couple of long-lost relatives that she hasn’t seen since infancy.
“The actors hatch a plan to ingratiate themselves in the family and impersonate these relatives and inherit her money.”
Kaffka, who last directed The Drama Group’s “Heaven Can Wait” in 2015, said he was glad to accept the invitation to direct “Leading Ladies.”
“I wanted to direct for a while again,” the resident of Tinley Park said.
“They were looking for a director that might want to do the Ken Ludwig play ‘Leading Ladies’ and I gravitate toward comedy and farce so it was a natural fit for me.”
Ludwig has written nearly 30 plays and musicals including the comedy “Lend Me a Tenor,” which won two Tony Awards for its original Broadway production, and “Crazy for You,” which won three Tonys, including best musical, for its original Broadway production.
Kaffka, who is also working on set construction for “Leading Ladies,” is collaborating with a production team that includes residents of Chicago Heights, Crete, Flossmoor, Homewood, New Lenox, Oak Forest, Olympia Fields, Tinley Park and St. John, Indiana.
“We’re not a professional theater company but we like to think that we do as close to professional work as we possibly can get.
That’s a great sense of pride to all of us,” the stay-athome dad said.
“We work very hard during the rehearsal process. The set builders, the lighting people, the sound people, the costumers, etc. — we put everything we have into it.”
Actors in “Leading Ladies” include residents of Burbank, Crete, Lockport, Mokena, Steger, Tinley Park and St. John.
“My cast is brilliant. I love them. They’re very easy to work with. They anticipate what I want before I even have to say it.
Better than half of them are under 30 and they’re very talented people,” Chuck Kaffka said.
“Given today’s political and economic climate, I think that we need to laugh a lot. I like to laugh and we need to have more laughter in our lives just so that we can forget about a lot of the daily pressures we face and tensions. We can all benefit by having a good laugh from time to time.”
He also is collaborating on “Leading Ladies” with his wife of approximately 30 years, Diane Kaffka, who helps with marketing and
publicity for The Drama Group, and is assisting in several behind-the-scenes capacities for this production. He met her when he auditioned for a PAC Rats Theatre Company production of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” in South Holland.
“I actually did some extra work in the movies and I enjoyed performing such as that was. I thought I could make a difference, so I actually auditioned for a part in a children’s play over at South Suburban College with the PAC Rats,” he said.
“I got a nonspeaking role.
It was a comedic part. I was the Emperor’s enforcer. That’s when I met my wife, who was also doing shows with South Suburban and the PAC Rats.”
The couple, who also worked on an outdoor William Shakespeare show for the former Illinois Theatre Center in Park Forest, became involved with The Drama Group in 1993.
“We’d been doing plays with various other community theaters in the area and we heard about The Drama Group’s reputation as producing just really top-notch productions,” Chuck Kaffka said.
Their first shows for The Drama Group were staged during the 1994-95 season with Diana Kaffka playing Maria in “Lend Me a Tenor” and Chuck Kaffka portraying Reverend Tooker in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”
“We’ve had a wonderful run,” he said.
“They’ve kind of become an extended family to us. We know everybody, they know us and we just have a great time together.”