BrightSide Theatre continues season of farce with 'Not Now, Darling'

BrightSide Theatre, Naperville's only professional theater performing in the downtown district, continues the celebration of its fifth anniversary with a season of farce.

"Not Now, Darling," by the playwright who wrote BrightSide Theatre's inaugural show "Run For Your Wife," will be performed Feb. 19 to March 6, in North Central College theater at Meiley-Swallow Hall, 31 S. Ellsworth St. Show times are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 3 p.m. Sundays.

Tickets are $25 for adults, $22 for students and seniors, and $20 each for groups of 10 or more. For tickets, contact brightsidetheatre.com or (630) 447-8497.

"Not Now, Darling" is a madcap British farce about mistresses and minks set in the exclusive London fur salon of Bodley, Bodley and Crouch. Owner Gilbert Bodley tries to secure the affections of his would-be mistress by "selling" her husband an expensive fur coat for a fraction of its cost.

His plan blows up when the husband wants to purchase the coat for his mistress, and the fur really flies. Soon you have husbands, lovers, suspicious wives and gorgeous girls wearing nothing but their underwear entangled in this plot filled with mistaken identities, scantily-clad ladies hiding in closets, mobsters and misguided shoppers.

Everyone gets their just desserts just as you would expect from these two master writers of farce, Ray Cooney and John Chapman.

"Many have called playwright Ray Cooney the English Feydeau, who was a master of the art of French farce," Director Christopher Kidder-Mostrom said.

"It only felt fitting to return to the playwright that penned our first production five years ago and we couldn't be more excited," said Artistic Director Jeffery Cass said.

"Not Now, Darling" features Yvonne Ambrose (Frankfort), Kayla Boye (Lisle), Jack Calvert (Western Springs), Paul Chakrin (Chicago), Rob Cramer (LaGrange Park), Matt Gibson (Lombard), Hillary Gokenbach (Chicago), Sally Olson (Chicago), Gina Phillips (Schaumburg), Timothy Sullivan (Oak Park), and Genna Walden (Naperville).