Familiar cast of characters assembled for Citadel's 'It Runs in the Family'
Consider having to take orders from an old high school teacher - 37 years after graduating.
Northbrook's David Whitlock does that. He loves it.
“I guess the analogy I use is getting out the letterman's jacket from the closet, and it still fits,” said Whitlock, a supporting actor in the British farce, “It Runs in the Family,” opening Friday, Nov. 18, at the Joseph Jefferson Award-winning Citadel Theatre in Lake Forest High School's West Campus, 300 S. Waukegan Road.
The fit between Whitlock and his director Pat Murphy may be even more comfortable than between Whitlock and his letterman's jacket.
Murphy, a Glenbrook North High School theater director from 1973-2003, directs “It Runs in the Family,” written by Ray Cooney (“Run for Your Wife,” “Two into One”).
Whitlock, a 1985 Glenbrook North graduate, said he acted under Murphy in four fall plays and two spring musicals, on top of drama class and an improvisational troupe Murphy formed, Immediate Conception. Whitlock may have acted in the school's winter plays, too, but at 6-foot-3 he played forward on the Spartans boys basketball team.
When casting “It Runs in the Family,” Murphy had Whitlock in mind. Murphy took out his cellphone, where he stores people's birthdays, and gave him a call.
“I'm just pretty excited to have the opportunity to work with him, because he's very good in the show,” Murphy said.
“It's not that much different in terms of the way I used to work with kids. I was pretty honest with kids and I used to treat them like they were adults. I think for him, too, it brings back memories of us working together, and it's exciting to have that reignited a bit.”
Whitlock and Murphy, who said he still drops in at Glenbrook North to watch rehearsals and offer suggestions when current GBN theater director Julie Ann Hill asks - he taught the former Julie Ann Robinson at Glenbrook North, too - are among several local talents on or behind the stage for “It Runs in the Family.”
Tim Walsh, who plays the lead, Dr. Mortimer, lives in Northbrook. So does Aimee Kleiman, who plays another main role, nurse Jane Tate.
Playing a police sergeant, Ross Frawley drives in from Elgin; understudy Julie Bayer lives in Batavia.
Actors' Equity Association member Ellen Phelps, a Glenbrook South graduate, plays Dr. Mortimer's wife, Rosemary. Ellen and her husband, artistic director Scott Phelps, founded the 144-seat Citadel Theatre in 2002 and have since produced hundreds of main stage and “On Tour” productions and offer children's acting classes.
(Whitlock said there's no Spartans-Titans barbs on set: “I think we're past those days,” he said.)
After it ran this past February and March, Citadel's “Outside Mullingar” earned 2022 Joseph Jefferson nominations in the Equity division of mid-size plays, for best production and best director, Beth Wolf. In 2018 Citadel won a Jeff Award in costume design for “The Explorers Club,” which also drew a nomination for scenic design.
Murphy, whose 1969 arrival at Glenbrook North predated the school auditorium, has had 50-year relationships with some of these people. He recalled Ellen Phelps acting in an early 1970s high school production of “Oliver.” In Murphy's last directing turn with Citadel, 2020's “The Fantasticks,” the cast included Whitlock's son, Brooks, as an understudy. Brooks Whitlock, 25, currently is in the cast of “Jeeves Intervenes” at First Folio Theatre in Oak Brook.
“It's a great cast” for “It Runs in the Family,” Murphy said, “and it happened to work out that a number of them are from Northbrook.”
Set in a London hospital three days before Christmas, Walsh's married neurologist, Dr. David Mortimer, is preparing to deliver a potentially career-making lecture. He's interrupted by Kleeman's nurse character, who informs him he's the father of an 18-year-old son.
Hilarity ensues - also schadenfreude, Murphy said, the German expression for taking pleasure in others' misfortunes. As do complications, lies, attempted bribery, a paternity suit, people rushing here and there, and clever writing.
Whitlock's character, Dr. Bonney, gets roped into Dr. Mortimer's escalating plight. Whitlock likens “It Runs in the Family” to the John Cleese series, “Fawlty Towers,” in which Cleese's at-wit's-end hotelier constantly courts disaster.
Farce was among many genres Murphy directed at Glenbrook North. Yet he didn't encourage his students to go into theater, he said.
“It's kind of awful and difficult,” he said. “You're constantly looking for work.”
Some of his students didn't listen - until it comes time to rehearse.
“It's great to work with him again,” Whitlock said. “At a very formative time in my life, a teenager thinking about theater and exploring theater, to be back working with someone who was such a significant part of those formative years, it's wonderful, it's great. And it's a lot of fun, too.”
“It Runs in the Family”
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays; matinees on 1 p.m. Wednesdays, Nov. 23, Dec. 14; no show on Thanksgiving, Nov. 24. Runs Nov. 18 through Dec. 18.
Where: Citadel Theatre, 300 S. Waukegan Road, Lake Forest
Tickets: $40 Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays; $45 Saturdays and Sundays; discounts available for groups, seniors and students. (847) 735-8554, ext. 1 or citadeltheatre.org
COVID-19 precautions: Masks optional both in the lobby and house