Past Productions
PACT strives to bring a variety of performances to the stage, suitable for a wide range of audiences.
2003: “Steel Magnolias”
2004: “Arsenic and Old Lace”
2005: “Rumors”
2006: “The Curious Savage”
2007: “Love is Contagious”
2009: “Laughing Stock”
2010: “Leaving Iowa”
2011: “The Philadelphia Story”
2012: “Love, Sex and the IRS”
2013: “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown”
2014: “The Ladies of Harmony”
2015: “Interruptions”
2016: “Urning It” and “Not a Creature was Stirring, Not Even a Moose”
2017: “A Little Murder Never Hurt Anyone”
2018: “Nana’s Naughty Knickers” and “Lie, Cheat, and Genuflect”
2019: “House for Sale”
2022: “Plaza Suite”
2023: “Murder on the Orient Express”
2024: “The Tin Woman” and “A Christmas Carol”
2025: “Psych!” and “Pickled as a Picture”
2026: “Winnie the Pooh”
2003 Steel Magnolias
August 8-10, 2003
Written by Robert Harling
Directed by Michael W. Kobs
The story is set in Truvy’s Louisiana beauty parlor where women who are “anybody” come to have their hair done. Helped by her eager new assistant, Annelle, the outspoken, wise-cracking Truvy dispenses shampoos and free advice to her customers, Miss Clairee, Ouiser, and M’Lynn, whose daughter Shelby, is about to wed. Filled with hilarious situations and revealing verbal collisions, the play moves toward tragedy when Shelby risks pregancy and forfeits her life. The realization of their mortality affects all, and gives the play and its characters the special qualities to make them truly touching, funny and good company in both good and bad times.
2004
Arsenic & Old Lace
August 20-22, 2004
A comedy written by Joseph Kesselring
Directed by Gail Possley
Arsenic & Old Lace is a farce. The story revolves around Mortimer Brewster, a theatre drama critic who must deal with his crazy family and local police in Brooklyn, New York, as he debates whether to go through with marrying Elaine Harper, the woman he loves. His family includes two spinster aunts who have taken to murdering lonely old men by poisoning them with a glass of home-made elderberry wine laced with arsenic, strychnine and “just a pinch” of cyanide. Mortimer’s brother, Teddy, believes he’s Teddy Roosevelt and digs locks for the Panama Canal in the cellar of the Brewster home. Mortimer also has a criminally murderous brother, Jonathan, who has received plastic surgery from an alcoholic accomplice, Dr. Einstein, to conceal his identity and now looks like horror-film actor Boris Karloff.
2005
Rumors
August 18-21, 2005
Written by Neil Simon
Directed by Jeannie Pitsch
This farce follows the story of four couples who arrive one at a time at the townhouse of a deputy New York City mayor and his wife to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary. The party never begins because the host has shot himself in the head (it’s only a flesh wound) and his wife is missing. His lawyer’s cover-up gets progressively more difficult to sustain as the other guests arrive and nobody can remember who has been told what about whom as they speculate what has happened to the anniversary couple. Doors slam and hilarity abounds as the couples get more and more crazed, confused and frustrated with keeping their stories straight.
2006
The Curious Savage
August 17-20, 2006
A fanciful comedy written by John Patrick
Directed and designed by Greg Rindfleisch
Meet Mrs. Ethel Savage, an eccentric and very wealth widow who is intent on giving away as much of the family fortune as she can to those whose dreams are worthy but whose means are meager. Enter her three greedy, self-serving adult stepchildren who place her in “The Cloisters”, a psychiatric “rest home” to “bring her to her senses.” Here she meets a variety of quirky, slightly off-balanced patients who help her lead the avaricious siblings on a merry chase. Eventually, all of the patients appear more “sane” than those outside the walls of the institution, and the virtues of kindness and affection, in the end, outweigh the worldly motivations of greed and dishonesty.
2008
Love is Contagious
August 7-10, 2008
A romantic comedy written by Patricia McLaine
Directed by Gail Possley
Sally, a young farm girl from Kansas visits New York City with plans to become an actress or model. To her brother Robbie’s surprise, she arrives at his Greenwich Village apartment and announces that she is staying with him and his roommate. Robbie, a newspaper reporter, and his roommate Sam, an artist, are not happy about her arrival because she “mothers” them and adds feminine touches to their apartment. She also plays matchmaker by reuniting them with their former girlfriends. Filled with tense moments, light-hearted laughs and a cast of colorful characters, the merriment never slackens. True love, as it should, triumphs in the end.
2009
Laughing Stock
August 6-9, 2009
By Charles Morey
An affectionate and whimsical look at the magic that holds theater companies together. It depicts the desperate efforts of theater director Gordon Page to produce a season that will appeal to all by rotating “Charley’s Aunt”, Dracula” and “Hamlet” for a thoroughly ambitious summer season set in an old barn.
2010
Leaving Iowa
July 22-25, 2010
“The Comedy About Family Vacations”
By Spike Manton and Tim Clue
2011
The Philadelphia Story
July 21-24, 2011
A Romantic Comedy written by Philip Barry
Directed by Sean Hanlin
2012
Love, Sex & the IRS
July 19-22, 2012
Directed by Steven Allar
Love, Sex and the I.R.S. has all the elements that audiences expect and enjoy from PACT. The play is filled with twists of fate, sight gags, and hilarious comic lines. Misunderstandings and mistaken identities provide much of the humor for an
enjoyable evening of theater.
2013
You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown
Charlie Brown and the entire Peanuts gang explore life’s great questions as they play baseball, struggle with homework, sing songs, swoon over their crushes and celebrate the joy of friendship.
2014
The Ladies of Harmony
July 18-20, 2014
Director: Steven Allar
Technical Director: Sarah Freedlund
Set Construction: Randy Fochs
The Ladies of Harmony present a deep, rich involvement in community activities and small town life we all can relate to in today’s busy world.
2015
Interruptions
July 30-August 2, 2015
By Burton Bumgarner
Director: Donna Thompson
Set Design and Construction: Randy Fochs
Production Assistance: Ruth and Ben Buettner, Sarah Freedlund and Sheryl Hiles
Romance author Howard Weems believes he has isolated himself so that he can finish his latest steamy novel. That proves to be emphatically untrue as a series of sincere but often misguided visitors bedevil the concentration of his creative genius.
2016
Urning It
By Ed Vela
Director: Sarah Freedlund
Stage Manager and Sound: Cedric Neve
Light Board: Roseanne Davis
We follow the Hammacher family as they cross the country to pick up what they believe to be a rich inheritance. Along the way, the family bounces through the usual dynamics of family life in concentrated form, with lots of laughs, some peril, and important recognitions of affection and understanding.
Not a Creature Was Stirring, Not Even a Moose
A season-appropriate romp and the first time PACT did two productions in one year!
2017 A Little Murder Never Hurt Anybody
July 20-22, 2017
By Ron Bernas
Directed by Nancy Halterman
Producer: Sarah Freedlund
Light Board: Jared Peters
Set Construction: Randall Fochs
Program: Sheryl Hiles
Rich, bored Matthew promises to kill his rich, bored wife Julia so he can become a jet setter like his friend who recently lost his wife. Julia plays along with the inept shenanigans of her husband, but accidental deaths prompt the arrival of clueless detective Plotnik adding to the misdirections and the humor.
2018
Nana's Naughty Knickers
April 19-22, 2018
By Katherine DiSavino
Directed by Steve Allar
A benefit for the Ronald McDonald House.
Lie, Cheat and Genuflect
July 19-22, 2018
A comedy by Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore
Directed by Andrew Spencer
Producer: Susan C Duerr
Lights and Sound: Lydia Sanken
Set Construction: Randall Fochs and Gabriel Balcom
The Buckle brothers, Billy and Tom, are in big trouble: Tom’s infallible eye for slow horses has drained away all of Billy’s savings and he has borrowed from loan shark Pizza Face Petrillo, who now wants his money back or else! There’s plenty of money in grandfather Buckle’s will, but these two black sheep are pretty sure they’ll never see any of that. What else to do but dress Billy up as a nun and have him pose as their cousin who is to inherit the entire fortune?
2019 House for Sale
July 18-20; 25-27, 2019
A comedy by Ron Hill
Published by Dramatic Publishing
Directed by Steve Allar
Set Building: Leroy Budke, Steve Allar, Westly Reshel
Lights and Sound: Alexis Redmond
Glen Martin, a 70-something widower in failing health, stubbornly resists his daughter’s attempts to get him to sell his home and move in with her and her husband. In his search for a solution to remaining in his home, Glen advertises for a roommate, pulling in several odd and interesting characters. Once the prospective roommates arrive, he quickly loses control of the situation and mayhem erupts. Max, Glen’s crony and next-door neighbor, offers his advice and becomes entangled in the melee, taking the situation from bad to worse. That trend is reversed in a final, life-affirming, loving conclusion.
2022 Plaza Suite
July 15-16-17; 22-23-24 2022
Written by Neil Simon
By arrangement with Concord Theatricals
On behalf of Samuel French, Inc.
Directed by Andrew Spencer
The Covid-19 pandemic closed the PACT curtain for two years, but in 2022, PACT again enlisted the comic genius of Neil Simon for a production of Plaza Suite, with three acts displaying the bittersweet and hilarious stories of three couples staying in suite 719 of New York’s Plaza Hotel.
One couple’s long marriage is showing some wear and tear; high school sweethearts meet again after 17 years; and another couple deal with their daughter’s wedding day.
2023 Murder on the Orient Express
July 14-15-16; 21-22-23 2023
Adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig
By arrangement with Concord Theatricals
On behalf of Samuel French, Inc.
Directed by Andrew Spencer
“Sleuthing” — the drive to observe, to gather clues, and to solve, is central to science, to crime solving, and to much of life, and Agatha Christie’s stories of the meticulous, mustachioed Hercule Poirot are the gold standard of detective fiction. Her Murder on the Orient Express, adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig and placed on our stage by Andrew Spencer, was a summer delight for PACT in 2023.
2024 The Tin Woman
Late July, 2024
By Sean Grennan
Directed by Roxie Wetterau
Published by Playscripts, Inc.
A young woman receives a heart transplant, but the gift of life that represents also causes her to wonder at the cost to the family of the donor. An intimate and poignant play, THE TIN WOMAN explores the power of human connection.
A Christmas Carol
December, 2024
By Charles Dickens
A new adaptation by Patrick Barlow
Published by Concord Theatricals
Directed by Andrew Spencer
The classic Dickens story from the mid-nineteenth century tells the story of the Christmas spirit through the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge.
This performance featured a pleasing partnership between Pittsville Schools and PACT.
2025
Psych!
July 11-13 & 18-20, 2025
By Lisa Rowe
Published by Concord Theatricals
Directed by Roxie Wetterau
The story follows Edward Baxter, who was a successful psychiatrist…until he was framed for murder. When Edward arrives at Dr. Smith’s office with his dilemma, his quest for help quickly spirals into chaos. What begins as a simple visit turns into a whirlwind of mistaken identities, absurd phobias, and escalating confusion, as he crosses paths with an eccentric psychic, a suspicious wife, a nosy private investigator, a menacing gangster, a liquor-toting pizza delivery gal, and an overzealous security guard trying to keep order. With the pressure mounting and reality slipping sideways, Edward must navigate the madness in this crazy comedy packed with sharp wit, wild twists, and non-stop laughs.
Pickled as a Picture
Oct 4th & 5th, 2025
By John C. Ferguson
Directed by Connie Michalski & Lilly Dake
This staged comedic reading for “Pickled as a Picture” by James C. Ferguson was one of the first ever performances of this work! This was a charitable pay-what you-will event to help replace the soundboard at Pittsville High School’s auditorium.