Starting tonight and staging through the end of June, Westfield Playhouse and Main Street Productions are offering audiences laughter, love and hope in Andrew Bergman’s play, Social Security.
According to Director Jen Otterman the play is about married art dealers, Barbara and David, living in a fancy apartment in New York’s Upper West Side. Barbara’s sister, Trudy, has been taking care of their 85-year-old mother, Sophie. Trudy has decided that Barbara must take care of their mother while she goes off to deal with a problem with her own daughter.
Like all comedies written for Broadway, the opening complexity sets up a variety of options for things can go awry.
When Sophie falls for a guest visiting Barbara and David, her health, outlook and energy levels all improve dramatically.
Erik Shaver from south side of Indianapolis. (Photo provided)
“The play ends up being about love,” Otterman told The Reporter. “It’s about how love never dies and no matter how old you are you can always find someone. It is also about how to deal with elders, which is a very timely topic since a lot of children are taking care of their parents these days.”
Otterman brings a great deal of experience to the table as the director of this production. She not only has a master’s degree in performance from Northwestern University, but she was a drama and English teacher at Hamilton Southeastern for 30 years. She taught four different levels of acting classes as well as producing and directing two shows each year with colleague Mary Armstrong, who still works at HSE.
(From left) Ka’Lena Cuevas from Fishers, Thom Johnson from Westfield and Lisa Warner from Westfield. (Photo provided)
“I started way back when I was 17 years old working at the Red Barn Summer theater in Frankfort, which is a semi-professional theater,” Otterman said. “I’ve been doing theater for over 50 years.”
Shortly after retiring from HSE in 2015, Otterman started getting involved in community theater.
Otterman said she has a great cast and she is thankful for that due to the challenges of casting.
“There is more and more competition for all of us who are doing theater because there are more small theater groups,” Otterman said. “There are more people pulling from pool of actors.”
That is good news because it means there are a number of community theaters actively producing live shows in and around Hamilton County. The arts are alive and well and popular with local audiences. But it also means more people are needed to help bring these productions to life.
Otterman told The Reporter that Westfield Playhouse, like all community theater groups in the area, welcomes newcomers to get involved in acting as well as working on the tech crews.
If you would like to get involved in an upcoming production, you can go to WestfieldPlayhouse.org to find contact information.
Social Security hits the stage at 7:30 p.m. tonight at Westfield Playhouse, 1836 W. State Road 32.