Actor Eric Parker is returning to the Barn Theatre this season to star in Ken Ludwig's The Game's Afoot, opening Tues, Jul 22 and running until Aug 3. "It's farcey fun. It's also a murder mystery," Parker tells Cara Lieurance.
In the play, subtitled "Holmes for the Holidays," Parker plays the true-life figure William Gillette, an American actor famous for playing Sherlock Holmes on stage in the early 20th century. "It's kind of like an Agatha Christie mystery or like Clue," Parker says, "where the Gillette mansion is the scene of a Christmas Eve dinner party that he is putting on that features a lot of his actors who come in and they're all wildly flamboyant, as actors are."
The cast includes familiar Barn Theatre performers Charlie King and Penelope Alex, along with returning guest artists Mychelle Hopkins, a former Kalamazoo Civic stalwart now based in Traverse City, and Chicago veteran Iris Lieberman, who last appeared at the Barn in 2009.
Parker particularly highlights the contributions of first-year apprentices Olivia Thiemann and Erin McKee, who play principal roles in the production. "They are both first-year apprentices and they are very talented. It's really an exceptional group of apprentices this year," he says.
Tickets and additional information are available at BarnTheatreSchool.org.
This article was summarized by Claude AI and edited by the author.
