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On Golden Pond
by Ernest Thompson
directed by Robin Sutton
Underwritten in loving memory of
Larry Ezell
Performances
Nov 30 - Dec 16
Sunday Matinee December 10 at 2pm
Auditions
October 9 & 10
This is the love story of Ethel and Norman Thayer, who are returning to
their summer home on Golden Pond for the forty-eighth year. He is a
retired professor, nearing eighty, with heart palpitations and a failing
memory—but still as tart-tongued, observant and eager for life as ever.
Ethel, ten years younger, and the perfect foil for Norman, delights in all
the small things that have enriched and continue to enrich their long life
together. They are visited by their divorced, middle-aged daughter and
her dentist fiancé, who then go off to Europe, leaving his teenage son
behind for the summer. The boy quickly becomes the "grandchild" the
elderly couple have longed for, and as Norman revels in taking his ward
fishing and thrusting good books at him, he also learns some lessons
about modern teenage awareness—and slang—in return. In the end, as
the summer wanes, so does their brief idyll, and in the final, deeply
moving moments of the play, Norman and Ethel are brought even closer
together by the incidence of a mild heart attack. Time, they know, is now
against them, but the years have been good and, perhaps, another
summer on Golden Pond still awaits.
“ON GOLDEN POND is a work of rare simplicity and beauty, and in
Thompson our theatre has found a fresh new voice.” —NY Daily News.
“…a rare and memorable theatrical experience…” —Variety.
“What courage it
must have taken for Mr. Thompson in the 1970s to write a play with so
much affection in it!” —The New Yorker.
DRAMATISTS PLAY SERVICE
by Ernest Thompson
directed by Robin Sutton
Underwritten in loving memory of
Larry Ezell
Performances
Nov 30 - Dec 16
Sunday Matinee December 10 at 2pm
Auditions
October 9 & 10
This is the love story of Ethel and Norman Thayer, who are returning to
their summer home on Golden Pond for the forty-eighth year. He is a
retired professor, nearing eighty, with heart palpitations and a failing
memory—but still as tart-tongued, observant and eager for life as ever.
Ethel, ten years younger, and the perfect foil for Norman, delights in all
the small things that have enriched and continue to enrich their long life
together. They are visited by their divorced, middle-aged daughter and
her dentist fiancé, who then go off to Europe, leaving his teenage son
behind for the summer. The boy quickly becomes the "grandchild" the
elderly couple have longed for, and as Norman revels in taking his ward
fishing and thrusting good books at him, he also learns some lessons
about modern teenage awareness—and slang—in return. In the end, as
the summer wanes, so does their brief idyll, and in the final, deeply
moving moments of the play, Norman and Ethel are brought even closer
together by the incidence of a mild heart attack. Time, they know, is now
against them, but the years have been good and, perhaps, another
summer on Golden Pond still awaits.
“ON GOLDEN POND is a work of rare simplicity and beauty, and in
Thompson our theatre has found a fresh new voice.” —NY Daily News.
“…a rare and memorable theatrical experience…” —Variety.
“What courage it
must have taken for Mr. Thompson in the 1970s to write a play with so
much affection in it!” —The New Yorker.
DRAMATISTS PLAY SERVICE
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