May 1-June 26, 2004
The Tangled Snarl & The World Premiere of Murder Me Once
Written by John Rustan and Frank Semerano, directed by James Reynolds.
Presented by Fremont Centre Theatre, Lissa & James Reynolds, and Rosemary Layng. "The Tangled Snarl" is produced by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc.
Spuds Idaho, master Detective, is one tough customer. How tough is he? He’d make Bogie look like a sissy. Everywhere Spuds goes, he runs into gorgeous gals with great gams who are more dangerous than a mountain highway: lots of curves and soft shoulders. Then he has to keep his fists limber to deal with gargantuan gunsels wielding great big gats. Never one to run from a roscoe or a round of fisticuffs, Spuds Idaho is a hard puncher and a hard drinker. Sometimes though, he’s a lover not a fighter.
At the new show at Fremont Centre Theatre, Spuds solves two of his most baffling cases. In “The Tangled Snarl”, Legs Flamingo is ready to hand Spuds a mysterious package when Legs is gunned down. The clue to his demise is his widow, Leslie Detweiler, a woman with “a heavenly body that made you want to get an ‘A’ in Astronomy.” What’s in that package? Will someone in Gangland try and mash Spuds?
In “Murder Me Once”, a slimeball named Coins Fontaine has cashed in. When his account is now closed. There’s evidence of foul play. Who would want to kill Coins? Everybody! The fingers of suspicion especially point to Coins’ hot young widow, a woman with the kind of shape that makes two great first impressions. Then there’s Coins’ two beautiful grown daughters, one with a Girl Scout fixation; and the other with a head for figures, perched atop a pretty good figure of her own. Watch out, Spuds, danger is everywhere!
Whether you’re a fan of detective films, especially the ones from the 40’s that play in black-and-white late at night on cable TV, or you just enjoy a good laugh, you’ll have fun with these affectionate homages to the hard-boiled private dicks who could handle guns and bodacious babes with equal aplomb.
The cast of the “The Tangled Snarl"
- Mary Beth Evans (“Days Of Our Lives”, “General Hospital”, “As The World Turns”) as Leslie Detweiler
- Todd Babcock as Spuds
- Daphne Bloomer as Spuds’ long-suffering secretary Ginny
- Dan Payne, of the original 1981 cast, reprising his role as a tough adversary
- Arman Manyan as The Kid, a precocious newsboy.
The cast of “Murder Me Once”
- Todd Babcock as Spuds
- Arianne Zuker (“Days Of Our Lives”, Soap Opera Digest Award winner for Outstanding Villainess) as Myra the widow
- Alison McMillan and Cathrine Munden as Saphron and Chantel, her gorgeous stepdaughters
- Roger Davis as police Lt. Brogue
- Dan Payne as a thug;
- Richard Voigts as Grieves the butler..
James Reynolds, co-artistic director of Fremont Centre Theatre, directs these plays. He is currently nominated for an Emmy Award for his acting on the daytime drama “Days Of Our Lives”, where he has enjoyed a 22-year tenure as Detective Abe Carver. Twenty-three years ago, he directed the very first production of “The Tangled Snarl” at the DeLacey Street Theatre.
This is the World Premiere engagement of “Murder Me Once”, especially written as a companion piece to “The Tangled Snarl”.
The writers are John Rustan and Frank Semerano, who have written 11 plays together, including “The Attempted Murder of Peggy Sweetwater” and “Thataway Jack”, which along with “The Tangled Snarl” have been produced all over the U.S. and Canada. Semerano authored “A Vampire Reflects”, which played at the Ventura Court Theatre several seasons back.
