09/07/2026
🎭Actors needed!🎭
🍁The Music Cure and Dark Lady of the Sonnets by G.B. Shaw
Intro: September 9, 6 pm-7 pm
Rehearsals: September 16-Nov 25, 9 am-12 pm Saturdays and 5 pm-8 pm Wednesdays
Dress Rehearsals: Nov 28-Dec 2
Performances: Dec 3-13
❗️No auditions or rejections--all interested young people are invited to take part! Join us at the YSP Playhouse, 1806 West Lawn Ave., Madison.
✅Dear Friends of YSP,
These plays are both seldom-performed Shaw masterpieces that have been among the most popular plays YSP has ever done.
The Dark Lady of the Sonnets
'And who in the name of all … fly-by nights that infest this palace of mine, may William Shakespeare be?'
—Queen Elizabeth I
William Shakespeare is on our stage in a different way this time — as a character, not an author!! (Queen Elizabeth I will be there, too, as well as a mysterious Dark Lady lover of Shakespeare, and a baffled Beefeater-guard!) And, by the way, this play gives us a good idea (although an imagined one!) of where Shakespeare got some of his most famous lines!
The Music Cure
'Oh, that was fearfully classical!'
—Reginald
A remarkably foolish, neurotic English aristocrat — Sir Reginald — is being treated for a case of "nerves." His doctor finally prescribes an unusual "cure" — classical piano music played by a rather scary pianist named Strega Thundridge. (In case you weren't aware, "Strega" is the Italian word for "witch"; and as for the name "Thundrige," well … !) But the high-strung Sir Reginald hates classical music — and only likes ragtime (which he plays quite well). A very funny duel of words and piano playing follows.
The Music Cure is very rarely performed, partly because it involves a piano duel (classical versus ragtime). All of the piano solos for our production were specially recorded for YSP by the late Howard Karp — one of the great pianists of our time. And the duets were recorded by Howard and Frances Karp (another absolutely masterly musician). So we have world-class piano playing — by long-time close YSP Family Members — to enhance this marvelous comedy!
Join us this Fall for these two magnificent comedies. As always at YSP, all interested young people may take part.
--Anne and Jacob
