By Zach Mosca
Jambar Contributor
The Youngstown Playhouse offered a night of thrills, chills and laughs with their production of Wendy MacLeod’s play, “Women in Jeopardy.”
Operations Manager James McClellan described “Women in Jeopardy” as a comedy with some thriller elements to it. The play focuses on three women: Mary, Jo and Liz, but Mary and Jo are concerned for Liz.
“It’s about three women who are friends, and one woman starts dating a dentist, but the other two friends think he’s a serial killer,” McClellan said.
The play revolves around Mary and Jo’s struggle to warn Liz about the potential danger she is in with her new boyfriend, but there are some other characters for the audience to connect with too. One of which is Liz’s 19-year-old daughter, Amanda, played by Katherine Skaggs.
“My character Amanda Takin is the 19-year-old daughter of Liz Takin and on/off girlfriend of Trenner. She’s kind of a side character getting her own small story arc with Trenner alongside the main one,” Skaggs said.
Trenner is played by William Price. Price describes Trenner as a dopey show-off who occasionally has a soft side.
“He’s kind of a dopey snowboarder who’s always trying to prove his masculinity, but shows a much softer, vulnerable side occasionally in the play,” Price said.
The play ran for two weeks at the Playhouse, and its first week has been nothing but successful — so much so that the Playhouse had to add an extra show in order to meet demands.
“We’re doing an extra show on Thursday night because there’s such a high demand,” McClellan said.
The Youngstown Playhouse works hard to put on plays and this one was no exception. McClellan said the Playhouse strives to make each show better than the last.
“I think the most important thing is a quality show. There were periods where the quality dipped, and we’re really looking to improve the quality of our shows to make them look better,” McClellan said.
From watching the cast members perform, it’s easy to see they were having a great time portraying their characters. Katherine Skaggs said she loves letting out emotions that she wouldn’t usually let out as herself.
“I love getting to act out emotions or personalities I would never get to do myself or have tried to grow past. For example, I get to be whiny and demanding as Amanda,” Skaggs said.
William Price also loves the feeling of acting as another character, but in addition to that, he also enjoys getting creative with the way he plays his characters.
“Being able to be creative with scenes and characters, as well as feeling the electricity in the air on the night of the performance is second to none for me,” Price said.
