“QUARANTINE FOR TWO” TO PREMIERE AT RED BARN
PRESS RELEASE
For further information, call: Bob Bowersox at 302-540-6102
For Immediate Release
God knows there hasn’t been much to laugh about the last couple of years. Pandemics tend to lean that way.
But thanks to Hy Conrad – the writer/producer of the very funny “Monk” series – we’ll get a chance to shake off a little of the downside of things when his new play, “Quarantine For Two”, opens a four week run February 15th at Key West’s Red Barn Theatre. The production marks the play’s American premiere.
“Hy and I were chatting one day,” said artistic director Joy Hawkins, “and we thought a funny play about this might be good for people, to lighten things up a bit. And who better to do that than Hy Conrad?”
The play centers on a typical, middle-aged, suburban couple – played by David Black and Mimi McDonald – who have been quarantining at home for more than a year. But it hasn’t gone well. In fact, they’ve driven each other crazy, to the point that each has come to the conclusion that for their own sanity, they need to kill the other. How they go about that – with the involvement of a somewhat dim and double-dealing poolboy-turned-hitman played by Rhett Kalman – leads to a very hilarious escalation of complications.
“I tend to write toward comedy and crime,” Conrad said. “The idea of two people in lockdown who desperately want to kill each other seemed to make comic sense, if we want to make light of our fears in the moment. Balancing the truth in the Covid situation with finding the humanity in the characters and making it funny was the challenge.”
But Conrad makes it work exceptionally well. In a private reading of the play last summer, it was hard for cast and crew to get through the script without breaking into laughter.
“The last two years have been so surreal and ludicrous and crazy,” Hawkins said. “So let’s just jump in and laugh at the predicament we’ve all been in. Because somewhere in all of this, we really do need to find a laugh.”
And as she said, who better than Hy Conrad to give that to us?
Tickets for “Quarantine For Two”, the second of the Red Barn’s season of “Bright and Brilliant Comedies”, are available now at redbarntheatre.com or by calling 305-296-9911. Ticket holders for the February 15th performance will also be treated to an Opening Night After-Party, sponsored by Jeff Johnson and Hy Conrad, catered by Teresa Wright, where patrons can meet and chat with the cast and crew.
The Red Barn is a Covid Compliant Theatre and asks that all patrons follow Covid protocols. If they prefer, they can voluntarily offer their vaccination card. Masks will be required inside the theater, and seating is limited more than normal due to a social distancing seating plan.
The play is sponsored in part by Jane Gardner Interiors, the Florida Department of State Division of Cultural Affairs, and the Monroe County Tourist Development Council.