WAITING IN THE WINGS


The grandes dames of Whittier Community Theatre take center stage in Waiting In The Wings, Noël Coward’s charming salute to actresses of a certain age who’ve still got it in them to entertain an audience.

And entertain they do in this 1960 gem that finally made its Broadway debut 39 years later with Lauren Bacall and Rosemary Harris as a couple of aging stage stars who haven’t spoken to each other for thirty years.

Community theater favorites Andrea Stradling and Candy Beck take over these roles at WTC as straitened circumstances force the former’s Lotta Bainbridge to move into “The Wings,” the charitable home for retired actresses over 60 where the latter’s May Davenport has resided these past few years as have such former stage greats (and not-so-greats) as Bonita Belgrave (Shelley Beach), Cora Clarke (Roxie Lee), Maud Melrose (Valerie Jasso), Almina Clare (Nancy Tyler), Estelle Craven (Julie Breihan), Deirdre O’Malley (Susan Eiden), and Sarita Myrtle (Randi Tahara), all of whom await the arrival of the glamorous Lotta save Sarita, whose mind has been lost to dementia.

 How will May react when she learns that her longtime nemesis will soon be living under the same roof? Will she continue giving Lotta the same cold shoulder she’s been giving her since the 1930s? And what could have prompted the dissolution of once devoted friendship? Could there have been a man involved in said rupture?

To find out the answers to these questions (and to get to know some of the feistiest and most fabulous retirees ever to have trod the boards), you only have to head on over to the venerable Whittier Community Theater (102 seasons and counting!) where a witty script, lively performances, and Suzanne Frederickson’s assured direction make the play’s two-hour-forty-five-minute running time seem a good deal shorter than you might expect.

Also figuring in the delightful mix are retirement home superintendent Sylvia Archibald (Patty van Empel), aka Miss Archie; charity liaison Perry Lascoe (Guy C. van Empel), who’s doing his darnedest to secure funds for a solarium where “inmates” can enjoy the sunshine on chilly days; Osgood Meeker (James Mathis), an elderly gent who shows up from time to time to visit a resident who’s neither seen nor heard; kind-hearted maid Doreen (Rebecca Rangel) and Lotta’s efficient personal maid Dora (Cassie Wright); pot-stirrer Zelda Fenwick (Cheyanne Tovar), who’s shown up to write a puff piece (or will it be an exposé?) about The Wings; and Alan Bennet (Jay Valles), the adult son Lotta hasn’t seen since his move to Canada seventeen years ago.

All of this adds up to the kind of “cast of dozens” play that neither Broadway nor professional regional theaters have the big bucks to produce anymore, just one reason its arrival at Whittier Community Theatre is such a treat.

 Another is the chance to see actresses who’ve lit up the WCT stage over and over again in years and even decades past given this rarer-than-rare chance to shine together.

Only a personally imposed word limit prevents me from going into detail about pretty much the entire cast and the distinctive characters they create, but there are four I absolutely must salute.

No one in community theater plays sophisticated better than Stradling, which is why the role of Lotta suits her to a T, but it’s not just glamour that makes her performance stand out. It’s the sensitivity and warmth Stradling brings to the role, particularly when paired with WCT powerhouse Beck, whose May Davenport is so firmly intransigent in her attitude towards Lotta that to see it melt away is quite lovely to behold.

Among featured characters, no one steals scenes like Deirdre, and in the hands of WCT royalty Eiden, the Irish firecracker positively explodes on the stage and no one touches hearts more than Sarita, Tahara’s sensitive performance revealing the heartbreak of dementia.

Frederickson has designed a sunny, spacious, and very livable set for “The Wings” and Bob Nydegger’s lighting matches the time of day of each scene to a T.

Maggie Wenn’s props are topnotch, as are mid-20th-century costumes designed or provided by Sunni Morrison, Tyler, Yvette Price, and the cast.

Only some spotty amplification makes me nostalgic for the days when WTC actors simply took it upon themselves to “project,” coincidentally commented on in Coward’s script.

Waiting In The Wings is produced by Richard Di Vicariis. John Francis makes a brief cameo appearance as Dr. Jevons. Gabe Puga is stage manager.

Rare are those plays that offer actors of retirement age the chance to strut their stuff, and perhaps even rarer are those with female protagonists, just one of a number of reasons why Waiting In The Wings proves such a welcome addition to Whittier Community Theatre’s Season 102 lineup.

Whittier Community Theatre, The Center Theatre, 7630 S. Washington Ave., Whittier. Through March. Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00. Sunday March 1 at 2:30.
www.WhittierCommunityTheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
February 27, 2026
Photos: Ernie Peralta

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

 

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