ANNA MARIA – The Island Players’ 76th theater season concludes with 10 performances of Tom Ziegler’s dramatic comedy, “Grace & Glorie,” which opens Thursday, May 8 and closes Sunday, May 18.
“Grace is a feisty 90-year-old who has retreated to her mountain cabin in Virginia. Glorie is a transplanted New Yorker with a Harvard MBA and a novice hospice volunteer,” according to the synopsis at the Island Players website. “Their cultures clash until the two women learn they have more in common than they ever could imagine.”
Estelle Parsons and Lucie Arnaz starred in the play when it first opened off-Broadway in 1996, and Gena Rowlands and Diane Lane starred in the teleplay that aired on CBS in 1998.
Island Players’ veteran James Thaggard is directing the two-member cast that features Island Players’ veterans Nancy Denton as Grace and Jennifer Kwiatkowski as Gloria, whom Grace calls ‘Glorie.’
“It’s about friendship and found family where you least expect it,” Thaggard said. “We have two characters starting off being rather antagonistic towards each other. We have a very stubborn, illiterate, but wise farmwoman who’s released herself from hospice to die peacefully in her mountain cabin she’s lived in all her life. Glorie is a transplanted New Yorker who signed up for hospice. Glorie isn’t quite ready for Grace, and Grace isn’t quite ready for Glorie, but a friendship evolves between these two women played by two absolutely fantastic actresses.”
“Grace is dying of cancer and she leaves the hospital because she wants to be home,” Denton said. “She’s very much her own person and she has her own long-held belief systems. She and Gloria are vastly different and they upend each other’s belief systems.”
“This is a different character for me,” Kwiatkowski said. “I usually do farces and comedies. This is my first serious role, but there are moments of levity. Things get heavy and then something funny will be said or something funny will happen. It’s on the same level as ‘Steel Magnolias.’ It’s funny, yet serious.”
Kwiatkowski played Truvy Jones in the Island Players’ 2019 production of ‘Steel Magnolias’ – the role Dolly Parton played in the 1989 movie. She’s married to West Manatee Fire Rescue Fire Marshall Rodney Kwiatkowski. They met in 2015 when she went to see a friend perform in the Island Players’ production of “Becky’s New Car,” which Rodney also had a role in. They met after the performance, started dating and have been married for seven years. They performed together in “Almost Maine” and hope to share the stage again someday.
When asked about the challenges of acting in a two-person play, Denton said, “There’s more lines to learn so there’s a lot more pressure; and you don’t want people to get bored with only two characters.”
“This is my first one,” Kwiatkowski said. “This is 83 pages of dialogue, blocking and props and Nancy’s in bed for more than half the play. It’s about 10 times harder than any role I ever had, but I have a good memory and it took me about two weeks to learn my lines.”
“You’ve got five weeks of rehearsal and two weeks of running the show,” Thaggard said. “These are two strong, vibrant women but it can wear you out. They’ll need to take care of themselves and rest up. Once the show opens, I just show up, welcome the audience and enjoy the show. The actors are in it for the full run.”
When discussing the play’s message, Kwiatkowski said, “My main takeaway is someone who’s dying still has a lot to give. Grace tells a lot of stories and gives a lot of advice. I think it’s good for the Island Players because we have a lot of older audience members who still have a lot to give.”
“There’s a lot of levity in this play,” Denton said. “There’s sad things that happened to them but it’s more about the relationship between the two women and how they come together. You’re not going to leave depressed.”
“It’s a beautiful show with wonderful characters,” Thaggard said. “They have so much they teach each other, and by extension teach us, about life and our place in the world.”
The Island Players theater is located at 10009 Gulf Drive in Anna Maria. Tickets are $18-$28. The box office is open Monday-Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and one hour before showtime. Tickets can be purchased online at www.theislandplayers.org. For more information, call 941-778-5755.
