A Touch of Spring

It may be the dog days of summer, but there's A Touch of Spring in the air at Miners Alley Playhouse, where, from the aerie of a stunning hotel suite (designed by director Richard H. Pegg), you can take in the hills of Rome and the fragrance of love.

Brian Landis Folkins as Sandy and Rachel Bouchard as Diana

Sandy (Brian Landis Folkins) and Diana (Rachel Bouchard) Claiborne are in Rome to pick up the body of his father, who was killed in a tragic auto accident, but the authorities have lost the body and all sorts of red tape and bribery ensue, requiring Sandy to stay in the Eternal City and sort this out, while Diana returns to the states for her sister's wedding.

A local fixer, Baldassare "Baldo" Pantaleone (Michael Bouchard), shows up to help Sandy "grease the wheels" of Italian bureaucracy. Soon, Allison (Bethany Lillis), the daughter of the woman who died in the accident with Sandy's father, makes an entrance and asks to join forces, since she has been unable to locate her mother's body.

Bethany Lillis as Allison and Michael Bouchard as Baldassare Pantaleone

Playwright Samuel Taylor's clever plot line and Baldo's zany antics set all sorts of wonderful discoveries in motion for Sandy, a successful American businessman, and Allison, a British actress who supports herself with commercials, while hoping for her big film break.

M. Bouchard's Baldo nearly steals the show with comic bravado, temperamental Mediterranean hyperbole, and a gigolo's heart. Folkins and Lillis make sweet music, while dodging bullets from the rest of Pegg's well-tempered cast: R. Bouchard's imperious Diana; Tyler Collins' amusingly incompetent American envoy, John Wesley; Brock Benson's voracious film director, Vittorio Spina, a legend in his own mind; and Todd Sorensen's imperturbable Georgio, the recalcitrant, but remuneratively susceptible waiter.

Miners Alley Playhouse's production of A Touch of Spring runs through August 28th. 303-935-3044 or www.minersalley.com.

Bob Bows