By Marcus Smith ’27, Student Correspondent<\/p>\n
Stepping foot into the Royal Theater in the McDade Center for Literary and Performing Arts, the bustle of urban downtown Scranton gives way to the small\u00a0backwoods\u00a0town of Gilead, Wisconsin, for the spring musical \u201cThe Spitfire Grill.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The musical, written by James\u00a0Valcq\u00a0and Fred Alley, tells the story of a young parolee named Percy who helps bring new life to the dying town when she takes a job at the titular Spitfire Grill\u00a0diner.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Players will perform “The Spitfire Grill” on Friday, Feb. 27; Saturday, Feb. 28; Sunday, March 1; Friday, March 6; Saturday, March 7; and Sunday, March 8. The Friday and Saturday shows are at 8 p.m.\u00a0and\u00a0the Sunday shows are at 2 p.m.<\/p>\n
Tickets are $10 for general admission or $7 for students and faculty\/staff and can be bought online or at the door.<\/p>\n
Michael O\u2019Steen, MFA, associate professor and the musical\u2019s director, said the themes of found family and acceptance are more important in 2026 than ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see several broken families in the Spitfire\u00a0Grill\u00a0and they find a new family to fit into,\u201d O\u2019Steen said. \u201cIt\u2019s also about accepting those who are different, people who are different from us, who might have iffy backgrounds that we can write off as the Other.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Steen described The Spitfire Grill as \u201can intimate, lovely musical\u201d that he especially enjoyed because it is an ensemble piece.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery actor in the show plays a significant character, carries significant vocals and significant scenes and themes,\u201d he explained. \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0a challenge for these young actors who want to improve as actors, designers or directors or theater technicians. The Players use everything as a learning tool and I think\u00a0it’s\u00a0great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Devon Donnelly ’29, an advertising and public relations major from Chester, New Jersey, plays Percy Talbott in her debut with the University of Scranton Players, but\u00a0already has\u00a0become comfortable with the company.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m very fortunate to have friends in the cast that are my age that I talk to, so it’s easing me into this new experience\u2026I feel like I found my groove,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Marcus Smith ’27, Student Correspondent Stepping foot into the Royal Theater in the McDade Center for Literary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[17641,178,180,179,53715,53716,274],"class_list":{"0":"post-112404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-musical","9":"tag-scranton","10":"tag-scranton-headlines","11":"tag-scranton-news","12":"tag-scranton-players","13":"tag-spitfire-grill","14":"tag-the-university-of-scranton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}