'Dessert theater'

Melodramatic 'Great Ice Cream Scheme' runs Friday, Saturday

QUINCY - Performer Nancy Connelly is excited.

For the first time ever, she and husband Patric are actually playing a couple in the newest Quincy Valley Allied Arts production this weekend.

"We have been brother and sister I don't know how many times," she said with a laugh. "This is the first time we've ever been boyfriend and girlfriend. It's very fun."

The Connellys will be sharing sweets as Etta Lotta Spumoni and her beau, Alec DeSpoon, as part of the Quincy Valley Allied Arts' "The Great Ice Cream Scheme: Robin Baskins to the Rescue," which runs Friday and Saturday at the Quincy Senior Center, located at 522 F St. S.E., at 7 p.m.

"Robin is our hero and he has some great ideas, but nobody will listen to him because he's too young," director Sherry Kooy said. "The villain comes in and tries to mess up all of his ideas, steal them and run away with them. It's kind of your typical melodrama, boy meets girl, falls in love, villain gets in the way."

Albeit a melodrama where everyone has some sort of ice cream-related name, from Nana Peel and Walt Nutz to Candy Sprinkles and Parfait DeLuxe.

The play is written by Billy St. John, but Kooy said there were a lot of rewrites involved.

"It's made to be on the stage where you can dim the lights and that kind of thing, and we don't have that ability, so we've done some rewriting as far as the cues - instead of them yelling lights, then we're having the audience close their eyes," she said with a laugh, adding, "There was a character in there none of us liked. We went, 'What is he here for?' So we wrote him out."

The event runs two

evenings only.

"Summer theater is almost impossible to get everybody more than one weekend," Kooy said with a grin.

Michael Plagerman plays our hero Robin.

"He's an easily lovestruck, naive kid," Plagerman said.

Plagerman said he didn't have to do much research.

"Not really," he said. "It comes pretty naturally. It's just a lot of fun. It kind of breaks the monotony of summer. It's family entertainment for the masses, you know. Just a great, clean show full of humor, both obvious humor adults can get and some of the more subtle stuff."

The play is a benefit for the Quincy Senior Center. Tickets are available at Dragonfly, located in Quincy at 401 F St. S.W., or at the door.

Tickets are $10, which includes the show and an ice cream sundae at intermission.

"We did dinner theater two years ago, and everybody loved it," Kooy said. "My husband made me promise I would never do dinner theater again because it just about killed me. So, I'm doing dessert theater!"

For more information, call Kooy at 509-787-4953 or Patric Connelly at 509-237-3244.