‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ by Oscar Wilde has been entertaining audiences since it premiered in London in 1895. Friday’s opening night at Waterworks continued that long tradition. Wilde’s satire on marriage, wealth, and class borders on the farcical, and this cast performs it for belly laughs.

There is an old saying in the theatre; “to play comedy successfully, you must put your heart into it.” And that is exactly what you get with the current Waterworks production, Paul Elliott’s “Exit Laughing”. Imagine the Golden Girls wild bridge night with their dead friend and you’ll have a good idea of the story. […]

Sometimes it takes an absence to remind us just how special homegrown talent can be. That’s especially true for this year’s Panto, which has been one of the Waterworks Players’ most popular productions for almost 15 years.

It’s time to celebrate as the Waterworks Players return to enhance Farmville’s arts scene with its first live and in-person production since the pandemonium of the Covid pandemic.

“There are six of you standing here before me.  One of you is the killer. And one of you is the victim.”  This pronouncement by Detective Sergeant Trotter, midway through Act Two of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, fixes the inhabitants of Monkswell Manor as precisely as butterflies pinned to the board of a science fair […]

“Each game of chess / Means there’s one less / Variation left to be played; // Each day got through / Means one or two / Less mistakes remain to be made.”  These opening lines from “Prologue”/”The Story of Chess” point us to the inevitable—but not predictable—conclusion of Chess, the 1988 American version of Tim Rice, Benny […]

by Robin Smith What fun! “Aladdin” was my first pantomime, but attending Waterworks’ annual holiday panto is going to become a new tradition to share with my grandchildren. The audience first spies a cartoonish market scene washed in delicious rainbow sherbet colors. Since “Aladdin” is based on a Middle Eastern tale from the “Arabian Nights,” […]

Most of us are familiar with Shrek the movie, Mike Meyers’s 2001 smash (complete with Smashmouth’s cover of “I’m a Believer” as the credits roll). Some of us are familiar with Shrek the book, William Steig’s 1990 children’s tale that features a much more repulsive, cruder ogre who saves, then marries his equally repulsive bride […]

Walking into the Waterworks playhouse I was mesmerized by the extraordinary set, designed by Moffat Evans, that lay situated in the middle of a semi-circle of theatre style seating. It was not difficult to put yourself in the 1940’s living room of a secluded island manor off the coast of England. Everything was strategically placed, […]

Waterworks Players’ Legally Blonde: The Musical is a joyous, rousing treat that brings community to community theater by casting student-actors from Longwood University and Hampden-Sydney College along with an ensemble of seasoned Waterworks actors from the Farmville community and beyond. Although five of the 11 cast members are making their debuts at Waterworks Theater itself, […]