Hampton Theatre Company Opens 'Lost in Yonkers' Thursday

Hampton Theatre Company is opening their third production this current season with Neil Simon’s 1990 play Lost in Yonkers this Thursday, March 31.

Considered the best of Simon’s plays and the opus that earned him a Pulitzer Prize, the play is set in 1942 and revolves around a 15- and 13-year-old, Jay and Arty, who are placed in the care of their Grandma Kurnitz when their father becomes a traveling salesman in the aftermath of their mother’s death. Ruling the household with an iron fist, Grandma Kurnitz watches over a quirky collective of family members including Aunt Bella, a loving, yet emotionally arrested child-woman yearning for independence; Uncle Louie, a low-level gangster on the lam; and Aunt Gert, whose fear of her mother has left her with an absurd and comical speech impediment.

The play will feature two Hampton Theatre Company newcomers in the roles of the child protagonists. Jamie Baio, a junior at Sayville High School, is playing Jay. Opposite him, in the role of Arty, is 12-year-old actor Christopher Darrin, a youngster already adept in the performing arts who has made several appearances in theater and music venues across Long Island. HTC artistic director Diana Marbury plays fills the role of Grandma Kurnitz.

Along with the new faces, Yonkers will also feature HTC veterans Rebecca Edana, Edward Kassar and Russell Weisenbacher in the roles of Aunt Bella, Uncle Louie and Jay and Arty’s father, Eddie, respectively. Catherine Maloney, who recently starred in the North Fork Community Theater’s production of Becky’s New Car, will be playing the role of Aunt Gert.

The play is directed by George A. Loizides, who makes his return to HTC with yet another Neil Simon play—he last directed Simon’s The Odd Couple (Female Version) in 2009.

Lost in Yonkers opens on March 31 and will run every Thursday through Sunday until April 17 at the Quogue Community Hall on Jessup Avenue in Quogue. Show times are Thursdays and Fridays at 7 p.m., Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. The Hampton Theatre Company will once again be offering special dinner and theater packages in collaboration with the Southampton, Westhampton Beach, Hampton Bays and Quogue libraries. Complete information about the dinner and theater packages is available on the company website.

To reserve show tickets, visit hamptontheatre.org, or call OvationTix at 1-866-811-4111.