In a little less than three months, on June 19, the 91st Peterborough Players season begins with “Noises Off,” a classic comedy that Chuck Morey hopes will be the first in a series of big shows that draw big crowds to the converted barn at 55 Hadley Road.

“We need to get butts in the seats, as the saying goes,” he said.

Morey, the Players’ interim producing artistic director – he’s known as “the iPad” around the office – returns to the place where he started in 1969 on the day he graduated from Dartmouth College.

“I left the graduation ceremony, hugged my parents goodbye, and by that afternoon, I was building scenery,” he said.

Morey was artistic director of the Players from 1977 to 1988 and at the Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake City from 1984 to 2012. After leaving Pioneer, he thought he was pretty much done running theaters and devoted himself to writing and freelance directing before the Players’ board asked him to replace Tom Frey on an interim basis.

“When I was asked to do this, I couldn’t say no, but I said I’d only do it for a year, and we need to start a search for new leadership,” he said. “I’m enjoying being back in the saddle here."

Morey said the interim position is freeing, in that it allows him to focus on this summer’s season and only this summer’s season. He said the COVID pandemic savaged the performing arts, cutting attendance 30% to 40% -- a condition he called “life-threatening” for theaters -- and “everyone from Broadway to the smallest regional theater in the country” faces challenges getting people away from Netflix and Amazon.

At Peterborough Players, attendance was roughly 40% of capacity, and Morey said it needs to run at 60% to 70%. It is the reason why he wanted big, popular shows with broad appeal for this season.

“Known titles sell, and unknown titles tend not to sell, unless you have a really strong hook,” he said. 

Building a season

“Sometimes it’s one step forward and two steps back, but we’re moving” is how Morey described the current state of preparations.

He said the theater had 90% of its staff, 75% of its actors and some interns. Set designs are submitted and in place for “Noises Off,” which Morey said has complicated sets.

“We’re in pretty good shape,” he said. “I think people are excited about the season, and so are we.”

When it comes to recruiting, Morey said he started by reaching out to staff who wanted to return, and then asked people he knew and had worked with before if they wanted to come to Peterborough for the summer.

Returnees will include Gus Kaikkonen, a former artistic director who will direct one show and act in three others, and Kraig Swartz, who will act in three shows.

“In virtually all cases, people have said, ‘Yes, yes, yes, I’d love to do that,” he  said. “It’s going to be a really strong company of actors, a lot of Broadway credentials, Hollywood credentials.”

Morey also has received resumes and agent submissions from all over the country, and conducts auditions locally and in New York City.

“In four days of auditions, I saw 600 actors, and if I stayed there another four days, I would have seen another 600 actors,” he said of one recent audition in New York.

From those calls, Morey said he expects to hire four people.

After ‘Noises Off’

Once “Noises Off” concludes June 30, it will be followed by “Deathtrap” from July 3 to 14, an Ira Levin comedy/thriller that is the longest-running play of the genre on Broadway.

Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” will be on the Players’ stage from July 17 to 28.

“If there’s a more wonderful summer romance, I don’t know what it is,” Morey said.

“Ben Butler,” a Richard Strand play set to run from July 31 to Aug. 11, is probably the least-known of this season’s offerings. It tells the story of how Butler, a lawyer-turned-general, and refugee slave Shepherd Mallory.

According to Morey, Butler realized that if the Confederates believed slaves were property, the Union could seize them as they could seize other property during wartime.

“That was really the first step toward the Emancipation Proclamation,” he said. “I think audiences are really going to like it, even if they don’t know it up front.”

The season concludes with “Man of La Mancha” Aug. 14 to 25, telling the story of Don Miguel de Cervantes and Sancho Panza, who were imprisoned during the Spanish Inquisition, and featuring the song “The Impossible Dream.”

“It’s very powerful, and it’s very funny, too,” Morey said.

Morey will be directing three of the shows: “Noises Off,” “Pride & Prejudice” and “Man of La Mancha.”

“That’ll be the fun part,” he said. “That’s my reward for eight months of writing budgets and acquiring royalty rights for all the pieces and hiring staff and the nuts and bolts of all of it.”

Subscription renewals begin March 25, and new subscriptions are on sale starting April 4. Barn Door Passes go on sale April 17, and single tickets are available starting May 1.

If people want seats for the big shows, Morey recommends getting a subscription for guaranteed seats in fixed locations.

“If you wait until August to buy tickets to ‘Man of La Mancha,’ you might be disappointed,” he said.

For information, go to peterboroughplayers.org.