10 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
By NANCY McCARTHY
hose who attend “Don’t
Dress for Dinner” at the
Coaster Theatre Playhouse
won’t have to wear formal
attire, but they will have to
bring an appetite for a come-
dy full of laughs.
In this tightly written
romp that resembles a Shake-
spearean farce, the question to
be considered by the actors and
the audience alike is: Who is
whom when?
Director Mick Alderman
manages to keep the dizzying
disarray of mistresses, friends,
cooks and Suzis lowing
smoothly. That may
be because this is
the third time
he has encoun-
tered the play.
He directed it
as a readers
theater for
an American
Association of
University Wom-
en beneit in 2001
and designed the light-
ing for it when it was staged
at the former River Theater in
Astoria in 2007.
“I found it hysterical,”
Alderman said. “I laughed all
the way through rehearsals. It
keeps me laughing. In my 30
years of theater, I’ve never seen
a funnier play.”
A local playwright, ilm-
maker, actor and author, Al-
derman began telling stories in
grade and high school when he
and his friends ilmed stop-mo-
tion animations with clay and
action igures. In a theater class
at Clatsop Community College,
teacher Del Corbett taught
Alderman how to design the
‘IN
MY 30
YEARS OF
THEATER, I’VE
NEVER SEEN
A FUNNIER
PLAY.’
SUBMITTED PHOTOS BY GEORGE VETTER / CANNON-BEACH.NET
In “Don’t Dress for Dinner,” Jean Rice, second from left, plays Suzette, a cook who must pretend to be the mistress of Robert, played by Jason
Hussa, third from left. But Robert is actually having an afair with Jacqueline, played by Jenni Tronier, left, who is married to Bernard, played
by Ryan Hull, right. Bernard is also having an afair with his mistress, Suzanne, for whom Suzette was going to cook a romantic meal.
lighting for theatrical produc-
tions, and Alderman has been
doing that for several years at
the Coaster Theatre and other
North Coast venues.
As a screenwriter, Alderman
wrote the scripts for several of
his own ilms, including the
supernatural thriller “Haunted
Shore,” winner of the Best
Narrative Feature of a Paciic
Northwest Filmmaker at the
Eugene International Film
Festival of 2011.
Several of his own full-
length plays have been staged
locally.
Alderman also authored a
memoir, “Three Weeks With
the Goonies,” detailing his
experience on the set of “The
Goonies” as a guest of director
Richard Donner when the mov-
ie was shot in Astoria in 1984.
The “fun part” about di-
recting a play, Alderman said,
is not having to worry about
camera angles and lighting each
scene, which requires so much
attention when making ilms.
“When I’m doing that, I
don’t get to interact with the ac-
tors, but as a director, all I have
to worry about is the acting,
and that was great. We just
have to tell the story.”
The story of “Don’t Dress
for Dinner” takes place outside
of Paris. Bernard has invited
his mistress, Suzanne, to his
home while his wife, Jacque-
line, is away for the weekend.
Bernard’s best friend, Robert —
who, it turns out, is Jacqueline’s
lover (unbenownst to Bernard)
— also is visiting, unaware that
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