For more than eight months, the Lyric Theatre had gone dark due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Friday night, that changes as a three-day run of ‘Get Smart: COVID Edition’ takes the stage.
Four shows will take place this weekend at 7:30 p.m. Friday, 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Remaining tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for students and can be purchased at brownwoodlyrictheatre.com.
“This actually means a great deal,” Larry Mathis, director of Get Smart, said of the return to the stage. “We started out this year with Nunsense in January and this show was to immediately follow Nunsense. It was cast, we had the set props going up but it wasn’t a set like this. We started rehearsals and had to shut down. The Lyric’s had nothing open since. This is monumental for us and I think for the community because I think the community, as is seen for instance by Brownwood Lions football games, the people are ready to get out and get back to some normality. Being able to come the theater and feel safe, because we are at 50 percent capacity, allows them the opportunity to do that.”
The Lyric Theatre website describes the play as follows:
“’Would you believe six?’ With that question, this bright comedy-satire put an expression into the language. Smart is off on a bizarre new case in which he must stop the sinister organization known as KAOS from their most shameful plot. Their plan this time is to prove their power by blowing up the Statue of Liberty! This is too much, and Smart springs — perhaps we should say stumbles — into action. Magnificently assisted by beautiful Agent 99, Smart proceeds from one gigantic blunder to another—each, however, somehow turning into a master stroke.”
Returning to the stage presented a unique set of challenges the cast and crew have tackled in preparation for this weekend’s run.
“It’s extremely challenging, not in terms of the audience because that’s done by software and it separates them, but we have 21 people in this cast,” Mathis said. “When you have to try and have 21 people socially distancing on a very small stage, it’s just very difficult. That’s one of the reasons you see multiple levels and things like. In all occasions we’re not six feet apart, but we wear the shields and the masks, which is why we call it the COVID edition.”
Stage director Kris Henry added the following, “It’s been interesting trying to follow guidelines and rules and gently remind people, yet still have fun and make it a good production. The set has taken a lot to be built because we’ve had to add and change. Then off stage there’s so many things that you take for granted that you just don’t realize with the physical distancing and masks and other safety protocols and the ways they affect the things that you do and take for granted. From having to sign in to come to rehearsal, using hand sanitizer, wearing masks, and distancing obviously. It’s definitely meant you have to think outside the box which is why we decided to embrace the absurdity and run a little with it with the show. It includes subtle things, for instance you not only see shields, there’s a couple of different types of masks and the girls in the first scene bring out a big box and if you look carefully it’s a box of face masks.”
Henry added that while the initial time off due to COVID was a welcome break and chance to refresh, that feeling soon faded and was replaced by a longing for days of the past.
“Because I’m typically involved backstage in most productions, I definitely needed a break so at first it was very pleasant,” Henry said. “Then I began to miss it and now I’m just overjoyed to be back. Probably the first week of rehearsals everyone showed up 30 minutes early because they were so excited. It makes me hope that I will never take this for granted again.”
Get Smart was a popular TV series that aired from 1965-70, and for decades after in syndication, that starred Don Adams as Agent 86 Maxwell Smart, a bumbling spy working for the CONTROL agency as it battles the evil forces of rival spy agency KAOS with the help of his competent partner Agent 99. Mathis offered a comparison between the television program and the play that will be presented this weekend.
“It’s the same in that it will have many of the characters you’re accustomed to seeing,” Mathis said. “It’s an hour and a half show so it’s a little longer than the 3-minute TV series with commercials, so the story line takes a little longer to develop. It’s also live so you don’t have an opportunity to do a lot of special effects that you would do if it wasn’t live, but with that said we still have some cool special effects.”
Ryan Bailey will be making his Lyric Theatre debut in the role of Maxwell Smart. Bailey’s roots on stage trace back 25 years to his beginnings at the Point Theatre in Ingram followed by his time at the Fredericksburg Theater Company, as well as performing on a national tour of Greater Tuna directed by co-writer Jaston Williams.
“Get Smart is a classic,” Bailey said. “I haven’t watched a whole lot of it because it was before me, but I do remember seeing it. I love Don Adams and how dry his delivery was. I find that very, very funny. I appreciate the voice, too, because I did grow up watching Inspector Gadget and I realized he did the voice for that character and I thought that was really pretty cool, too. Overall I’d say the comedy and the fact that it is a Mel Brooks creation appealed to me most.”
Regarding the role Don Adams made famous, Bailey said, “the most fun and the biggest challenge for me is to put my own spin on a very iconic character. I want to do him justice since he is so iconic, but I kind of want to make him my own, too. Finding that balance has been the most fun challenge for this show.”
As excited as the actors are to finally perform again, they are just as eager to provide an escape for the audience.
“These are definitely interesting times with the fact that we have to wear face shields on stage, which makes this completely different from anything I’ve ever done,” Bailey said. “But it means a lot to me and I hope to the community just to have some sense of normalcy again and to reach out, even though you’ll see the face shields, and forget the outside world for an hour and a half and laugh. That’s what’s most important. And I’m hoping they’ll get a twinge of nostalgia for the show because I know this is big favorite of a lot of people when it was originally on.”
GET SMART CAST
Maxwell Smart…Ryan Bailey
Princess Ingrid…Alisa Hinton
Helen/Mary…Patti Kilpatrick
Myra/Shirley…Holly Blanton
Jane/Betsy…Cayla Dennis
Fred…Jeff Tucker
Voice of the Cone…Walker Willey
Professor Dante…Frank Nelson
Pofessor Zalinka/Woman…Keren Myers
Agent 44…Brian Downs
Chief…Stephen Haynes
Miss Finch…Lasha Dennis
Hodgkins…Doug Turner
Man…Drex Holt
Tourist…Sandra Richardson
Tourist…Rami Lynn Taggart
Tourist…Joe Taylor
Garth…Joe Dennis
Mr Big…Val Nelson
Voice of Mr Big…Curt Schneider
KAOS Guard #1…Caroline Dennis
Agent 99…Cassia Rose
Agent 13…Caleb Dennis
Ann…Taylor Crow
Jill…Ricky Jones
Laura…Doug House
