‘Home Free’ offers fun twists, turns for theatregoers

A writer named Sally Armstrong is bamboozling two men on the rent they pay for a cozy beachfront apartment.

Sally’s conniving makes the two men, one of whom is a private-plane-flying business executive, not realize they’re sharing the same coastline digs.

What happens when the men’s wives find rent receipts which cause the women to suspect that Sally is playing their husbands for fools?

Theatergoers can find out April 26 through May 6 when Le Petit Theatre de Terrebonne (7829 Main Street in downtown Houma) puts on a production of the Fred Carmichael play “Home Free.” Show times are nightly at 7:30 p.m., except for Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. The theatre is closed on Monday.

“Home Free” is a partly-farcical comedy which places the men and women characters at odds in some moments, while the female characters confront one another in other scenes.

“It’s a good little comedy,” said the play’s director Reggie Pontiff, who works during the day as an employee of the South Louisiana Electric Cooperative Association in Houma. “There are plenty of twists and turns, and a lot of laughs n we hope at least.”

Most of the actors Pontiff cast in “Home Free” are veterans of the Le Petit stage.

Sally is played by Michelle Becnel, who did “Saving Grace” with the theatre. The hoodwinked husbands, Bertram and Roger, are portrayed by Le Petit’s president Greg Whitney and Dwayne Adams, respectively.

Adams appeared in Le Petit’s “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.” Whitney has directed and acted in several different plays.

The part of Bertram’s wife Celeste is played by longtime Le Petit actress Linda Schexnayder, who appeared as the copiously-weeping Estelle in the theatre’s March 2007 production of Noel Coward’s “Waiting in the Wings.”

Patty Armand portrays the other wife, Monica, while “Waiting in the Wings’” Tim Stephens and stage newcomer Susan Foret play Sally’s inquisitive friends, Eric and Tris.

Set designer John Sonnier “does a great job,” Pontiff said, constructing “Home Free’s” beachfront cottage and patio. “A beach can be seen in the background,” Pontiff said.

“We had a little difficulty at first casting the male parts in the play,” he said. “Oftentimes, getting men (to audition) is tougher than getting women for their roles.”

“As directors, we frequently want a couple to look right,” he said. “From there they can usually fill out the characters.”

Pontiff has previously directed the early Neil Simon play “Come Blow Your Horn” for Le Petit, and “Last Night in Ballyhoo,” for which he won the theatre’s equivalent of the Tony, the Esther.

“Home Free” is the final play of Le Petit’s 2006-07 season.

To order tickets, contact the theatre at (985) 876-4278.