Real-life couple play newlyweds in Community Theatre’s “Barefoot in the Park”

Jered Becker and Miranda Windholz didn’t need much prep time to play affectionate newlyweds in Wichita Community Theatre’s “Barefoot in the Park.”

“We were dating before the show,” Becker said.

Indeed, the two have been a couple since doing the drama “Silent Sky” for WCT two years ago.

“We don’t always love that term, but it was a ‘showmance,’” Windholz said.

In “Barefoot,” which opens next week and continues through Sept. 20, the two play Paul and Corie Bratter, a sometimes-mismatched pair of newlyweds who share an apartment on the top floor of a New York brownstone.

“The show hasn’t broken them up yet,” director Joe Parrish said with a laugh.

Their relationship eliminated a necessary step in theater – making actors who play opposite each other seem natural as a couple.

“We’re already comfortable with each other, so it’s not like we had to build something from scratch,” Windholz said. “We’re together all the time anyway.”

“It made the kissing scenes a lot easier,” Parrish said. “That can be difficult on stage for strangers – I’ve done it, I know – but with the pandemic it really helped because they can kiss each other because they do all the time.”

The pandemic, Parrish said, put “Barefoot” on the schedule. He was set to direct the drama “Stop Kiss” early this summer and had cast the play, but production was shut down before the first rehearsal. It has been rescheduled to next season.

The next play scheduled for WCT was “The Diary of Anne Frank,” and the play selection committee – of which Parrish is a member – thought a change was in order.

“We thought that with COVID and everything everybody’s been through, we should do something more lighthearted and something with a small cast,” he said. “Together, we kind of came up with the idea of ‘Barefoot in the Park.’”

Keeping with crowd restriction guidelines and social distancing, and counting the cast, crew, ushers and box office personnel, the audience will be limited to about 30 people, Parrish said. Audience members must remain masked, and hand sanitizer will be plentiful, he said.

Although WCT has only performed “Barefoot” once, in 1967, according to the show history on the WCT website, it has been a community theater standard for more than 50 years.

The comedy, written by Neil Simon, debuted on Broadway in 1963 and continued through 1967, an astonishing run for a non-musical, Parrish said.

“It’s such a well-written play, that’s why it’s lasted so long and so many people do it,” he said. “The characters are real, and the situation is real, and Simon was a genius at writing this particular kind of play, which is a situation comedy.”

WCT will keep the time frame of the play at February 1963 – the year her parents were born, Windholz volunteered.

“I think it’s fun,” the 33-year-old said. “We talked a little bit about being a different era and what was going on then. The costumes and the hair and all that is fun sometimes as an actor, because it does make it more or less like real life, because it’s not modern times but not so far outside our realm of understanding that we have to do a lot of research. The situations are pretty timeless.”

“It may be performed often, but performing it well is like a cool challenge,” said Becker, 34. “The language is fun and rhythmic, and there’s just a few things here and there that are funny because we don’t say some of these things anymore.”

Windholz said the role of Corie has been on her bucket list since she read the play during a theater class in college.

“I’ve always wanted to play this part,” she said. “When I saw Community Theatre was doing this, I thought, ‘Yeah, I’ve got to make this work in my schedule.’”

Parrish said that the six-person cast has triumphed over the situation that the pandemic has put them into.

“We’ve become a pretty tight ensemble and everybody works well together,” he said. “I think we’re creating an awesome show. We just hope someone comes to see it.”

‘BAREFOOT IN THE PARK’

When: Sept. 9-12; 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays

Where: Wichita Community Theatre, 258 N. Fountain

Tickets: $15 adults, $13 for military/seniors/students. Call 316-686-1282. Tickets for opening night are $11.