Wichita Community Theatre to stage comedy “Charley’s Aunt”

With the idea of improving his film-making skills, Jered Becker joined Wichita Community Theatre a few years ago.

He’s appeared in four shows, assistant directed two others and, with “Charley’s Aunt” opening this week at Wichita Community Theatre, directed his first play.

“I make short films and don’t work with anybody. I do the sound and music and shooting and all of that stuff,” Becker said. “The hard part was delegating it out to people. I found people for some stuff but haven’t found people for other things.”

If he ever got a nod to direct, he promised, he would be at every workday and be at the theater more hours than anyone else.

He was originally set to direct another community theater show that has been rescheduled to this fall. That was a simpler introduction to the director’s chair, he said, with a five-person cast and one set.

“Charley’s Aunt,” in contrast, has 10 actors and three sets.

“It’s kind of been a significant step up,” he said.

A theater chestnut, “Charley’s Aunt” debuted in 1892, setting the record for the longest run at London’s Globe Theatre with 1,466 performances.

In the comedy, Jack (played by Kinsey McDaniel) loves Kitty (Chelsea Daniel) and Charley (Ava Graves) loves Amy (Julie Williams). The gentlemen invite their ladies to the home of Charley’s wealthy aunt, who has had to cancel. They recruit a friend (Jonathan Lane) to pose as the aunt.

Other cast members include Mark Barlow, Jeremy Buoy, Mary Tush Green, Amy Brown and Jami Thomas.

Becker said he put several twists in the casting, including putting the two smallest females who showed up to audition in the lead male roles.

“I tried to put everybody in roles they don’t normally do,” he said with a laugh. “Maybe it created more challenges for me.”

Becker had the freedom to edit the century-plus old play and took out much of the repetitiveness and redundancy in the script, he said.

He said he enjoys the Wichita film-making community, but they tend to struggle with lackluster screenplays.

That’s why he hoped some theater experience would help him.

“I’m doing some theater, where it’s guaranteed the writing is good and I can get something to act on,” he said. “This material has been proven – you have to step up to it rather than try to make some bad writing work.”

‘Charley’s Aunt’

When: Through March 7; 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays

Where: Wichita Community Theatre, 258 N. Fountain

Tickets: $11 on Thursdays; $15 adults, $13 for students, military and seniors, available by calling 316-686-1282