FORT MYERS, Fla. — If you’re in the mood for a thought-provoking play, then I must recommend “Admissions” by Joshua Harmon, who is now playing at the Players Circle Theater along McGregor Boulevard in Fort Myers. This is a show that I can’t stop thinking about, as it really puts the spotlight on the audience.
It’s purposely designed to challenge and provoke. The play poses some uncomfortable but important questions about race, identity and privilege, and yes, it can be quite uncomfortable to watch at times. Ironically, it is played by all-white actors.
The veteran actors in this performance make it powerful as they pour their souls into the characters. Admissions features a strong performance by Carrie Lund-Cacioppo, who plays Sherri Rosen-Mason, the admissions director for an elite prep school that is 80% white. She pledges to increase diversity at the school and struggles to make her assistant Roberta, played by Kelly Jo Madoian, understand the importance of featuring people of color in the school’s marketing brochure. However, Roberta insists she doesn’t see color and character conflict takes center stage.
Her real challenge, however, comes when her son Charlie, played brilliantly by actor Harvey Evans, announces his best friend, an African American, who we never see, got into Yale when Charlie did not.
That announcement sets off a chain of events and emotions that allows Evans to dominate the stage in a moving performance as he sorts through his own heartbreak and conflict over quotas and race-based admissions to college. Evans has starred in several shows recently at Players Circle, and with each one, he has delivered stellar performances.
Sherri and her husband Bill, the school’s headmaster, struggle as their progressive values collide with their personal ambition to see their son into an elite school.
Actress Betty Nordstrom delivers in her character. Ginne, a friend of the couple who is also white and married to a black man, who the audience never sees, and it’s her son that made it into Yale. The friendship soon becomes strained after Ginnie discovers Sherri and Bill believe her son only got accepted to fill the school’s quota.
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The show has its funny moments and sharp humor, but by and large, it is a drama that is meant to poke the psyche and leave you battling in your own mind as it challenges well-meaning white people to re-think how they lift up people of color and a warning that it may be a bitter pill for many to swallow.
The play comes highly recommended. It has tremendous acting, writing and staging. The set is beautiful, and the round theater is perfect for this show. It’s 100 minutes long and no intermission, which is also smart because it doesn’t give the audience time to really ponder until the conclusion.
Hats off to Players Circle for bringing fresh shows to Southwest Florida.
“Admissions” runs through Jan. 26. Tickets are available by calling the box office at 239-800-3292.
Players Circle Theater is located at 13211 McGregor Blvd, Fort Myers. For more information, call 239-800-3292.
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