Media Release - Jeeves Intervenes

Milwaukee, WI. …P.G. Wodehouse's beloved comic characters will come to life on the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre (MCT) stage this summer in JEEVES INTERVENES by Margaret Raether, August 12-19, 2010. Onstage favorite Tami Workentin makes her MCT directing debut with the Milwaukee premiere of this quick-witted British comedy. JEEVES INTERVENES performs in the Cabot Theatre, located at the Broadway Theatre Center in Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward.

JEEVES INTERVENES is set in 1926 London. Wealthy, witty, and wandering Bertie Wooster and his crony Eustace Bassington-Bassington attempt to dupe their relatives. They hatch an ingenious scheme to save Bertie from an unwanted marriage and Eustace from being shipped to India. Will the all-knowing servant Jeeves be able to rescue them from themselves?

The characters of Jeeves and Wooster were originally created by P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975), an English writer whose body of work includes novels, collections of short stories and musical theatre. He is best known today for the Jeeves and Wooster, Blandings Castle, and Psmith novels and short stories. Wodehouse was also a playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of 15 plays and 250 lyrics for some 30 musical comedies, many of them produced in collaboration with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical ANYTHING GOES (1934) and wrote the lyrics for the hit song "Bill" in SHOW BOAT (1927). He enjoyed enormous success during a career that spanned more than 70 years. Wodehouse was knighted in 1975 just six weeks before his death at the age of 93.

Margaret Raether's play, JEEVES INTERVENES premiered in Illinois in 2006. A longtime fan the Jeeves and Wooster characters, she adapted JEEVES INTERVENES from the short story "Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg." Her second play based on the Wodehouse characters JEEVES IN BLOOM premiered in 2009. Her other plays include DYING FOR ATTENTION, MURDER CENTER STAGE, adaptations of THE THREE MUSKETEERS and A CHRISTMAS CAROL as well as three plays for young audiences. A founding member of Artists' Ensemble Theatre, most of Raether's plays have debuted there or at New American Theater, where she spent two seasons as playwright in residence. Her works have subsequently been performed in Chicago, Atlanta and New York.

JEEVES INTERVENES will be directed by Tami Workentin, who is familiar to MCT audiences for her many appearances on the stage including PICNIC, THE SUM OF US, WELL and BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS Reversing their roles as servant and master since last summer's AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS are Matt Daniels as Jeeves and Chris Klopatek as Bertie Wooster. The rest of the cast includes Laura Gordon (SKYLIGHT, THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA), Rick Pendzich (THE
FOURTH WALL, BRIGHTON BEACH MEMIORS), and making their MCT debuts, Alison Mary Forbes and Peter Silbert.