Carpinteria’s Alcazar Theatre presents Gloria’s Old Haunt, by Mark J. Heller, the playwright behind last summer’s popular production of Social Insecurity. Co-director Leslie V. AnnRenee describes the play as a romantic comedy with a supernatural twist, full of “old-world charm and present-day cynicism.” The story follows Doug, a struggling writer trying to rediscover his artistic and literary voice while working on a screenplay in a Palm Springs hotel. His epiphany comes in the form of three spirits from the desert’s heyday as a glamorous getaway for Hollywood luminaries. “He comes seeking escape,” says Heller, “but what he finds is confrontation: three ghosts who refuse to let him wallow and disappear into his own exhaustion.”
The ghosts, director/screenwriter Billy Wilder and actresses Gloria Swanson and Carole Lombard, provide a source of inspiration and activation for the floundering Doug. “By the end, Doug doesn’t simply write again; he lives again,” says Heller. “The ghosts don’t give him answers; they give him back the courage to ask new questions…. They don’t give him a new voice. They give him back the one he abandoned.”
AnnRenee is co-directing Gloria’s Old Haunt with Åsa Olsson. “We sometimes approach a moment differently,” says AnnRenee, “but those different perspectives create a more balanced production.”…