Players charm with Third Ken Ludwig Comedy

By Peggie Miller for the Houston CourierTHE CRIGHTON PLAYERS brought two hilarious Ken Ludwig comedies to their stage previously; now they are presenting a third, “Leading Ladies,” in the Owen Theatre for the first time in this area.“Ludwig authored ‘Lend Me a Tenor’ and ‘Moon Over Buffalo’ that the Players mounted in past seasons,” said MARTY CRAIG. “He is a master of comedy and those two were big hits for us.”“Leading Ladies” is about two actors whose declining fortunes have brought them to the low state of presenting Shakespearean plays in local Moose halls.After being booed off a Moose stage for the last time, they unexpectedly find their fortunes brightening. News comes of a wealthy woman in a nearby town who is dying and wants to will her fortune to her two long missing English nephews.It’s an aha! moment for the nefarious actors who decide this is the way out of their predicament.Assuming their best English accents they descend upon the fading woman, only to discover that the missing heirs are nieces, not nephews.Unfazed, they are forced to “change” genders a-la-Tony-Curtis-and-Jack-Lemon in “Some Like it Hot.”As you might expect, this generates all kinds of entanglements — romantic and otherwise.