March Life in Naples Gulfshore Playhouse article

Gulfshore Playhouse continues their sensational sixth season with Ken Ludwig's The Fox on the Fairway March 2 through 23, with a preview performance March 1. This hilarious romp pulls the rug out from underneath the stuffy denizens of a private country club and leave your sides aching from laughter. Filled with mistaken identities, slamming doors, and over-the-top romantic shenanigans, it's a furiously paced comedy that recalls the Marx Brothers' classics. Ken Ludwig's The Fox on the Fairway is a brand-new tribute to the great English farces of the 1930s and 1940s. You won't want to miss this charmingly madcap adventure - about love, life, and man's eternal love affair with... golf.

With their production of The Fox on the Fairway, Gulfshore Playhouse welcomes their first guest director, Matt Lenz. Matt was the Associate Director on the Broadway musicals Hairspray, Catch Me If You Can, Disney's Beauty and the Beast and is the Director of the upcoming musical Empire about the construction of the Empire State Building. He has also directed multiple national tours of Hairspray and Disney's Beauty and the Beast and will direct the National Tour of Catch Me if You Can this fall. He has traveled the country directing various regional theatre productions around the United States. Life in Naples had the opportunity to talk with Matt about his directing experience and the upcoming production of The Fox on the Fairway.

Life in Naples: Where are you from originally? Matt Lenz: Rockford Illinois but I've lived in NYC for over 20 years -- since I graduated college.

LIN: When did you first get bitten by the theatre bug?
ML: I loved singing and doing magic since early grade school but my first real theatre experience was at a summer theatre camp when I was in 7th grade. I started acting at every opportunity -- and luckily Rockford had really solid arts programs in the schools and there were also professional companies and summer theaters - so I performed a lot.

LIN: When did you first break into the business professionally?
ML: My first paid acting job was while I was in high school but it was while I was in college that I started doing commercials, some soap work (remember Ryan's Hope?) and I always had summer stock jobs during my college years too.

Out of college I did more acting - national tours, regional theatre and Off-Broadway work but began to direct more and more in my 20s. When Disney Theatrical Productions hired me as Assistant Director on Beauty and the Beast (to work on the show on Broadway as well as many touring and international productions) my energy shifted to being fully focused on directing -- and I've not really acted since. (In public anyway!)

LIN: What is your favorite theatre experience?
ML: There are SO many but I would have to say being a part of the creation of the original Broadway production of HAIRSPRAY -- and then directing the show all over the world for the next 8 years. It provided profoundly life changing experiences, opportunity to work with extraordinary artists, and it brought such joy to so many audiences. In addition to all the tours, productions in Las Vegas, Toronto, Germany etc. I did the all South African production of the show in Johannesburg in 2008 which truly changed the way I view the world.

LIN: What are you most excited about in directing "The Fox on the Fairway"?
ML: Collaborating with truly funny, terrific actors. To pull off the playful sillyness of this kind of farce requires great skill and disciplined technique -- happily, we have a very capable, eager and talented cast. And I think it will be a lot of fun for me to stage. I'll throw in as much as the traffic will allow!

Gulfshore Playhouse's production of The Fox on the Fairway will run March 2 through 23, with a preview performance in March 1. Tickets start at just $35 and can be purchased by visiting their website at www.gulfshoreplayhouse.org or by calling the box office at 1-866-811-4111.

Gulfshore Playhouse is Naples' first and finest professional theatre company offering a variety of stimulating, thought-provoking and entertaining productions from important classics to Broadway hits and innovative new works. Our shows are conceived and created in-house using a team of professional designers and technicians as well as Equity actors with credits ranging from Broadway shows to film and television. All Gulfshore Playhouse productions are presented exclusively at The Norris Center in Downtown Naples.

The Gulfshore Playhouse Theatre Education Project serves Southwest Florida through a wide variety of unique educational opportunities. Our programming provides people from our diverse community accessibility to the art of theatre. Program offerings range from ART SMART, our in-school residencies which teach content curriculum through the lively art of theatre during the school day, to the STAR (Student Theatre Artist in Residence) after-school theatre classes and Theatre Summer Camps. We offer a variety of educational opportunities for adults, from rigorous internship programs to classes taught by professional actors and members of the Gulfshore Playhouse creative team, and our newly unveiled Synergy Series, a series of panel discussions and talk-backs relating to our mainstage productions.