Stage Left begins third season at The Market Common with ‘Dilemma’

It’s no dilemma for Stage Left Theatre Company to open a new season of plays.

Embarking on its third season already at The Market Common in Myrtle Beach, the troupe will begin a new year next week with “Dilemmas with Dinner.” Show times for this play, about an employee who invites her boss over for dinner with hopes of landing a promotion, are 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 3 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays, Aug. 13-30 at Stage Left, 3064 DeVille St., Myrtle Beach, between Nevers and Lewis streets, next to Coastal Dance Centre.

Amber McCann, artistic director, said comedies make up this whole season, and she gave a snippet of the opener, “a farce that’s silly and funny,” and previews of the other plays:

▪ “Art of Murder” Oct. 8-25 – Like “Dilemmas with Dinner,” this is “also a bit farcical.”

▪ “Miracle on South Division Street” Dec. 3-20 – Keeping “feel good moments” in a Christmas mode, and showing “how brothers and sisters, and parents and kids, talk with another.”

▪ “Almost, Maine” Feb. 4-21 – “Fairly sweet, also ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ in Maine.”

▪ “Dixie Swim Club” June 2-19 – “Probably my favorite. ... This is about five women who went to college together and were on the swim team, and they meet at the same beach house every year since they graduated. This show is about four of those very special weekends as they grow older.”

McCann said some remodeling has taken place this summer in the 53-seat box theater, with repainting, some new chandeliers and interior decorating in the lobby, with help from a core group of about 10 volunteers.

Prices and the run for each show – 15 performances for five per weekend – remain the same from the 2014-15 season. Single tickets are $18 general admission, and $15 active-duty military, veterans and students, and season tickets are $80 individual and $160 couple.

Seeing groups turn out for matinees, and people make “date nights out” for night shows, have become standard, McCann said, glad to see audience members find their comfort with the choice in show times.

“There are girlfriends who get a group together to come to show for a Saturday matinee while their husbands are out playing golf,” she said.

McCann said Stage Left crews have tallied traffic coming not only from The Market Common area, maybe from a dinner outing, but also from as far as Pawleys Island and Calabash, N.C.

“They’re driving a little ways to see us,” McCann said, “which is exciting.”

The troupe also has planned a theater competition for middle and high school students in early January, not to go against one another, but against standards in such disciplines in monologues, improvisation and one-acts, McCann said, each for $25 per area, in however many participants might want to pursue.

Looking back at Stage Left’s entry into The Market Common district, McCann said the theater company’s growth and evolution has fared “better than I thought” initially, because “like any business or any artistic endeavor, it takes time for people to notice you.”

With “our audiences really” enjoying the company’s own niche in the local play scene, McCann said Stage Left will keep the intimacy ingrained in its setting.

“We fulfill a very specific theatrical need,” she said.

Katherine Taylor, who heads marketing for The Market Common, also recognizes the role Stage Left plays for the whole shopping, dining and entertertainment complex.

“Stage Left Theatre Company,” Taylor said, “is a gem in The Market Common, bringing cultural enrichment with a flair that only live theater can provide.”

This story was originally published August 5, 2015 at 3:58 PM with the headline "Stage Left begins third season at The Market Common with ‘Dilemma’."