Farmington Valley Stage Blazes Into 2019 with Film Noir Comedy

The Farmington Valley Stage Company will heat up Collinsville when it brings Connecticut playwright Adam Szymkowicz's Incendiary to the Canton Town Hall stage later this month. Following the author's penchant for plays about love with bent edges, Incendiary is a fast-paced dark comedy with a boy-meets-girl-meets-inferno theme. Elise (Christy Donahue, West Hartford), is the city fire chief. She's also a psycho arsonist who lives for the thrill of lighting blazes and putting them out on as big a scale as possible. When she falls in love with Jake, (Steve O’Brien, Simsbury), the hard-boiled investigating detective determined to stop her, they create their own blazing inferno through the rest of the play.

Director Anthony Urillo (Southington) originally worked with this cast last year in a staged reading of Incendiary that went so well, it whet his appetite to do a full-scale production. In keeping with his long-time love of film noir, he created a version of this play using only the colors black, gray, and white punctuated with splashes of red, bringing a 1940's Bogart and Bacall film to the stage as an art piece full of camp, comedy, and naughtiness. His enthusiasm speaks for itself: "I'm really looking forward to this production. This is a very talented cast, wonderful production team. This is going to be great!"

Incendiary plays January 25 and 26 and February 1 and 2 at 8:00 pm, and January 27 at 2:00. The January 27^th matinee will be followed by a talkback with author Adam Szymkowicz. Tickets are $21/$19 online in advance, and $21/$23 at the door. The production is 90 minutes with no intermission and is for mature audiences due to sexual content and some strong language. For more information and to buy tickets, as well as to learn more about the Farmington Valley Stage Company, please visit www.fvstage.org.