Playwright to attend world premiere of ‘The Curse of the Blue Monkey’ at Theatre Albany

ALBANY — Playwright Ed Sala will be in the house when “The Curse of the Blue Monkey,” the sequel to his successful “Bloody Murder,” makes its world premiere this week on the stage of Theatre Albany.

The curtain for the first of seven performances rises at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

“Ed Sala will be in town for the opening night,” Theatre Albany Artistic Director Mark Costello said before a rehearsal last week. “We’ll have a reception afterwards. If they (theater-goers) want to come that night, they can meet and greet with the playwright.”

This is the second visit to Albany for the Roanoke, Va., playwright. He attended Theatre Albany’s opening performance of “Bloody Murder,” a play often cited in reviews for its originality, in October 2010.

“I’m looking forward to it,” said Sala, a retired television and stage actor. “Last time was a little different. It was the 14th production down there and I wanted to get it published, but it wasn’t published yet. But now it’s (“The Curse of the Blue Monkey”) the first production.

“I’ll be very interested in the audience’s reactions. I haven’t written a sequel before, so I’m going to school on this production. … It’s fun (seeing a first production). Those characters are running around in my head, and now they’re on stage. I can really see them. The audience is seeing those characters, too.”

“Bloody Murder” is a comedic take on classic British mysteries.

“Agatha Christie’s the one everybody goes to, but there are a whole lot of them,” Sala said. “Agatha Christie was pretty imaginative and involved.”

Like “Bloody Murder,” “Blue Monkey” includes a cast of “the usual suspects” type characters — the haughty lady of the manor; her loyal and proper housekeeper; a ne’er-do-well, conniving nephew; an unsophisticated, naive young woman; an aging army veteran who still defines his life by his military service; and a former great actor who has turned to drink. While the roles are familiar, one aspect makes them unique — they are aware they’re characters in a play, and they take exception with the way the writer is handling them.

“In the first play, the writer lets the characters go, pretty much writing the story for him, until he winds up having to regain control of them later on,” Sala said.

“The Curse of the Blue Monkey” picks up some time after the conclusion of its off-kilter predecessor with more murder, mystery and surprises. The cast once again will play multiple parts in the setting of an English manor.

“He (Sala) sent me the first act back in the spring,” Costello said. “We’re sort of the out-of-town tryout for this.

“It’s the same characters. All the actors play two parts, like they did in the first show. Since the last play, the valuable blue monkey has disappeared.”

Three actors from Theatre Albany’s “Bloody Murder” production six years ago will play the same characters this time around. Diane Lamb has another turn as Lady Somerset, wealthy owner of the isolated country manor. Bill Mackenzie is Devon Tremaine, the once-great actor who’s now a heavy drinker, though he does call on his experience playing Sherlock Holmes to help with the mystery. And Kathleen Stroup is Jane, the prim, put-upon maid.

Costello, who’s acting as well as directing, will portray Major Quimby, the pompous retired military man who served in India. Doug Lorber is Charles Pomeroy, Lady Somerset’s worthless nephew. Delaney Taylor Bourlakov rounds out the cast as Emma Reese, an ingenue.

The difficulty in writing the sequel, Sala said, was deciding how much of the play should be a continuation of “Bloody Murder,” and how much should be “a whole different story. It’ll be interesting to see if I hit the right balance.”

“The characters even talk about (references to the first play),” he said. “The characters know they’re characters. In ‘Bloody Murder,’ they rebelled against their writer because they thought he was unimaginative. They didn’t want to do it anymore.”

Asked whether it was difficult to write about characters engaged in a test of wills with the writer, Sala said it was to some degree. “I think my characters like me,” he quipped, “but I’m not sure.”

Sala said he tried to find the right balance between the connection of the two works and the need for “Blue Monkey” to stand on its own. And, of course, he needed plenty of unexpected twists along the way.

“I try to be extremely different in each play that I write,” Sala said. “It’s more fun for me that way and, hopefully, more fun for the audience. The first one (‘Bloody Murder’) was a unique idea, a lot of the reviews are on the idea — they liked the idea, something odd they hadn’t seen on stage before. This one can’t be quite as original as that one.

“But I’m trying to keep the same amount of surprises in it. That one had a lot of surprises. I think murder mysteries have to have many surprises. It’s all about the last reveal — revealing the murderer. The rest of the play, nothing’s really happening except they’re adding things up in their minds.”

While the plays are connected, their developments were different.

“’Bloody Murder,’” Sala said, “was a lot of fun to work on to begin with. This play (‘Blue Monkey’) was a lot of fun to work on because the characters were already there in my head. I knew what they were going to do under different conditions.

“Usually when you write a play or any fictional work, you have to put it together while you’re doing it, ask, ‘What’s this character going to do here?’ I didn’t have to do much of that.”

Sala said “Silver Spoons” actor Joel Higgins, who he’s been friends with him since they were in the Army, “told me it’s nice to work on a series like that because you don’t have to work out the character development every week. You know what your character does in a lot of different instances. That makes sense.”

Sala will attend some the final rehearsals this week, which means there may be some tweaking done before the first curtain rises Thursday night.

“There has to be a delicate balance between how much the actors can handle and what needs to be changed,” he said. “You can’t go but so far changing things, particularly when the people have jobs. I’m keeping that in mind.

“One of the advantages of having an actor as a playwright is he knows what you’re going through, too. I try not to abuse them at all that way.”

He also may make some refinements to the script based on audience reactions to this first series of performances.

“I think it’s neat (for Albany theater-goers) to be part of the development of the play,” he said.

With “Bloody Murder” now at 60 productions in the United States, including Hawaii, and in foreign markets — Australia, New Zealand and Crete — Sala said he thinks there’s a good chance that “The Curse of the Blue Monkey” also will be published.

Sala received his master’s degree in playwriting from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va. Now retired except for his writing, he’s lived his life primarily as an actor, appearing on and off Broadway, at Carnegie Hall and in movies and episodic television.

“I was a successful actor, and I was able to support my family off of that. I’m proud of that. I did pretty well, made it to Broadway once,” he said. “It’s a nice business to be in, but you’ve got to believe in yourself and all that stuff because you’re out of work a lot.”

Performances of “The Curse of the Blue Monkey” are set for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and Nov. 4-5, with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Oct. 30 and Nov. 6. Theatre Albany is located at 514 Pine Ave. Tickets are $20, adults; $15, seniors, and $10, students and active military. The box office is open noon to 4 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, noon to 2 p.m. performance Saturday and one hour before curtain. Contact the box office at (229) 439-7141 or visit theatrealbany.org.