The Sum of Us
by David Stevens
August 25 - September 18, 2005

This award-winning play tells the story of widower Harry Mitchell and his son Jeff. Not only do the two live together, but Harry is Jeff's determined matchmaker. Jeff is in love with a young gardener he met in the local pub, but Greg is wary particularly when he meets dear old Dad. Meanwhile, Dad is developing a relationship with a woman he met through a dating service.

" A father son play with a big heart. Its first act has plenty of laughs, while the second half balances humor and pathos and includes a surprise twist and a shocking conclusion, and The Sum of Us adds up to be an engaging theatrical experience filled with laughter and emotion." — Variety.

" An old fashioned play in the best sense. There's a real story and fully developed characters an audience can care about. " —AP.

Photos • Reviews
Press Release
SNAP! Productions is excited to announce our next production,The Sum of Us. A widowed father has to deal with two complex issues: while he is searching for Miss Right, his son, who is in his 20s and gay, is searching for Mr. Right.

This award-winning play tells the story of widower Harry Mitchell and his son Jeff. Not only do the two live together, but Harry is Jeff`s determined matchmaker. Jeff is in love with a young gardener he met in the local pub, but Greg is wary—particularly when he meets dear old Dad. Meanwhile, Dad is developing a relationship with a woman he met through a dating service.

“A father son play with a big heart. Its first act has plenty of laughs, while the second half balances humor and pathos and includes a surprise twist and a shocking conclusion, and The Sum of Us adds up to be an engaging theatrical experience filled with laughter and emotion.”—Variety
“An old fashioned play in the best sense. There`s a real story and fully developed characters an audience can care about.”—AP

The cast features: Therese Rennels, Michael Taylor-Stewart, Aaron Wilhoft and Jonathan Wilhoft. The production staff includes: Director-Daena Schweiger, Producer-Scott Fowler, Costume Design-Nancy Ross, Sound Design-Dave Podendorf, Stage Manager-Joann Goodhew, Light Board Operator-Denise Chevalier, Set Design-Michael Taylor Stewart, Lighting Design-Matt Fowler, and House Manager-Liz Heim.
The Sum of Us runs August 25 through September 18 at SNAP!/Shelterbelt Theatre, 3225 California Street, Omaha, NE.

Reservations 341-2757 or online at www.snapproductions.com
Special performances include a Thursday, August 25 Preview tobenefit the Theatre Arts Guild Scholarship Fund and Sunday, August 28 for Sign Language Interpretation.


Cast
Harry — Jonathan Wilhoft
Jeff — Aaron Wilhoft
Greg — Michael Taylor-Stewart
Joyce — Therese Rennels

Sign Language Interpreters — Gary Beck & Meghann Cassidy

Production Staff
Director — Daena Schweiger
Producer — Scott Fowler
Stage Manager — JoAnn Goodhew
Costume Design — Nancy Ross
Props Design — Rhonda Hall
Set Design — Michael Taylor-Stewart
Sound Design — Dave Podendorf
Sound Technician — Dave Podendorf
Lighting Design — Matt Fowler
Light Technician — Denise Chevalier
Set Construction — Alex Fowler (Set Crew Foreman), Ryan Tolles,
Michael Taylor-Stewart, Daena Schweiger, Scott Fowler,
Joe Basque, Matt Fowler, Dave Podendorf
Connie Fowler, Aaron Wilhoft, Mary Redelfs
Publicity — Todd Brooks
Program, Poster, Postcards, Photography — Mark Cramer


Producer’s Notes

When I first saw the film The Sum of Us on cable late one night about two years ago, I was overwhelmed by its portrayal of the unconditional love that a father has for his son. I also was struck with how the movie was structured like a play. I immediately went online to find out more about it. I was thrilled when I found out there was a play version, and that with a few clicks of the mouse and my credit card number, I could have the script delivered directly to my door! From that point on, it became my personal mission to bring this work to the SNAP! Productions stage.

Looking back on my life so far, I have to say that my relationships with my own father and both of my sons are the most complex, frustrating, intense, difficult, beautiful, and rewarding relationships of my life. As a son, I know I made many decisions that my father didn’t agree with, but he was almost always supportive of my choices. Now, as a father, I find myself having to do the same thing with my boys, and it’s not always easy.

Whenever I think about this play, I am drawn to one line of Harry’s: “Our children are the sum of us.” In preparing the display seen in the window outside the theatre, I was looking at old family photos, and kept finding the faces of my sons appearing in pictures of my dad, and in pictures of me. Family resemblances are only a small part of it. The people our children become are influenced by all the generations that came before them.

I want to thank the SNAP! Board of Directors for giving me the chance to present this beautiful story on their stage. But the most special thanks go to Daena, Jonathan, Aaron, Michael, Therese, and every other person whose name appears anywhere in this program. Every single one of them was instrumental in making this dream come true for me. I hope you enjoy the show, for it truly is the sum of us.

—Scott Fowler

Photos
(click on photo to see full size)

Reviews

CITY WEEKLY REVIEW – David Williams

“The Sum of Us”
Comedy Yields to Pathos at the Shelterbelt Theater


The postage stamp-size stage of the postcard-size Shelterbelt Theater is the perfect venue for SNAP! Productions’ presentation of Australian playwright David Stevens’ award-winning play “The Sum of Us”. The friendly confines of this tiny theater serve to draw the audience right into the living room of Harry Mitchell and his son, Jeff, as though we are all just a part of the family in this tender tale of a widower who is seeking “Ms. Right” while his gay son pines for “Mr. Right”.

This seemingly simple, bittersweet comedy may appear to be an unadorned nod to the timeworn theme of a father and son who share a deep love and an unbroken devotion to each other…but this would be a gross over-simplification. “The Sum of Us” capsizes the hokum of formula stories by engaging and challenging the audience on multiple levels to peek below the surface as we explore a deeper, more compelling insight into the range of experience, fears, hopes and dreams that form the building blocks of the human condition.

Dad yearns for love and his lust for life is rekindled when he finds a new paramour. Son Jeff presents himself as one who has a robust sense of self and is, somewhat paradoxically, comfortable in his own masculinity in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that he is gay. In his father’s eyes, Jeff comes across as a bit of a slacker in the romance department and Dad worries that this attitude will preclude his son from ever finding romance. “I don’t want to live in a world that begins and ends with being gay”, Jeff protests. Otherwise accepting of his son’s sexual orientation, Dad is haunted by the fear that Jeff will forget how to love and muses that he “can’t think of a worse thing to happen to a human being than that”.

From the opening curtain, both actors artfully and seamlessly weave a strong motif of affection and devotion. This is a show of many evocative and warm-hearted exchanges and monologues that foster an ambience of compelling character development that goes far beyond the usual fare. But “The Sum of Us” does have a darker side to counter-balance the comedy when the first scenes, largely played for laughs, yield to bouts of plaintiveness and pathos as the night unfolds.

It is no surprise that these two fine actors can so capably create scenes of family life when we consider that three-time Theater Arts Guild (TAG) award winner Jonathan Wilhoft (Dad) and Aaron Wilhoft (Jeff) are, in fact, father and son. “It has been a great bonding experience to be able to share a stage with Aaron in roles of father and son”, explains Jonathan. At a mere 22, Aaron has moved with his family 43 times. Military family? “Something like that”, Aaron chuckles as his dad jumps in to explain that he is a retired minister in “several of those congregations that start with the letter P”. What struck me as truly uncanny, though, was the way these two went at it in our interview, eerily and yet quite naturally reverting to their stage personas with a playful banter of light-hearted put-downs that were, at times, decidedly not what we might expect from a “man of the cloth” and his “Bible study” boy.

Multiple TAG award winner Deanna Schweiger does a marvelous job directing this little gem. Therese Rennels and Michael Taylor-Stewart carry on wonderfully as our protagonists’ love interests in their rather limited stage time but, in the end, this is really a two-man show that paints a sensitive and touching picture of the transforming power of devotion and love, reminding us all that our children are the sum of us.


Review: Dad-son team sparkles in 'Sum of Us'

BY BOB FISCHBACH
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Count the reasons "The Sum of Us" will become a hot ticket.

Start with a winning script by David Stevens ("Breaker Morant"). This funny, warm and wise adult play focuses on the tight relationship between a widower and his twentysomething son. The twist is that the son, Jeff, is gay, and the father, Harry, is, well, unusually supportive.

Real-life father and son Jonathan and Aaron Wilhoft play the roles. Their characters are so moving and likable that Thursday's preview audience stood before the curtain call began.


Credit, as well, excellent character studies by Michael Taylor-Stewart, as Jeff's love interest, and Therese
Rennels, as Harry's. Add Daena Schweiger's insightful direction that delivers both comedic timing and the delicacies of dramatic moments; Taylor-Stewart's set that makes maximum use of minimal space; and Matt Fowler's complex lighting that was on time and on target.

Even the Australian accents, needed with a script full of down-under lingo, were well-done.
Stevens' one-liners have you laughing from the get-go as Harry prepares dinner and Jeff gets ready for a date at the pub, the two tossing barbs at each other all the while. They are unusually direct and open in talking about their sex lives. Maybe that's because, living in close quarters, there's little privacy. Harry likes to chat up the dates Jeff brings home, and he's been known to pop into the room at all the wrong
moments.

Or maybe it's because they're the kind of father and son who spontaneously smoke a joint together on Christmas. The beer, scotch, champagne and Irish cream also flow liberally. In a show that's all about inner thoughts and feelings, soliloquies become an effective conceit used all night long. Action stops
as either Jeff or Harry enters a spotlight and directly addresses the audience with background and explanation of what they're about.

Besides great onstage chemistry, the pair offer a fascinating study of contrasting acting styles. Jonathan Wilhoft is a bit of a ham with a twinkle in his eye and an extra spring in his step, suiting his character's zest for living. Aaron displays a more reserved and natural style that reinforces Jeff's shyness and faltering self-confidence. At first glance, age and body type suggest Taylor-Stewart is miscast as Greg, a gardener with "a swimmer's body" who fancies Jeff but is taken aback by Harry's openness. Greg is not out to his family, and his fear becomes a wedge between him and Jeff. Taylor-Stewart's subtly underplayed performance is emotionally spot-on.

Rennels makes the most of a single scene in which she twice surprises Harry with her answer to his marriage proposal and her reaction to learning his son is gay. Superior line readings put her individual stamp on the role of Joyce, a strong-minded woman.

But "The Sum of Us" will be most remembered for the inspired casting of Wilhoft and son, who leave an emotional print on their audience. Peevish and loyal, resentful and protective, they present the full cost of loving and make us all want to pay it.

The ‘Ouch Couch’

25 Aug 2005
FROM STEVE ESKEW, - FOR THE READER

As a youngster, when actor Aaron Wilhoft acted out and his mother determined that he deserved a spanking, she’d delegate that task to his father Jonathan. The elder Wilhoft, however, hated the thought of hitting his son and decided what Mama didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her — and it didn’t hurt Aaron either.

Jonathan would take the boy behind closed doors, whereupon Aaron would scream bloody murder as his father spanked not Aaron but the couch. Yep the old “ouch couch” provided a way for Dad to mollify Mom while tightening his rather “uncommon” bond with Aaron.
Still the best of buddies, the adult son and father have now teamed up for the SNAP! production of The Sum of Us by Australian dramatist David Stevens. Breaking from a Saturday rehearsal, the Wilhofts, joined by producer Scott Fowler and director Daena Schweiger, discussed the comedy/drama.

The Wilhofts portray a similarly close father and son, Harry and Jeff Mitchell. Jeff’s a homosexual but, unlike many plays comprising a gay theme, his sexual orientation remains unproblematic.

Harry believes what’s wrong with the world certainly isn’t determined by the way folks make love. In fact, Harry not only accepts Jeff’s “cheerful” lifestyle but also becomes involved in trying to push Jeff into finding a loving, permanent relationship.

“Aaron and I share a rapport rather analogous to Harry and Jeff’s,” Jonathan said. “Harry completely accepts but can’t relate to Jeff’s sexual orientation much like I completely accept but can’t relate to Aaron’s Bohemian lifestyle.”

“But Dad and I do make such a supreme team,” said Aaron, who acknowledged that he still lives with his father “periodically,” adding that they’ve always teased each other unmercifully. “We kid around in ways that no one would understand and in words that no newspaper would print.”

The Wilhofts aren’t the only father-son team in this production. Producer Fowler’s son Matt functions as the show’s lighting designer. Scott Fowler admits to being a sucker for stories that revolve around the emotional complexities of a father-son relationship.

“I happened to catch the movie version of The Sum of Us a couple of years ago, and I loved it,” Scott said. “I’d myself once been a widower, left to raising a son just like the father in the story.”

Fowler soon discovered that the movie was based upon a play and, since he served on the SNAP! board of directors, he urged the other members to consider producing it.

Schweiger considers Harry as a sort of “every-parent,” wanting the utmost happiness for his son. Even still, Harry’s initial coming to terms with Jeff‘s sexual orientation was not easily accomplished.

“As a parent Harry naturally worries about AIDS and other issues, but he chiefly concerns himself with Jeff’s happiness. Harry’s matchmaking, however, can be a bit unnerving at times,” Schweiger said. Harry’s been known to lovingly wake up Jeff and his current one-night stand before breakfast to inquire how they’d like their early tea, even audaciously suggesting that the virtual stranger address him as “Dad.”

Harry’s acceptance of his son’s choices suggests to other parents to emulate his example, remembering that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

“Our children are only the sum of us, what we add up to,” Harry says at one point. “I conceived Jeff. How could I ever be ashamed of what my seed has become?”
Feeling the Wilhofts’ unique chemistry makes it easy to discern Jonathan’s pride in what his seed has become. A chip off the old block — a born couch beater.

The Sum of Us runs Thursday-Sunday, Aug. 25-Sept. 18, at The Shelterbelt Theatre, 3225 California St. Aug. 25 is a preview performance to benefit the TAG Scholarship Fund. Tickets are $15 for adults and $12 for students/seniors/TAG members. For reservations, call 341.2757 or visit snapproductions.com


SNAP! PRODUCTIONS | 3225 California St, Omaha, NE 68108 | PO Box 8464 | Box Office: 402-341-2757
Copyright © 2005 SNAP! Productions