ENMU to present ghostly comedy

PORTALES — With “Coming Back to Life” as the homecoming theme at Eastern New Mexico University, the university’s Department of Theatre and Digital Filmmaking is presenting a comedy about a ghost who returns to haunt her novelist husband.

The play is “Blithe Spirit,” written in 1941 by Noel Coward.

It will be the first live production at ENMU since February 2020, according to Anne Beck, professor of theater and the play’s director.

Shows are 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, with a 2 p.m. Sunday matinee, at the ENMU Theatre Center at West Second Street and West University Drive. Tickets are $10 for general admission, $7 for seniors 60 and older and active military and free to ENMU students with a current ID. While face masks will not by worn by the performers, they will be required for audience members.

Beck said there are some parallels between 1941, when the play was written, and today. Coward wrote the play in five days during the Nazi bombing of London in World War II, Beck said, adding that there is “a lot of trepidation” in the air today due to COVID-19.

The ENMU production will reproduce conditions in Kent, England in 1941, Beck said.

A new faculty member, Josh Blackwood, instructor of technical theater, is in charge of sets, costumes and lights, she said.

Student cast members include Kieran Verduzco, Samantha Bartl, Liam Hurley, Aric Saiz, Alexis Whitteker, Israel Stacy and Nevaeh Jones.

The comedy concerns a novelist who hosts a séance at his home to acquire material for a novel. The seance conjures up the novelist’s first wife, which results in trouble for the writer, a school release said.