Final Course Near For “Play With Your Food”

“Play With Your Food” — the staged reading, script-in-hand series (plus delicious lunch) that has entertained and delighted audiences at local venues for 20 years — has reached the final curtain.

“All good things must come to an end,” says Carole, Schweid, artistic director for the series’ organizer, JIB Productions. She has had health issues, and executive producer Diana Muller is retiring.

Carole Schweid

After 350 performances, with 200 professional actors and 135 playwrights, the final performances are October 15 (MoCA CT), October 16 (Pequot Library, Southport) and October 17 (Greenwich Arts Council). All performances are noon to 2 p.m.

“Theater, lunch and hijinks await,” Schweid promises. “Plus cake!”

“Twenty years is a long time,” she notes. She looks back fondly on those 2 decades — and the beginning, when she and fellow PTA Cultural Arts Committee member Nancy Diamond were talking about their 2 passions: theater and food.

Realizing there was no theatrical entertainment around lunchtime, they had a “let’s put on a show!” moment.

Carole Schweid and Nancy Diamond, “Play With Your Food” founders.

Schweid has a BFA from Juilliard, and Broadway stage experience in “Pippin” and the original cast of “A Chorus Line.”

She and Diamond knew there were plenty of actors in the area — and plenty in New York who would be interested in a lunch-hour gig.

They also knew everyone’s time was tight. So they focused on one-acts. There would be a staged reading, followed by a compelling talkback with the director, actors and/or playwright — and lunch, catered by a local restaurant.

“Play With Your Food” would nourish the heart and soul — and stomach. And it would all take place relatively quickly, during lunch hour (okay, hour-and-a-half).

Let’s eat!

The first “Play With Your Food” was at Toquet Hall. Schweid and Diamond marketed it through postcards to friends.

It was an instant hit. The audience wanted more.

Over the next 20 years, they got it.

Schweid and Muller searched all over, for the best one-acts. They traveled to one-act festivals around the country. They prowled book fairs and libraries.

From Arthur Miller, Langston Hughes, Tom Stoppard and Ray Bradbury to Mark Twain; from up-and-coming playwrights to obscure, semi-forgotten ones — if Schweid and her colleagues liked a show, they figured, audiences would too.

There were 3 productions a year. Schweid likens them to a sandwich: a couple of “funny or wacky” shows at the top and bottom of the schedule; another with “heft” in the middle.

The plays range from comedies and romances to mysteries and musicals, from classics to unpublished works. Despite the wide variety, all share one element: The audience must leave in an uplifted mood.

A lively scene from a staged reading.

“Play With Your Food” expanded to Southport, Stamford and Greenwich. The Fairfield Theatre Company provided “the perfect black box” experience. In Westport, they outgrew Toquet Hall. MoCA, on Newtown Turnpike, offered more space, and an artsy vibe.

Big names graced the “Play With Your Food” stage. James Naughton, Mia Dillon, Stacy Morgain Lewis, Scott Bryce, Mark Shanahan and many others embraced the chance to do a different, unique and fun kind of theater.

“Who gets to hear people like this, in a setting like that?” Schweid asks.

Plus, she notes, “You didn’t have to travel. This was all home-grown.”

When COVID struck, Schweid and her crew pivoted. “If Joe Papp can do Shakespeare in the Park, why couldn’t we do Chekhov in the parking lot?” she wondered.

Former Staples High School Players actors like Matt Van Gessel and Max Samuels helped audiences weather that storm.

Lunch was an essential part of the experience. Popular places like The Porch, Blue Lemon, Da Pietro, Matsu Sushi and Spic & Span made meals almost as memorable as the plays.

“We celebrated good acting, good writing, good food, a good community coming together, and intellectual or emotional stimulation,” Schweid says.

“That’s how people will remember ‘Play With Your Food.’

“And that’s what I’ll miss.”

(Tickets for the final “Play With Your Food” shows go on sale September 4. Click here for the website. Hat tip: Dick Lowenstein)