The 2020 production was a special one: With the global COVID-19 pandemic emerging and all the university buildings closing in March 2020, we had to cancel all our scheduled cake and ticket sales, as well as our performances. With no prospects of the situation changing anytime soon, we were stuck in limbo, not knowing if and when we could ever perform our already well rehearsed play. After months of waiting on responses from potential alternative solutions and of holding several Zoom meetings and rehearsals, we finally found a safe and suitable location to perform our play: the ehemalige Zentralwäscherei Zürich. When the lockdown regulations were finally lifted to a certain degree, we started to rehearse again, in basements and apartments, in parks and living rooms of our members. Finally, we performed Harvey to an audience at five fully booked performances, 2.5 months after our original performance dates. This whole process was challenging and it took a lot of reorganization, but we are so glad that we were able to adapt to the new situation and eventually bring our play on stage!
About the Play
Harvey is a comedy in three acts, which premiered in New York in 1944. The successful play ran on Broadway for 5 years and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1945. 1950 it was made into a movie by Henry Kosters. It tells the story of a perfect gentleman, Elwood P. Dowd, and his best friend, Harvey — a pooka, who is a six-foot tall, invisible rabbit. When Elwood begins introducing Harvey around town, his embarrassed sister, Veta Louise, and her daughter, Myrtle Mae, determine to commit Elwood to a sanitarium. When a misunderstanding happens, a comedy of errors ensues!
About the Author
Mary Chase was a US-American writer and journalist, who lived in Denver, Colorado from 1907 to 1981. She wrote for the Denver Times and the Rocky Mountain News until marrying journalist Robert Lamont Chase. Later she began writing plays for the theatre. From her many plays and children’s books, it was Harvey which became most successful. Mary Chase penned the screenplay for its movie adaptation.
Cast
Elwood P. Dowd – William Jones
Veta Louise Simmons – Isabel Adarraga
Myrtle Mae Simmons – Wilmari Claasen
Mrs. Ethel Chauvenet – Pascale Albrecht
Ruth Kelly – Sophie Flück
Duane Wilson – Noah Lang
Dr. Lyman Sanderson – Lorenzo Contin
Dr. William Chumley – Ladina Mauchle
Betty Chumley – Mia Lu & Melina Jobbins
Judge Omar Gaffney – Alexander Schulz
E. J. Lofgren – Eliza Eckhart
Crew
Director – Saskia Kaiser
Producer – Carmen Aeschbacher
Treasurer, Music – Andrin Albrecht
Stage Designer– Claire Schrago
Marketing Manager – Pascale Albrecht &
Annegret Voigt
Director’s Assistants – Eliza Eckhart &
Hannah Künzler
Producer’s Assistant (Sponsoring) – Isabel Adarraga
Producer’s Assistant (Bar/Ticketing) – Pernille Meier
Photography – Melina Jobbins &
Leticia Peredo
Videography – Pascale Albrecht
Costumes Designer – Isabelle Koch &
Lux Katharina Züst
Graphic Designer – Réjane Schrago
Stage Hands – Emilie Roux dit Buisson
Gian-Luca Kuoni &
Franky Diethelm
Music Assistant – Cédric Stüssi
General Assistant – Isabel Schmidt
Blueprint Masquerades 