Westborough Players' Club Show is Fun For the Family

A family next takes the stage in Westborough on Friday night.

The Westborough Players' Club performs "Children of Eden" at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday, at the Gibbons Middle School, 20 Fisher St., Westborough. Tickets are $18 for adults, and $16 for students and seniors.

The theater group has become a place to"meet new people who enjoy theater," says Jackie Hughes, who is co-producing the play with Diane Barrette.

"With each show we do, the family gets bigger. We find we're traveling all over to see them in other shows," Hughes says.

The production even includes a Northborough father and son.

Mitchell Gordon is in the orchestra, and his son David plays both Abel and Ham.

Written by Stephen Schwartz, who composed "Wicked" and "Godspell," the play was inspired by "the first nine chapters of the Book of Genesis, from Creation to the Great Flood," Hughes says.

"The story just seemed to jump off the Bible pages. It gives a good lesson: Eve made a mistake," she says.

The 35-member cast is directed by Alison Walters-Short. Northborough resident J. Parker Eldridge is the musical director, and Michelle Leibowitz is the choreographer.

The cast includes both children and adults, Barrette says.

And "we're going to take children from the audience during intermission," costume them, "and they'll be part of the animal parade going onto the ark," Hughes says.

The cast and crew will dedicate the show, in the program, to Ken Orben, who was scheduled to play Orben, Hughes says.

Orben, 41, of Lowell, died Dec. 27 from complications from surgery