Total strangers of various backgrounds and ages signed up for Classic American Tales’ (CAT) Theater Workshop, and here they are performing, script-in-hand, under the direction of CAT’s artistic director Gayle Stahlhuth, with less than 10 hours of rehearsal time, in Scene Night.

The evening includes Fourteen by Alice Gerstenberg (1919), a one-act comedy about a woman hosting a dinner party during a snowstorm; a scene from Why Marry? (1917), a comedy that received the first Pulitzer Prize; and Defending the Federal Theater, a short one-act about Hallie Flanagan, National Director of the Federal Theater Project under the Works Progress Administration (WPA), being questioned by Martin Dies, Chairman of the House Special Committee on Un-American Activities in 1938.

The audience is invited to bring a favorite beverage, including alcohol, and a snack.

The nonprofit Classic American Tales started in the summer of 2023 with weekly storytelling during the summer and fall at the historic Dormer House in Cape May, but quickly expanded to include acting and playwriting workshops, lectures, and performances in other Cape May venues and on the road. We intend to produce staged readings and productions of old and new plays, always keeping our mission in mind of “Telling America’s Stories One Tale at a Time.”