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Perseverance Theater opens its second main stage show of the season Friday with Ken Ludwig's "Leading Ladies," a new creative twist on a fail-safe formula for farce.

"This play is 100 percent traditional farce stuffed with all of the elements that have been attached to farce through the years," director Brandon Demery said. "The brilliance in the play comes from the action being set in the 1950s, when roles of men and women were clearly defined, and anyone who deviated from those roles was looked upon as not normal."

The greatest aspect of the script, he said, is in the women in the play coming back to life as they are inspired to follow their own hearts and dreams.

"The title, 'Leading Ladies,' actually refers to the real women in the play instead of the actors playing women," he said.

"Leading Ladies" is the main-stage directorial debut for Demery, a seasoned Perserverance actor. It also marks a change in tradition for the theater, in that it replaces the theater's customary annual Shakespeare production with something more contemporary. Artistic Director Art Rotch said that "Leading Ladies'" Shakespearian themes seemed the perfect vehicle to wean Juneau's audiences away from the once-a-season Shakespeare idea. The comedy revolves around two down-and-out Shakespearean actors who try and raise money through false pretenses. Built within the plot are various opportunities for the actors to quote lines and monologues from different Shakespearean plays. And there is even a raucous sword fight to boot.

Though the premise of the play is about two Shakespearian actors, the main action is actually about Meg, one of the few residents of York, Penn. who yearns to know more of the world outside of her little community haven. Meg's secret dream is to become an actress herself - to travel abroad, see interesting places and have exciting adventures. And it is because of Meg that one of the Shakespearean actors, Leo, achieves his own growth.

"(He) has his own awakening, and life (for him) becomes bigger and more meaningful," Rotch said.

Meg is played by Skagway's Allison Holtkamp, new to the Perseverance stage.

"It is more than a silly farce because it has a lot of heart too," Holtkamp said, "It was exciting to have been directed by Demery as he focused on finding the heart of the play through the relationships and through the language."

Just as in Shakespearean comedies of mistaken identity, "Leading Ladies" has many witty twists. In order to turn their luck around, the two English actors hear wind of a dying patroness who is leaving her inheritance to two long-lost relatives, Max and Steve - nicknames, it turns out, for Maxine and Stephanie. In order to trick the family out of the money, the actors must not only convince the family that they are the lost English relatives, but also convince them that they - manly, English men - are genteel, English women.

These ingredients for laughs are then seasoned with another Shakespearian theme - the men, disguised as women, fall in love with the two women they must deceive. Add into the pot a stiff proper minister, a rambunctious crazy aunt, and an Abbott-and-Costello-like father and son, and you have a recipe for a night of energetic, old-fashioned, slap-stick frivolity.

"Leading Ladies" also fits well into the main theme of Perseverance's season, Rotch said.

"The plays revolve around the idea of life's adversities: What makes us optimistic in adversity and how we value our family and the ones we are most intimate with during adversity."

It also offers two different levels of enjoyment, he said: Playful Shakespearean nuances for the avid theater patron, and slapstick wit for the general audience.

"Leading Ladies" opens Nov. 6 and runs through Dec. 6.

• Michaela Moore, theater director Juneau-Douglas High School, can be reached at michaela_moore@jsd.k12.ak.us