Stage 3 explores ‘Glass Menagerie’

Sonora’s Stage 3 Theatre tackles Tennessee Williams’ famed memory play “The Glass Menagerie” with a cast of veterans and newcomers.

The 1944 drama about the Wingfield clan and its overbearing mother and her two adult children – a son who is an aspiring writer and his disabled sister – is considered largely autobiographical. The Stage 3 production stars foothills theater regular Sarah Grimes-Emmons as the mother, Amanda, and Stage 3 newcomer Dain Morrison as her writer son, Tom. Regional theater veterans Laura Dickinson-Turner and Chris Hayhurst play daughter Laura and her proposed suitor, Jim, respectively.

Traci Sprague, who serves as artistic director of Center Stage Conservatory in Modesto, directs the four-person cast. She directed last season’s Stage 3 production of “Becky’s New Car” and appeared in past company productions of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Brighton Beach Memoirs” and “Other Desert Cities.”

“The Glass Menagerie” opens Friday, Sept. 11, and runs through Oct. 11 at Stage 3.

The menagerie of the play’s title refers to Laura’s collection of glass figurines, which she uses to escape the reality of her day-to-day life. Also like the figurines, she is a fragile character.

“Laura Wingfield is a role I’ve been wanting to explore since I first read the play in high school. Laura finds refuge in the company of her glass animals and the comforting sounds of music,” Dickinson-Turner said. “Laura knows she is not like other people, but she has no real desire to be like them – she likes the world she has created.”

Dickinson-Turner, who works for the California State University, Stanislaus, department of theater office, has appeared in university productions and with Prospect Theater Project.

Grimes-Emmons has appeared in shows for Sierra Repertory Theatre, Murphys Creek Theatre and others. She was last in “Good People” at Stage 3 last September.

Morrison may be new to Stage 3, but he has worked with Murphys Creek Theatre, Prospect Theater and Modesto Junior College. Hayhurst has similarly broad regional credits for companies in Modesto, Tuolumne County and Stockton.

This story was originally published September 8, 2015 at 3:20 PM with the headline "Stage 3 explores ‘Glass Menagerie’."