Chagrin Valley Little Theatre

Fuddy Meers by David Lindsay-Abaire

Performance Dates & Tickets

About the Play

Claire's mind is a blank slate each morning, and now there's a mystery to solve...

Directed by Yvonne E. Pilarczyk

David Lindsay-Abaire puts a goofy spin on family dysfunction.  Claire wakes up and greets her husband, Richard in a seemingly normal way.  However, Claire has a form of psychogenic amnesia that erases her memory every night when she goes to sleep, and so Richard must explain her life to her each day. Today, however, is different than the others, and Claire has some serious questions to ask him. This strange story that rides the line between screwball comedy and psychological mystery kicks into high gear when a strange man in a ski mask kidnaps Claire, and Richard must fight to get her back. Jumping into the mix are Kenny, Claire's problematic son, and Gertie, her stroke-victim mother whose speech impediment yields the play's unusual title. Also making their bizarre presence known are Millet, an ex-convict with a foul-mouthed puppet, and Heidi, an intense woman who just might be a cop.  This wild ride balances grave reality and joyous lunacy, with dark irony and outsider characters in search of clarity.

About the Playwright

David Lindsay-Abaire grew up in Boston, and majored in theatre at Sarah Lawrence College.  He was accepted into the prestigious Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at Julliard, where he studied with Marsha Norman and Christopher Durang. 

David has received commissions from South Coast Rep, Dance Theater Workshop and the Jerome Foundation, as well as awards from the Berilla Kerr Foundation, the Lincoln Center LeComte du Nuoy Fund, Mixed Blood Theater, Primary Stages, The Tennessee Williams Literary Festival and the South Carolina Playwrights Festival.

Among his influences, Lindsay-Abaire lists playwrights John Guare, Edward Albee, Georges Feydeau, Eugene Ionesco, and George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, 1930's screwball comedy films My Man Godfrey and Twentieth Century or "anything by Preston Sturges, Frank Capra, the Marx Brothers and Abbott and Costello."

Other plays he has written include, Wonder of the World (2000) - originally starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Dotting and Dashing (1999), Snow Angel (1999), The L'il Plays (1997) and A Devil Inside (1997).