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Handstands, a ukulele, music and dancing will all be part of Wyoming Area Key Club Talent Show on Feb. 20

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Some snow on the way and colder temperatures

<p>SCRANTON &#8212; Nowadays, if word got around that two women who ran a business together also were in love with each other, their friends would probably throw them a party.</p><p>But the Actors Circle presentation of &#8220;The Children&#8217;s Hour,&#8221; which runs Feb. 11 through Feb. 21 at the Providence Playhouse, is set in 1930s New England, where information about a lesbian affair had the power to create a scandal, ruin the business and prompt the townsfolk to ostracize the women.</p><p>The rumor didn&#8217;t necessarily have to be true, either, for the casualties to start piling up.</p><p>&#8220;The play is really about the damage a lie can do,&#8221; director Patricia Purcell said in a telephone interview. &#8220;What this girl ends up doing is spreading a lie. She embellishes it and it eventually ruins the careers of these two women.&#8221;</p><p>The girl in question, 12-year-old Mary Tilford, may be simply a childish schoolgirl, upset because she believes the two teachers are too strict, and eager to say something, anything, that will help her escape their authority.</p><p>Or, she could be a villain, wise beyond her years, who has zeroed in on a way to destroy people.</p><p>&#8220;Whether or not she knew the damage she was creating, I&#8217;m not sure,&#8221; Purcell said. &#8220;She&#8217;s very much a bully and she knows how to manipulate her grandmother, her cousin Joe and the other students &#8230; I think she has a deep-rooted resentment of some sort. She feels the teachers are always picking on her.</p><p>&#8220;The adults in the show make the reference, she&#8217;s the troubled child of the whole school, and she is. She&#8217;s late to class; she does her own thing. It&#8217;s some kind of dysfunction. She has no filter, no regard for how anyone else feels, very narcissistic.&#8221;</p><p>Audiences will either &#8220;feel very, very sorry&#8221; for Mary Tilford or &#8220;think she&#8217;s a real brat,&#8221; the director said, noting that Lucy Rothfuss, who has that part, is &#8220;a fine little actress.&#8221;</p><p>Rehearsals have been going well, Purcell added. &#8220;There&#8217;s one scene where everybody comes running over to the grandmother&#8217;s house, all the adults, to talk about why all the kids were leaving school. There&#8217;s a tremendous amount of tension &#8212; anger, guilt, insecurities. At one point I have six people on stage and there are so many different levels of emotion. It&#8217;s just gripping.&#8221;</p><p>Written in the 1930s by Lillian Hellman, the story is based on a legal case in which the two women who ran a school more than 100 years earlier in Scotland sued the grandmother of a student for libel. &#8220;In the true case, actually there was a lesbian affair,&#8221; Purcell said.</p><p>&#8220;Lillian Hellman did not write it that way,&#8221; Purcell said, but the playwright did give one of the characters a &#8220;dramatic admission that is just gut-wrenching.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">A schoolgirl&#8217;s lie creates havoc in Lillian Hellman&#8217;s play &#8216;The Children&#8217;s Hour,&#8217; presented through Feb. 21 by the Actors Circle at Providence Playhouse in Scranton. Shown in rehearsal are, seated:	Madison Kingsborough, Tamara Evans, Megan Malone, Samantha Harris, Gia Festa. Standing: Ashley A. Michaels, Lucy Rothfuss, Katherine Wozniak, and Katherine Priestash. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_I-know-a-secret.jpg</photo0><caption0>A schoolgirl&#8217;s lie creates havoc in Lillian Hellman&#8217;s play &#8216;The Children&#8217;s Hour,&#8217; presented through Feb. 21 by the Actors Circle at Providence Playhouse in Scranton. Shown in rehearsal are, seated:	Madison Kingsborough, Tamara Evans, Megan Malone, Samantha Harris, Gia Festa. Standing: Ashley A. Michaels, Lucy Rothfuss, Katherine Wozniak, and Katherine Priestash. </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p><strong>By Mary Therese Biebel</strong></p><p>mbiebel@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>IF YOU GO</strong></p><p><strong>What:</strong> &#8216;The Children&#8217;s Hour&#8217; by Lillian Hellman</p><p><strong>Who:</strong> Actors Circle</p><p><strong>Where:</strong> Providence Playhouse, 1256 Providence Road, Scranton</p><p><strong>When:</strong> Feb. 11 through 21 with performances 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays</p><p><strong>Tickets:</strong> $12, $10, $8</p><p><strong>Reservations:</strong> 570-342-9707</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mary Therese Biebel at 570-991-6109 or on Twitter @BiebelMT</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Presented by Actors Circle at Providence Playhouse in Scranton: Scandal rocks a girls’ school in 1930s New England in ‘The Children’s Hour’