UPDATE: Due to COVID infections among the cast and crew, the opening weekend of “Unlikely Pairings” by Daniel Povinelli has been postponed. The production’s second weekend, November 17-19, will take place as scheduled, but will add a 3:00 p.m. matinee performance on Saturday, November 18. The Opening Night Gala will now take place on Friday, November 17th. Tickets purchased for the opening weekend will be honored on any of the dates/times in the second weekend. Please email danny@citedesarts.org, or call 337-291-1122 to reschedule your ticket, or to request a refund if the new schedule conflicts with your ability to attend the show.
LAFAYETTE, La. — Daniel Povinelli, a local playwright and director, is premiering his newest work, "Unlikely Pairings" on Nov. 10.
"Unlikely Pairings" is a show consisting of three separate yet intertwined one-act romantic comedy plays. Each play is about 30 minutes long and tells a unique story with its own interesting twist, but they are all connected by their setting: Chez Antoni's restaurant.
"In these plays, Chez Antoni is this mysterious beacon kind of drawing together the possibility of love—first loves, and two of the plays take place inside of Chez Antoni's, and one of them takes place far away, but someone's desperately trying to get here," Povinelli said.
Chez Antoni's is a fictional establishment that was inspired by a local restaurant, Antoni's Italian Café, says Povinelli.
"Well, back in the day, I used to eat at Antoni's a lot. I still do, but not quite as frequently," Povinelli said. "They stayed open a little bit later than some of the other restaurants did, and it had an ambiance of, in my mind, mystery and allure."
Povinelli has localized this play in many ways, including the location for the premier.
Cité des Arts in downtown Lafayette has been home to many local entertainment and art pieces. "Unlikely Pairings" is the establishment's next feature.
Povinelli said he chose Cité des Arts during a reading of the plays that took place in St. Louis, MO.
"We thought 'Well, what fun would it be to kind of come back to one of my favorite locations to do theater, Cité des Arts here, right here in downtown Lafayette, and kind of get the show on its legs and see what it looks like and then see where we go from there,'" Povinelli said. "For me, Cité represents sort of the best of community theater: people coming together and collaborating and working on common projects with a shared vision, you know, at the community theater level."
So, if you enjoy local theater, this may be the perfect plan for your weekend.
"Do you want to laugh a lot? If you do, there's a great show at Cité for the next two weekends," Povinelli said. "The shows are designed to illuminate the fun and ridiculousness of dating in the modern age and how couples meet and what brings them together and also is kind of a poignant look at the difficulties of some of that, as well. All kind of wrapped up in one big bow under the roof of Chez Antoni's."
Tickets for the show are available on the Cité des Arts' website for $20 each. Show times for "Unlikely Pairings" are Nov. 10, 11, 17 and 18 at 7:30 p.m. and Nov. 12 and 19 at 3 p.m.
However, this may not be the last time we see Chez Antoni's take the stage in Lafayette.
"The backstory is that there are actually seven or eight of (the plays) that all orbit around Chez Antoni's in some way, shape or form. They're not all in the restaurant, but they all have that theme running through them, and they're all plays about first loves and about what people are willing to give up to get what they say they want," Povinelli said. "So, yeah, who knows, in the future we may have many more unlikely pairings."
