1 p.m. Matinees Begin at the Lyric Rep in Logan

The Lyric Repertory Company at Utah State University currently has four productions in repertory for the 2015 season, and matinee performances join the schedule Saturday, July 11.

The Lyric Rep is comprised of theater professionals and advanced university theater students. This year’s Saturday matinee performances begin at 1 p.m. — a change from previous years — and are offered July 11 (And Then There Were None), 18 (Noises Off), 25 (Last Train to Nibroc) and Aug. 1 (The Mystery of Edwin Drood).

“For the first time at the Lyric Rep, we’ll be having two different shows on one day,” Richie Call, co-artistic director of the Lyric Rep, said. “Every Saturday for the rest of the season you can see two shows in one day. This allows patrons who can only be here for a shorter time period to see as many shows as possible. To make these ‘changeovers’ possible, we have moved the matinees to 1 p.m. to allow our crew enough time to change the sets, props and costumes.”

This year’s season opened with Noises Off, a comedy by Michael Frayn. This play-within-a-play features doors slamming, on and offstage plotting and misbehaving sardines as a manic menagerie of traveling actors rehearses a flop called Nothing On.

“There were no weak links in the opening night production of ‘Noises Off,’” writes Jay Wamsley of the Deseret News. “All the slamming doors, slippery sardines, lost contact lenses and pants around the ankles — yes, plenty of those — worked like a charm.”

See this hilarious and classically witty play July 11, 14, 18, 24 and 30.

Arlene Hutton’s Last Train to Nibroc was the second production to open at the Caine Lyric Theatre this summer. In December of 1940, religious and bookish May and charming, young flyer, Raleigh, are on as eastbound cross-country train. The two discover they are from neighboring towns and Raleigh decides to take May to the Nibroc Festival in Kentucky. Through distance and heartache, May and Raleigh find a spark that carries on through the course of World War II.

In another Herald Journal Review, critic Schill calss “Last Train to Nibroc” “…one of the best little plays you’ve never heard of” and calls the performances of actors Blythe Coons and Stephen Humes “deliciously nuanced.”

Watch May and Raleigh fall in love July 15, 25 and 31.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a musical-within-a-musical about a second-rate company of players in Victorian England presenting its flamboyant rendition of the famous and unfinished Charles Dickens novel of the same title.

“The strength of the production that opened in Logan on June 24 is the intense spontaneity of its cast while interacting with the audience, giving the entire evening a thoroughly delightful flavor of improvisation,” wrote Charlie Schill in his Herald Journal review of July 3.

Enjoy the musical’s surprise ending July 10, 16, 22, 25, 28 and Aug. 1.

The fourth show of the season is Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. This classic “whodunnit” is about guests lured to an isolated island by a mysterious and missing hosts. One by one, each guest is accused of murder. One by one, each guest falls victim to certain justice.

“When I picked up the script for the first read, I remember making a prediction about who the murderer was going to be from page one,” said Chris Klinger, who plays the role of Rogers in the Lyric Rep production. “I figured I was well-versed in suspense and would see through the formulaic tropes I’ve come to expect and recognize so easily in today’s movies and television shows. Something peculiar began to happen as I became engrossed in the story: I found myself shifting suspicion between the characters every few pages until I had eventually suspected every single person in the play.”

Audiences can see the suspects July 11, 17, 8, 21, 23 and 29.

Tickets for the 2015 season are on sale now. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit the CCA Box Office in room L101 of the Chase Fine Arts Center, call 435-797-8022 or see the Caine College of the Arts’ Production Services website. Tickets are on sale at the Caine Lyric Theatre one hour prior to each performance.

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Writer and contact: Whitney Schulte, 435-797-9203, whitney.schulte@usu.edu