Take three delicious, malicious wives, add three miserable, unloving husbands - and chill. The Smell of the Kill revolves around Nicky, Debra and Molly who have tolerated one another during once-a-month dinners for years. While their unseen spouses play golf in the dining room, the women exchange confidences for the first time revealing that all three marriages are on the brink of disaster. When the men mistakenly lock themselves in a basement meat locker the women are faced with a life-or-death decision-should they leave the men out in the cold-permanently-or let them thaw? One by one the women make their choices with more than a little help from one another.

The three actresses playing the leading roles in Northern State University Theatre's production of The Smell of the Kill are Angela Nguyen, Amber Noble Stellner and Erin Dahmes and and their offstage husbands are played by Seth Honerman, Benjamin Lickteig and Kevin Nilson. NSU Senior and Musical Theatre major Adam Karal Sahli directs the production, Technical Director Larry Wild provides the set and light design and Dan Yurgaitis, Director of Theatre, is the Producer. The play will be performed onstage at the Johnson Fine Arts Center. Performances are scheduled for Wednesday through Saturday, February 13-16, at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $10.00, with discounts available for seniors and high school students. Tickets increase $2.00 at the door. Tickets go on sale Monday, February 4th in the NSU Bookstore. For additional information, call 626-2563. This play contains adult language.

After The Smell of the Kill opened on Broadway in 2002, playwright Michele Lowe was stalked down an alley by a man made livid by her unflattering depiction of three lousy husbands. Often the first query she gets from any male journalist is, "So why don't you like men?" To the critics and the crazies (hey, isn't that redundant?), Lowe's stock response is, "It's a comedy, hello!"

MICHELE LOWE is the author of Mezzulah, 1946 (City Theatre), String of Pearls (Primary Stages, Outer Critics Circle Award nomination), The Smell of the Kill (Broadway debut) Backsliding in the Promised Land (Syracuse Stage), Map of Heaven, Good on Paper and Hit the Lights! (book and lyrics). She recently completed Inana which was commissioned by the Denver Theatre Centre. Michele has participated in the Eugene O'Neill National Music Theatre Conference, The New Harmony Project, PlayLabs, New York Stage and Film and the ACT & Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival. Her work has been produced at Primary Stages, Vineyard Theatre, Intiman, City Theatre, Reykjavik City Theatre (Iceland), Berkshire Theatre Festival, Cleveland Play House , Geva, Asolo, and Cincinnati Play House in the Park among others. Michele's work appears in Best Plays of 2005 (Smith & Knaus, 2006) and New Monologues for Women by Women (Heinemann, 2004). For television she has written several episodes of Little Bear based on characters created by Maurice Sendak. Screenplays include The Emergence of Emily Stark and Quitting Texas for Avenue Pictures. Michele is a recipient of the Frankel Award. She is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. She is a member of ASCAP, the Dramatists Guild and a Core Member of the Playwrights Center.

The Smell of the Kill in its earliest version was nominated by Portland Stage Company for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 1996 and has received readings at Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, Long Wharf Theatre and elsewhere. Lowe's other play Backsliding in the Promised Land was nominated for the Blackburn by Syracuse Stage in 1998.

"Dialogue fascinates me," Lowe has said. "People swear they know my characters. A man once asked, 'How do you know my wife?' It's because I lift the words from real life. I'll be at a restaurant having dinner with my husband, but I'm intently listening to a couple's conversation nearby."

Michele Lowe's play first played at the Cleveland Play House in 1999. The dark suburban comedy was a work that sprang from the Cleveland Play House's annual new plays festival. The Play House's Next Stage Festival of New Plays was founded in 1995 by artistic director Peter Hackett. Playwrights from Cleveland and all over the country submit scripts to be workshopped and publicly read at the Play House. The Smell of the Kill was the hit of that festival and would receive a main season world-premiere production from January 15 to February 7, 1999 at the Play House's Drury Theatre. Play House literary manager and resident director Scott Kanoff directed at the 508-seat theatre. Designers were Linda Buchanan (set), Claudia Stephens (costumes), Richard Winkler (lighting) and Robin Heath (sound).

(a scene from the Intiman Theatre production)

The next stop on its journey was at Seattle's Intiman Theatre, under the artistic direction of Barlett Sher, who added the comedy to its 2000 season.

The playwright revised the play in 2001 for the Berkshire Theatre Festival where it received good notices. There, Katie Finneran, Claudia Shear and Kristen Johnson played the three scheming wives.

(Claudia Shear, Lisa Emery and Jessica Stone take their opening night bow at the Helen Hayes Theatre.)

Michele Lowe's black comedy began previews at the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway March 7, 2002. Following successful runs at Seattle's Intiman Theatre and the Berkshire Festival, the play officially opened on March 26. Claudia Shear, who starred in the Berkshire mounting, repeated her role on Broadway, opposite two new co-stars, Lisa Emery (Dinner with Friends) and Jessica Stone (The Country Club). Also appearing in the production were Patrick Garner (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) and Mark Lotito (Betrayal). Initially, The Smell of the Kill was announced for an Off-Broadway mounting to open on Valentine's Day, but the plans then switched to Broadway when the 577-seat Helen Hayes Theatre came available upon the closing of Andrew Lloyd Webber's By Jeeves.

Christopher Ashley, who staged the Berkshire version directed the piece, sets were by David Gallo (Bunny Bunny), costumes by David C. Woolard (The Rocky Horror Show) and lights by Kenneth Posner (Side Man). Elizabeth Ireland McCann, Nell Nugent, Milton Maltz and Tamara Maltz produced, with Roy Gabay serving as general manager. The Smell of the Kill opened at the Helen Hayes on Broadway on March 26, 2002 to so-so reviews. Newsday said it was "a deft little anti-love story. Light hearted, cold hearted." The comedy ran only 40 performances.

(the Broadway poster)

The Broadway run will probably be best remembered as stirring up a bit of a producers vs. critics war of the sexes. The play on Broadway failed to excite the critics. They say there's no fury like a woman scorned. Well, that is apparently nothing compared to two women producers, a female playwright and an all-distaff cast scorned by a male drama critic. When New York Times' Bruce Weber gave the show a wilting, rather condescending review, producers Elizabeth McCann and Nelle Nugent struck back with a pointed ad which ran in the Paper of Record on March 29-the day after the review ran. The display ad quotes Weber's appraisal under the heading "In HIS review," reading: "O.K., I'm not a woman and I'm not married, so it's possible I'm just not in tune with a members-only message. (I admired The Vagina Monologues, but I suspect I DIDN'T REALLY GET IT.)" [Caps and italics, theirs.]

The ad then quotes New York 1's Roma Torre under the heading "In HER review": "Imagine Lucy & Ethel transplanted to the 21st century. The Smell of the Kill is a very funny, 90-minute guilty pleasure. This comedy has enough of a black heart to make it more appealing to men than you might think." Finally, the ad declaims "Get it now, Bruce?" in large, capital letters.

Many regional companies have picked up the play since it is a funny, audience-friendly play that demands vigorous acting. This is the kind of comedy that women will take pleasure in watching while the husbands are wishing they could have watched ESPN that night.

Paperback Publisher: Dramatic Pub Co (November 2002) Language: English ISBN-10: 1583421459 ISBN-13: 978-1583421451