The Hampton Theatre Company opens its 42nd season this evening at 7 with "Finishing School," a comedy by Elaine Liner, at the Quogue Community Hall.
Set in a retirement community, the play centers on two lively friends whose daily routines are disrupted by a group of visitors. When the visitors encourage a lonely widower to take a chance on love again, "the result is a warm, witty, and uplifting exploration of friendship, aging, and the possibility of second acts in life," according to the theater.
The play premiered in 2014 at the Bath House Cultural Center in Dallas. The Dallas Voice called it "smart, observant . . . and rat-a-tat hilarious, with zingers that a punnier critic might call one-Liners."
A journalist for many years, Liner took up playwrighting and performing at the age of 59 with her one-woman comedy show "Sweater Curse: A Yarn About Love." Since then she has twice been the Thurber House playwright in residence in Columbus, Ohio, and was a 2006 fellow at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Conn.
The production is directed by Mary Powers, whose recent Hampton Theatre Company credits include "The Thanksgiving Play" (2025) and "Now and Then" (2024). The cast features Scott Hofer, George A. Loizides, Catherine Maloney, and Tamara Salkin.
Performances will take place Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30, with a 2:30 performance on Oct. 31, a Saturday. Conversations with the creative team will happen following the performances tomorrow and Friday, Oct. 30. The show will run through Nov. 1.
Tickets are $40, $36 for senior citizens, $30 for veterans and Native Americans, and $25 for students 25 and under.
Season subscriptions, which, in addition to "Finishing School," include "A Christmas Carol: A Live Radio Play" (Dec. 11), "Dial M for Murder," adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher (March 4), and "Noises Off" (May 20), are $100.
