After a luggage mix-up on the train, mild-mannered accountant Henry Perkins comes home with the birthday present of a lifetime: A new suitcase with £735,000 stuffed inside.

Immediately he’s transfixed, but after the high of his new riches wears off he becomes worried.

Someone will come looking for it eventually, right? Chances are they already have his briefcase, filled with a litany of tips pointing in his direction.


He needs to get out of the country, and fast. The only problem? His wife, Jean, has invited guests over to celebrate his big day, and she refuses to leave them out to dry … or have the roast chicken sit in the oven.

TWO SCRIPTS’ WORTH OF QUIPS

Originally conceived for the stage in 1994 with a feature film adaptation starring Chevy Chase released in 2006, the Tellico Community Players are bringing their own flavor to Ray Cooney’s “Funny Money” this summer.

A wry, breakneck-speed comedy that packs two scripts’ worth of quips into a two-hour run time. Director Bill Paxson and his actors have seemingly been on double-time for the past month of rehearsals nailing the pinpoint accuracy these jokes require.

“Things go so fast,” Paxson said. “You can’t snooze in this play.

“So I hope [the audience] appreciates the speed that the actors are going at, because it’s a challenge for these actors to spit up all those lines super fast.”

Much like Henry Perkins’ birthday, production on “Funny Money” has been frantic.

When the initial summer production fell through, Paxson had to act fast to cook up a new idea that would still resonate with his specific audience in mind. When they landed on “Funny Money” with a little over a month to prepare, this cast and crew had to cram in as much practice as possible — even if that meant run-throughs on weekends and holidays.

But Paxson, as well as his cast, come with the experience to pull it off.

All of these stage-dwellers have at least a page’s worth of resumé in acting in various roles at varying levels. Paxson himself, a native Californian now residing in Greenback, grew up under the lights. His father was a college theater professor in Los Angeles, and when Paxson retired from law enforcement and moved to the hills, he found a second calling back in his first home.

Since then, he’s been in the directors chair on a number of occasions, including a few previous renditions of this current production he’s taking the reins on. With a tighter budget and time window, Paxson said he’s having fun taking some slight liberties from the original play, and figuring out how to fill in the gaps as needed.

‘EVERY THEATER IS DIFFERENT’

“Every theater is different,” Paxson said. “Our set is a little smaller than previous playhouses I’ve done this in. I’ve kind of scaled down, so the whole play pretty much takes place in the living room.”

Still, he’s making the most of what’s been afforded to him. This one-stage show keeps the classic visual and prop gags that the original relied so heavily on, thanks to a crop of retired engineers turned production assistants living in the Village that make their static setting pop out at the audience as much as it can.

Stunts including (fake) gunshots and a cuckoo clock are both said to be in the mix.

Populating the Perkins’ living room are actors Cadence Cascarelli (Jean) and Tristan Brown (Henry), the latter of which Paxson recruited from his work in “Misery” Theater Knoxville Downtown.

They’re two young yet experienced thespians that both seamlessly fit into their on-stage personas.

Jean, an up-tight type, voluntarily sober … up until the point of her husband’s antics driving her to reach for the bottle midway through the first act. Across from her is Henry, a mundane man who’s jolted to life with his new birthday bonus now at his fingertips.

Brown said exploring how multifaceted his character can be has been a highlight of rehearsals thus far.

TIGHTROPES AND SAFETY NETS

As anyone with a funny bone will tell you, comedy is all about timing. Cues whip and whizz past cast members that have to stay in time with a conductor wildly waving his hands to keep everyone up to supersonic speed.

For Brown, however, the rapidity and the challenge to keep up is half the fun.

“A lot of it, really, is the quickness of the lines,” Brown said. “That’s where the comedy in this play specifically is coming from.

“And the most difficult part is if somebody kind of slows down that pace a little bit, it can suck the comedy out of the play and it’s hard to get it back.”

Brown said that while it’s a tightrope walk to nail, the safety net his peers give each other stabilizes things nicely.

“The actors that I’m working with are all very pleasant, and they’re all very good actors,” Brown said. “If we do pause, we’ll do something funny or kind of make eye contact with the audience and just keep it silly.”

“Funny Money” will be playing June 5 through 7 at 7:30 p.m., June 8 at 1:30 p.m., June 12 through 14 at 7:30 p.m., June 15 at 1:30 p.m., June 19 through 21 at 7:30 p.m. and June 22 at 1:30 p.m. at the Tellico Community Playhouse.

Tickets are available for purchase at their website, tellicocommunityplayhouse.org/.