Following a celebrated professional staged reading at New York City’s Theater Row, the new musical comedy about the making of the film “Cleopatra,” with book, music and lyrics by Charles Barnett (When We Get There), will be presented by the Crowded Kitchen Players in association with Ice House Performing Arts Collaborative in Bethlehem, PA. Six performances will be staged from June 13-22, 2025 at The Ice House, 56 River Street, Bethlehem, PA 18018.

The Last Days of Cleopatra is an entertaining romp of a farce about love, betrayal, and triumph, all told in a setting of strife and midcentury-modern glamour. It’s 1961. After a calamitous start in London, the cast and crew of the film “Cleopatra” move to Cinecittà Studios in Rome to re-start the film. The dazzling Elizabeth Taylor has stayed on in the role of Cleopatra, but she has a new co-star: Richard Burton, a famed Shakespearean actor, who has joined the cast as Mark Antony. With the largest budget in Hollywood’s history and an acclaimed new director, Joseph Mankiewicz, the production seems to be back on track. But in reality, this esteemed cast and crew are in the process of making one of the biggest turkeys of all time. All while Taylor and Burton strike up a world-famous adulterous affair that ends Taylor’s marriage and drenches the production in scandal. As Taylor learns hard lessons, though, other troupers meet sunnier fates, finding friendship or true love on the set of this colossal disaster.

Ara Barlieb directs a cast of 13, including Sami Kennett* as Elizabeth Taylor and Albert Nelthropp* as Richard Burton with Jenna Atkinson, Bruce Brown, Lauren Curley, Nina Elias, Sharon A. Ferry, Robert Jacobs, Herman Marsh, Robert Tollinger, Dan VanArsdale, Pamela McLean Wallace, and Sawyer Whitted*. *Member, Actors’ Equity Association.