This weekend, I was thumbing through the program notes I took home from the Orlando Philarmonic’s opening night Phil at Carr series performance and noticed an ad for a theatre I didn’t know existed. The Mad Cow Theatre, located on South Magnolia between Church St. and Pine St., has been around since 1997 at various locations in the Downtown area. Performing five shows in their first year, the production company has steadily grown and now performs ten shows as part of two series, called “Stage Left” and “Stage Right”.

This season’s schedule is already underway, with “The Heidi Chronicles” wrapping up this past weekend. Next up is “She Loves Me“, a musical comedy by Masteroff, Harnick and Bock. The original musical was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Musical back in 1963, and then again in 1993 for Best Revival of a Musical. In all, “She Loves Me” has been nominated for 14 Tony Awards and taken home 2 (Best Featured Actor: Jack Cassidy (1963), Best Actor: Boyd Gaines (1993)).

The story of “She Loves Me” should be familiar to most of today’s audiences. There have been numerous other plays, movies and musicals based on this story of two shopkeepers who are at war with each other in person, only to be falling in love through their anonymous letters to each other. Most recently, this story was adapted in Hollywood with the movie, “You’ve Got Mail“, featuring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

As for the theatre, it sounds like a place that we should all know about. According to their website, Mad Cow Theatre “attracts the area’s most talented and gifted actors, designers and directors. The company has received numerous awards, including Arts Innovator of the Year by United Arts of Central Florida, several Umbrella Awards at The Orlando International Fringe Festival and Best Theatre Company from Orlando Magazine and The Orlando Weekly.”

There are approximately 125 seats in the Stage Left setup. It’s hard to tell whether or not this is also true for Stage Right. The Mad Cow Theatre website is a bit of a mess and clicking around only confuses the situation. Maybe I can trade some IT work for a few tickets.

The first night of “She Loves Me” is November 15th and tickets are available through the website. Personally, I’d call their box office at 407-297-8788 to order tickets, but the options are there for you. I’ll add the rest of the schedule to our calendar of events. If we are able to attend any performances during the coming months, we’ll surely post a review.

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