Sutter Street Theatre opens Michael Frayn’s acclaimed play-within-a-play Aug. 15, where missed cues, slamming doors and plates of sardines are all part of the fun
Anyone who has spent time around live theater knows that sometimes what happens backstage is every bit as entertaining as what happens in front of the audience.
Beginning this weekend in Historic Folsom, Sutter Street Theatre is putting that idea center stage.
“Noises Off,” Michael Frayn’s celebrated backstage comedy about a dysfunctional touring theater company desperately trying to keep its show together, opens Saturday, Aug. 15, at Sutter Street Theatre, 717 Sutter St. The production runs through Sept. 13, with performances Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 4:30 p.m.
Directed by Mike Jimena, the production takes audiences into a world where actors forget their lines, props disappear at exactly the wrong moment, romances and rivalries spill onto the stage and simply getting through a performance becomes an accomplishment.
And then there are the sardines. Plates of them become a recurring source of trouble as Frayn piles one mishap upon another in a comedy built around timing, repetition and the things that can go spectacularly wrong during live theater.
First performed in 1982, “Noises Off” has become one of Frayn’s best-known works and one of the most frequently produced modern stage farces. Its enduring appeal comes in part from its unusual construction: The audience essentially watches a play inside another play and gets to see the production from perspectives theatergoers normally never experience.
The fictional show at the center of the story is called “Nothing’s On,” a British farce being performed by an itinerant theater company on tour. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the people attempting to perform it are dealing with considerably more than lines, cues and costume changes.
Personal relationships are deteriorating. Jealousies are growing. Actors are missing entrances. Props refuse to stay where they belong. And the carefully choreographed production gradually begins coming apart.
The three-act structure lets audiences watch that deterioration happen.
In the opening act, it is late at night and the cast is struggling through a technical rehearsal shortly before opening. Lines are forgotten, cues are missed and director Lloyd Dallas is trying to somehow get everyone — and everything — into the right place.
By the second act, time has passed and the audience gets an entirely different perspective on the same production. Instead of simply watching what happens onstage, the action shifts to what is happening behind it as the actors attempt to continue “Nothing’s On” while their own increasingly complicated relationships create havoc backstage.
Much of that backstage battle unfolds while the fictional performance is continuing on the other side of the scenery, turning entrances, exits, props and split-second timing into part of the joke.
By the third act, the company has been on the road for weeks and whatever professionalism once held the production together is rapidly disappearing. The audience returns to the front of the stage, but “Nothing’s On” is no longer quite the same show it was when the evening began.
That progression is what gives “Noises Off” much of its identity. Audiences become increasingly familiar with how the fictional play is supposed to work, making each new mistake, missed entrance and unexpected improvisation easier to recognize as everything unravels.
It is also a comedy with a particularly close connection to anyone who has ever participated in community theater, school productions or professional stage work. Forgotten lines, troublesome props, backstage whispers, hurried entrances and the determination to keep going when something goes wrong are familiar territory in live performance.
“Noises Off” simply imagines what might happen if virtually all of those things went wrong at once.
Frayn fills the story with many of the traditional ingredients of British farce: multiple doors, mistaken assumptions, romantic complications, characters narrowly missing one another and objects appearing — or disappearing — at precisely the wrong time.
The physical comedy grows along with the dysfunction among the actors. What begins with relatively ordinary rehearsal problems eventually becomes an elaborate exercise in keeping a performance moving while chaos develops around it.
The play premiered in London in 1982 and went on to productions in the West End and on Broadway. It won the Olivier Award for Best Play and has since been revived numerous times and staged by professional, regional and community theaters around the world.
Its reputation has followed it along the way.
“As side-splitting a farce as I have seen. Ever? Ever,” New York Magazine wrote of the play.
The New York Daily News described it as “bumper car brilliance,” adding, “If laughter is indeed the best medicine, Noises Off is worth its weight in Cipro.”
Now the doors, missed cues and wandering sardines are headed for Sutter Street.
The production adds another comedy to the 2026 season at Sutter Street Theatre, the longtime performing arts venue tucked into the Historic Folsom District. Its intimate setting puts audiences close to the action — something that takes on an added dimension with a production built around watching both sides of theatrical life.
Sutter Street Theatre describes “Noises Off” as a “manic menagerie of itinerant actors rehearsing a flop called ‘Nothing’s On,’” where slamming doors, onstage and offstage intrigue and an errant herring all find their way into the action.
The Historic Folsom production is rated PG and carries a content advisory for mild adult themes. It is presented in three acts with a running time of more than 120 minutes.
“Noises Off” opens Saturday, Aug. 15, and continues through Sunday, Sept. 13, at Sutter Street Theatre, 717 Sutter St. in Historic Folsom. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 4:30 p.m.
Reservations and additional information are available at www.SutterStreetTheatre.com or by calling 916-353-1001.
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