Terry Hardcastle and Peter Haig star in The Voysey Inheritance at the Caldwell.

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Within minutes of the opening of The Voysey Inheritance, the patriarch of the title family admits to his son that their wealth was amassed through an elaborate Ponzi investment scheme. Sound familiar?

No, David Mamet did not quickly scribble off this script based on recent headlines. He actually premiered the play in 2006, long before the name Bernie Madoff was front page fodder. In fact, Mamet’s play — which opens tonight at the Caldwell Theatre in Boca Raton — is an adaptation of a drama by Harley Granville Barker that was first performed in 1905.

Caldwell artistic director Clive Cholerton, a former investment adviser, was only peripherally aware of the play when the Madoff story hit the fan. But he grabbed a copy of it and began working on getting the performance rights for South Florida.
No, he has not reached out to the victims of Madoff’s chicanery, to entice them to see The Voysey Inheritance.

“First of all, I don’t think we need to make a whole lot of an effort, sad to say. They are a big part of our patron base,” notes Cholerton. “I even address that in my director’s comments. I say, ’I’ve got a feeling a lot of you were victimized by this.’ ”

The play deals more with the Voysey family’s reactions to learning how their money was made, rather than the scheme itself. “Mamet has dealt with it very, very sparsely,” says Cholerton. “It’s very much a human story. It doesn’t get bogged down in the technical investment details.”

The Caldwell has had its own money woes, but Cholerton is upbeat about the theater’s future. “We are still suffering, although every day things take another step forward,” he reports. “The city of Boca Raton has approved a $100,000 emergency grant to us that obviously went a long way towards digging us out.

“And we’ve continued to work really hard with our bank. They’ve done some modifications on our loan,” on the still-mint condition Count de Hoernle Theatre. “We’re hoping at this time next year to be at a dramatically different position.”
Selecting The Voysey Inheritance is a sign of Cholerton’s bullishness, for it requires a cast of 12, beyond the reach of most area theaters. And he was able to attract some of the region’s best actors, including Peter Haig, Terry Hardcastle, Dennis Creaghan, Lourelene Snedeker and Jim Ballard.

Didn’t a payroll of that size make Cholerton blink hard?

“I definitely blinked, and I rubbed my eyes and my eyes rolled around in my head,” he concedes. “Here’s what I believe, the second you start getting away from telling the best story that’s available to you at that time is when you end up costing yourself money.”

Practice, practice . . . That is the punch line to the question, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” The more accurate answer is, “Talent.” West Palm Beach’s Avery Sommers will make her Carnegie Hall debut on Nov. 30, as one of the featured guest artists in a Christmas Time in the City concert. “This has always been a dream of mine,” she says. “Every singer, I think, wants to play Carnegie Hall.”

And if you go to New York the previous week, on Nov. 23, you can also catch her at the chic Metropolitan Room cabaret on 22nd Street, doing her solo act, “You’re Gonna Hear From Me,” which also happens to be the title of her new CD.
Congratulations, Avery. It is good to know there is life and work after Love is Love.

What’s a BRIFT? . . . It’s an acronym for the newest professional theater company in the area, the Burt Reynolds Institute for Film & Theatre. Yes, it is only one letter off from the institute for theater training that flamed out in 1997, soon after moving to West Palm Beach in what is now the Cuillo Centre.

The stage troupe within the institute will be called The Burt Reynolds Under-the Bridge Players (BRUBP), named for their venue at the Burt Reynolds & Friends Museum, just north of the drawbridge on East Indiantown Road in Jupiter. Tapped to be BRIFT’s executive director is Kenneth Kay, who once served as artistic director of the earlier training and performance organization.

But the big news is the company’s first show, a staged reading of William Luce’s Barrymore, about the legendary, alcohol-fixated classical actor, John Barrymore. Playing Barrymore will be none other than Burt Reynolds, in a rare stage appearance.
That should get fans scrambling for tickets to the three performances, Dec. 10-12. To grab them up, call (561) 743-9962.

When: 8 p.m. now through Dec 13
Where: Caldwell Theatre Company, 7901 N. Federal Highway, Boca Raton, FL
Admission: $34-$55
Contact: (561) 241-7432 or (877) 245-7432
Website: www.artfestival.com