Opening night is Friday, July 29, and performances will continue for three weekends at The Powerhouse in New Canaan’s Waveny Park.

Ann Deiters, who plays the role of B emphasizes, “Will clearly admires Albee a lot and wants to honor him. Will makes us laugh as he directs us toward the play’s depths.”

“I feel we have to rise up to Edward Albee’s level,” says Julie Bell who will portray C. “Will, an actor’s director, has such a hold on this material, he spends hours and hours with the script and finds new things which he brings to us at every rehearsal.”

About a year after the death of his mother, Edward Albee began writing a play about her. The bare bones of the show in no way convey the richness of   its story.

In Act One, a young lawyer, C, has been sent to the home of a client, a 92-year-old woman, A, to sort out her finances.

A, who is frail and perhaps a bit senile, resists and is of no help to C. Along with B, the old woman’s paid companion and caretaker, C tries to convince A that she must concentrate on matters at hand. A prods, discusses and bickers with B and C, her captives.

A’s long life is laid out for display. She cascades from regal and charming to vicious and wretched as she wonders about and remembers her life. How did she become this? Who is she? Finally, when recounting her most painful memory, she suffers a stroke.

In Act Two, A’s comatose body lies in bed as B and C observe no changes in her condition. In a startling coup-de-theatre, A enters, very much alive and quite lucid. The three women are now the stages of A’s life: the imperious old woman, the regal matron, and the young woman of 26. Her life, memories and reminiscences pondered in the first act are now examined, questioned, accepted or not, but, at last, understood. Midway, her son enters and silently sits by his mother’s bedside.

 “A real challenge” and “a tough role” are words used by each of the three actresses playing A, B and C.

Cynthia Sepe of Darien whose acting career spans years of professional work in New York City plus community theatre in Greenwich, children’s theatre in Fairfield, and performing in Driving Miss Daisy for the Southbury Players at Heritage Village, says, “I wasn’t sure I liked A.

“I can empathize now. I really like her. She’s a very complex human being who hasn’t had an easy time. We don’t get to know people well enough to know what they’re dealing with on a daily basis,” she said.

Ann Deiters of Ridgefield says it is “her absolute joy to have been chosen by [Mr Jeffries] to play B.”

The connection is so moving to her “because Edward Albee and the late actress Irene Worth were devoted friends and it was Irene who encouraged me to do community theatre. I love Albee’s humor, his banter, and his cynicism.”

After ten years of professional stage, TV and film work in New York “where I was able to make a living,” Julie Bell recently moved to Darien with her boyfriend and is pursuing community theatre “to continue what I’ve done since childhood.”

Will Jeffries’ conceptualization for the set will surprise audiences. Enhancing his vision are whiz kid light designer Devon Allen, a graduate of New Canaan High School, who is studying light design at Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, and Sally Vrba, the talented costumer from Pound Ridge.

Marge Foster is overseeing props and the show’s producers are Patrick Kiley and Ann Baker.

(Waveny Park is on South Avenue, or Route 124, in New Canaan.

Performances of Three Tall Women will be Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, July 29 through August 13, with Sunday matinees on July 31 and August 7 at 2:30.

Tickets are $15 for adults, and $12 for students and seniors. For reservations call 203-966-7371.)