Kathy Campshure

The Stenford Place Kathy Campshure

If a late 19th century house could talk, what stories would it tell? On the surface, this play reveals the secrets of just such a house through the lives of the people who call the house home over its one hundred year lifespan. But this play is also a comical and moving look into the relationships of those people, and how the views of men and women have changed over the course of time. In Act One, set in the late 1800's, we meet the original owners of the house, Kate and Jake Stenford. Jake has built the house as a token of love for his wife, but the project ultimately consumes all of his time and energy. When the curtain rises in Act Two, nearly eighty years have passed. Bill and Mark, two single young men who are renting the first floor of the house, face the pressures of friendship and the fear of rejection by the opposite sex. In Act Three, twenty years later, a group of teenage girls visit the now-deserted house to hold a séance. They find the house is haunted, not by ghosts, but by two young men who want to keep an eye on the girls. Their fun is cut short when a caretaker shows up to oust the youngsters, allowing the play to take a more serious turn. In the final act, set in the present, a young couple visits the house with the intentions of buying it and moving it out to the country. Like the young wife in Act One, the woman questions the amount of work that her husband will ultimately put into the house. She wonders if the project will be too demanding, leaving no time for them as a couple, but the young man manages to quiet her fears. Excited about the future, the couple leaves with plans to meet with the realtor and sign the purchase agreement the next day. With the house once again deserted, Kate and Jake Stenford return for a final time. They discuss their lives, and the house. Jake understand and admits, at last, that it was Kate who was most important to him, and not the house at all. Ultimately, they realize that it is finally time to leave the Stenford Place behind and move on.