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The stage play on which the film “Sabrina” is based, "Sabrina Fair" is set
in the 1950s on a large estate on Long Island Sound owned by the very
wealthy Larrabee family. Sabrina is the daughter of the Larrabee’s
chauffeur, who has returned from a successful career in Paris to find out if
she still has feelings for the love of her youth, David Larrabee. In the
process, she encounters David’s older brother Linus, who is strangely
preoccupied with resolving her conflict for her. When Sabrina’s would-be
fianceé follows her from Paris, she must choose between her three suitors
and the lives they represent. In the end, after stirring things up in the
lives of her father and his employers, she finds our more about herself and
who she has grown into -- and in the end of course, she finds a truer love.
 Much
more than a simple love story, this plays deals with issues such as aging in
a changing world, resuming the limitations of American culture after living
abroad, and the flexibility of moral values among the wealthy. Ironically,
it is also contains one of the most ancient of plot devices -- the "poor
servant girl" is allowed to marry the "master of the house" as she is
discovered to have wealth that puts her in their social stratum. The
difference with this play is that the money does not rule Sabrina nor her
true love.
The concept for this production focused on the early 1950s as a time of
transition in American culture and society -- between "old money" and
entrepreneurship, between local and global politics, between obsolete and
new definitions of proper behavior -- and even extends to musical styles
(post big-band but pre-rock and roll, for instance). In the set design, the
outdoor patio of this mansion thus becomes a crucible for these transitions,
with the structure and civilized architecture of the mansion house on stage
right and the more rustic elements of the open water and untamed nature on
stage left -- leaving the patio area as a kind of "stage" on which to
examine the tensions between the old and new orders -- in society, in
politics, in business, yes, but more importantly in love.
 This
production marked the second year of a collaboration between Stetson and
Lake Highland Prep School, in which both organizations produced the same
play in separate productions, while sharing costs and labor to construct the
set. The set was designed and built at Stetson, where the show opened in
late September; it is then disassembled and delivered to Lake Highland, and
used in the play’s October production there. Each school cast the play from
its own students and conducted separate rehearsal processes.
There were a number of challenges associated with this project. One was
finding a play that would work at both places. Not only were the audiences
and talent pools very different, but we needed a single unit set that was
affordable and could travel -- as well as be built in a short period of
time. Coaching acting was also a challenge in that this play has many
references to issues current in the 1950s that we had to come to grips with;
its language is rather elevated and witty (hard to sound realistic); and
it's about people's concerns who are much richer than most of us. But more
than anything else, there is a huge romantic scene near the end of Act II in
which only two people are on stage for about 20 minutes -- and the acting
needs to be very delicate -- it's a long, slow, quiet scene in which two
people fall in love. We were very diligent in achieving the right balance
there, and probably spent the most rehearsal time on it. An opposite acting
challenge was given the large number of people with very small roles -- they
have to be clear, and streamline their actions and interpretations down to
the essentials, as well as convey a fully rounded character with just a few
lines of dialogue and brief appearances.
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