A critique was published in the Reporter newspaper in October 1992.  It is reproduced here:

Rumor has it: "Rumors" will be another Fond du Lac favorite

Review written by John Silah

    Theatre-going audiences in Fond du Lac, and nearly everywhere else, love a good comedy.  The most popular comedies around, for many years, have been those of Neil Simon, who has had an unparalleled succession of Broadway hits.

    It's no surprise, therefore, that Fond du Lac Community Theatre would choose a Neil Simon comedy to lead off their new season.  The surprise is that their choice this year, "Rumors," is not only another funny Neil Simon play, but one so new that it's never been performed here before.

    "Rumors" is being directed by Jan Stoegbauer and Debi Entringer, the team whose talents made "Any Wednesday" work so well two seasons ago.  Helping make the production work will be Judy Theis (Stage Manager), Claudia Winland (props), and Nancy Ericksen (costumes).

    One of the toughest parts of putting a play together is casting, and Jan and Debi seem to have cleared that hurdle; the play is well cast with many Community Theatre regulars.  Roberts Elementary School Principal John Theis plays "Ken."  John was in "Any Wednesday" as "Cass," and, prior to that had parts in "The Mousetrap," "Oklahoma," and "Camelot."

    Barbara Krug, a first grade teacher at Chegwin, is cast as "Claire."  Barbara has played in many FdLCT productions, including "Merlin and Arthur," "Oliver!", "Blithe Spirit," "A Little Family Business," "Bell, Book and Candle," and "Angel Street."

    John Nonestied, a computer programmer at G. & L., brings to his role of "Lenny" the experience he has gained from previous roles in "Blithe Spirit," "The Foreigner," "The Mousetrap," "Oklahoma," "Camelot," and "Guys and Dolls."

    Kathy Hilbert, an L.P.N. at Associated Physicians, having paid her dues by serving in the chorus in several productions, is taking the part of "Cookie," a TV chef.  Move over, Julia Child.

    George Weigel has the part of "Ernie."  George has played a wide variety of parts, for a wide variety of theatrical companies.  He was in "Love, Sex and the I.R.S." for his own troupe, The Du Lac Comedy Players, "Harvey" and "The Odd Couple" for the Company for Wisconsin Arts, "Taming of the Shrew" for the Lite Players, as well as "Brighton Beach Memoirs," and, as "King Erik in "The Apple Tree" for our own Community Theatre.  When he's not performing on a stage, George finds time for clowning (that is - playing a clown) for parties, etc.

    Debi Debbert plays Cassie.  Debi has also helped in the chorus of a few musicals, but most recently, and most memorably, she played the part of "Bill Sikes'" girl friend, "Nancy," in "Oliver!"

    Newcomer Judy Burke, an English teacher at Theisen, takes on the role of "Chris."  Rounding out the cast is Paul Zilles as "Glen," and Jerry Martin as "Officer Welch."

    "Rumors" will be presented in the Goodrich High School Little Theatre on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, October 1st, 2nd and 3rd, 1992.  Tickets are on sale at Wegner's Office Department Store and will be available at the door.

Reminisce by Matthew Rodenkirch

I got asked to work backstage, this would definitely be 1992, as the anecdote will reveal.  I was working backstage on "Rumors."  And it was just stage crew work, and Debi Emerson and I had one particular job.  There’s a gun shot in ‘Rumors.”  And both her and I had, and were comfortable with, firearms.  So she and I both had our little .22 pistols with blanks.  And the reason we were both back there was just on the off chance she had a problem, we had a back-up gun.  ‘Cause all good comedy is a matter of timing, so we needed to hit this just right.  And I remember, I think it was dress rehearsal, I was getting frustrated – I never get to fire the gun, so we said, "Let’s both do it."  So, "one, two, three, pow!"  And I remember we got a note from (John Silah), "That gun was a little loud; can we do something about that?"

"Well, it’s ‘cause you had a double shot there on that one."

The interesting anecdote on that particular show and there’s two or three I guess, but the one I remember distinctly is, here I am with a case with a firearm – actually I had two guns in there, two pistols – and I wasn’t comfortable leaving the pistols backstage for the duration of the show.  The gunshot happens very early in the show.  I said ‘I’m going to take the gun, and put it in the trunk of my car.’  It’s secure, no problems, no worries.  And I did this every night.

One particular night happened to be the night before George Bush, Senior, was to come though town on a campaign night.  And of course everybody was talking about the heightened security, and you know you had Secret Service crawling all over the place, peeking in mail boxes and under man hole covers, and half way across the lawn from my car it suddenly struck me that I’m, what, four blocks from where he’s going to be and I’m walking very casually with two pistols with ammunition in the case, right with it, and I thought, "Well, what do I do?"  I mean, I’ve got to get them out to the car at some point.  I had actual live rounds of ammunition for each pistol.  It was right there in with each gun, because they were guns.  That’s where I stored everything.  It was only a simple matter that we only used blanks, of course, for the production, and they were semi-automatic pistols, so they had (real, live) rounds stacked in the clip.  So it would have pretty much an automatic twenty-four detention, you know, just no questions asked.  "We don’t care what you were doing with two guns, but…"  That would have been it.  Nobody saw me, nothing bad happened of it, but I just remember about half way through having one step, I half stopped, and I thought, ‘Oh, crap!  I am so screwed.’  If one of these Secret Service types happens to be coming by, they’re going to know what’s in a little case like this without having to guess, so they’re just simply not interested in asking questions.

The other thing was the basic plot in ‘Rumors’ is they don’t know where the husband and wife are.  All these people show up for a dinner party, they don’t know where they are, and they don’t know what happened with the shot, and the upshot is essentially the wife got locked in the basement and the husband had some accident with the gun or, I forget exactly what.  What was not in the original script was the appearance of the husband and the wife, and they decided to do a joke after the curtain call to have the husband and wife appear as though, you know, basically they were getting ready for the party, so they’re both in their dressing gowns yet.  So they had Debi Emerson and I playing the couple.