Can love be made to order?

That’s the question Surrey Little Theatre players will put to audiences this month, as the first production of the company’s 50th season, Norm Foster’s comedy The Love List, opens at the Clayton-area playhouse.

Divorced and living alone, Bill (George Kopf) has no obvious prospects of finding love as his 50th birthday dawns.

But fate is about to step in and change all that, in the form of Bill’s buddy, Leon (Chris Gursche).

A ladies’ man who is worried about about his pal’s future, Leon decides to give Bill a helpful nudge by enrolling his reluctant friend in a mate-finding service, which just happens to be run by a mysterious gypsy. The matchmaker tells Bill to write up a list of the 10 top qualities he looks for in a woman.

Just as he completes his task, Justine (Tinisha Taruc) appears at Bill’s door. Miraculously, she is the embodiment of everything Bill has written on his love list.

But, as the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for.

As Bill begins to discover that what looks good on paper doesn’t necessarily translate in real life, his list of ideals changes and, along with it, so does Justine, who mystically transforms into whatever new incarnation Bill believes will make him happy.

For Langley director Rita Price, finding an actress who could play several characters within a single role was a challenge, but one which, she is happy to say, was met.

“I’ve been very lucky with Tinisha,” she said.

In fact, with just three actors to carry an entire play (a small cast even by Little Theatre standards) Price, who’s directing her 13th play, her third with Surrey Little Theatre, knew she would be in tough to find the right people for the job.

“Fortunately, I have three people who’ve all done theatre before. They’re good and they’re self disciplined,” she said.

For his part, Gursche welcomes the heavy workload.

“It’s probably the biggest role I’ve had. It’s been fun,” said the New Westminster man.

Every actor wants bigger roles, more challenging pieces — at least those who are at a stage in their careers where they want to challenge themselves, he said.

A stand-up comedian and former improv comic who pays the bills as a car salesman, Gursche got his start in theatre about six years ago.

He’s since dabbled, on and off, and once even quit his day job to devote himself to the serious pursuit of acting.

“Now I know why actors starve,” he quipped.

Today, acting and stand-up comedy are a sideline, but for the performer who likens being on stage to a drug, they’re also a necessity.

“When you engage an audience and they’re reacting the way you want them to, it’s like a narcotic.”

Not that one can necessarily be compared to the other; there’s a vast difference between being a comic and being a comedic actor, he said.

“In stand-up, if I succeed, it’s all me. If I bomb, it’s all me — I sucked.

“In theatre, the lines are given to me. My job in a Norm Foster comedy is to give the lines back, verbatim.

“I can give it my own spin by the attitude I use to deliver the lines, by pauses, the inflection I put on them, but I’m restricted to those words,” said Gursche.

“They’re either funny or they’re not funny. If they’re not funny, I can always blame Norm Foster.

The Love List is funny, he said, but humour aside, the actor is quite impressed by the characterizations in the Ontario playwright’s work.

“The strength (of the play) is the relationship between the two men. That’s the part that has to come out,” said Gursche.

“One is a middling aged statistician and the other is a writer.

“They’re both lonely pursuits. One guy is counting numbers, the other is counting words. Neither is the life of the party... they’re both oddballs.”

Not only does the audience need to buy into the men’s unlikely friendship, said Gursche, but they have to believe, when Justine shows up, that “she could be the cog in the wheel, the monkey wrench in the whole deal.”

Foster, an Ontario playwright who has been described as the Canadian Neil Simon, is the bread and butter of local theatre clubs.

That’s because his plays tend to be easy to mount in small spaces, and they’re easily accessible for audiences, explained Gursche.

“He’s a Canadian playwright and that feeds into our Can-con (Canadian content) sensibilities,” he added.

His “light and funny and fluffy” plays are popular because they appeal to audiences, said Langley’s Brigitte Seib, who is co-producing the play.

“Foster’s plays are fun entertainment, more of an escape.”

And it’s the actors’ responsibility to help audiences to make that escape, by trusting the material, said Gursche.

“With comedy, it’s tempting to overplay the lines. But if you overact it, you lose out on the suspended disbelief that this is actually happening.

“If it rings true, it will be funny and (audiences) will have had a great evening, with lots of laughs.”

The Love List runs Thursday to Saturday, from Oct. 16 to Nov. 8.

For the first time, SLT will offer matinee showings at 2 p.m. on Oct. 26 and Nov. 2. This production contains adult content.