In March 2020, “How I Learned to Drive” was slated to open on Broadway, but when the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic hit, the production, like all others in New York City, was postponed.

“Unfortunately, that did not happen, but fortunately, we will be bringing it to our audiences,” says Bill Mutimer, Northampton Community College (NCC) Theatre Department head.

NCC will give the play its Lehigh Valley premiere through video-on-demand March 12-14 as the second production of the theater department’s virtual 2020-2021 season.

“How I Learned to Drive” by American playwright Paula Vogel is about a woman coming to terms with a charismatic uncle who sexually abuses her, affecting her past, present and future.

Vogel has a long list of accolades attached to her drama. In addition to Vogel winning the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the work, the play also won The Lortel Prize, an OBIE Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle and New York Drama Critics Awards for Best Play. The play opened Off-Broadway in 1997.

The play follows the strained relationship between Li’l Bit (Marian Barshinger) and her aunt’s husband, Uncle Peck (Jesse Nitchkey), from her pre-adolescence through her teenage years into college and beyond. Using the metaphor of driving for issues of pedophilia, incest and misogyny, the play explores the ideas of control and manipulation.

A three-person Greek Chorus (Alexander Smith, Emily Gonzalez and Julia Mason) plays all of the other characters in Li’l Bit and Uncle Peck’s lives, including Li’l Bit’s alcoholic mother, misogynistic grandfather, submissive grandmother and young cousin.

Because of its subject material and language, the play is recommended for mature audiences.

Calling the play “supremely moving” and “thought provoking,” director Clair M. Freeman says the story is “simultaneously funny and harrowing” as it deals with the lasting effects of a troubling relationship.

Freeman and the five-person cast rehearsed the play via the Zoom online platform.

“While the play takes dark turns, it is also, as Vogel herself says, about ‘the gifts we receive from the people who have hurt us,’” Freeman says. “The play is ultimately the story of a woman leaving her past behind and finding herself on the open road to freedom.”

Freeman says “How I Learned to Drive” is even more relevant today than it was when it premiered Off-Broadway 20 years ago because “sexually abusive situations and their ramifications have become part of our national conversation.

“Vogel’s play delves deeply into not just the abuse itself, but the generational cycles that allow it to happen again and again,” he says.

The theater department is partnering with NCC’s Hampton Winds Restaurant for “Dinner to Go” with meals available for curbside pickup March 12.

Hampton Winds is run by students in NCC’s highly-regarded culinary arts program under the guidance of skilled executive chefs.

The menu includes tomato corn egg drop soup, teriyaki chicken, honey orange salmon and ginger garlic tofu.

The video on demand can be viewed between 12:01 a.m. March and 11:59 p.m. March 14.

Tickets: www.ncctix.org

Lisa Lampanelli at Bucks:

Two in-person shows March 13 at Bucks County Playouse by comedian Lisa Lampanelli are nearly sold out.

Tickets remain for the 2 p.m. show. The 8 p.m. show is sold-out.

“Lisa Lampanelli is Losin’ It” is a collection of Lampanelli’s most outrageous observations and real-life stories. A departure from the insult comedy she’s long been known for, the show is a humorous and heartfelt theatrical evening about her struggles with dieting and body image.

Lampanelli made headlines in 2012 when she lost more than 100 pounds with the help of bariatric surgery. She now talks with unflinching honesty about her lifelong food and body-image issues.

Face masks must be worn by those in the audience, who will be seated socially-distanced.

Tickets: www.bcptheater.org/

“Curtain Rises” is a column about the theater, stage shows, the actors in them and the directors and artists who make them happen. To request coverage, email: Paul Willistein, Focus editor, pwillistein@tnonline.com