'Trailer Park' director: It's racy, it's raucous, it's funny

The Great American Trailer Park Musical is kind of like Blue Collar Comedy Tour meets The Family Guy, says the director for the play’s Rochester Opera House production which begins Thursday.

Merrill Peiffer of Portsmouth, who played Pippi the stripper in a Palace Theater (Manchester, N.H) run last year, directs the seven-member cast.

“You will be laughing all the way through it,” predicts Peiffer, whose acting credits include a Broadway tour with Mama Mia and many acting and directing stints with Seacoast Repertory Theatre of Portsmouth.

She said this is her first directing gig at ROH, but she’s enjoying the challenge.

“I’m loving it, this play is so much fun,” she said.

Merrill Peiffer

The play’s plot centers around tollbooth attendant Norbert and his agoraphobic wife, whose marriage is threatened by a newcomer to Armadillo Acres, a Florida trailer park, by a stripper named Pippi. A Greek-chorus-like troika of women named Linoleum, Betty and Pickles, each one uniquely quirky, also inhabit the park and put their two cents in every chance they get.

Throughout it all there’s enough racy humor and adult situations to make a sailor blush, in a good way.

Peiffer says she’s got a favorite scene, but she can’t tell because it would be a “spoiler.”

“This play is hilarious and outrageous,” she says. “I think people will enjoy the humor.”

The play runs at the ROH through Feb. 1.