David Immel as Stepan Stepanovitch, center, prepares to break out champagne. Meanwhile his neighbor, Ivan Vassilevitch Lomov, played by Barry Sears, and his intended bride, Stepanovitch’s daughter Natalya, played by Kathy Warnert, are already arguing. The humorous conflict is at the heart of Chekhov’s “The Marriage Proposal.”

Four actors have embarked on the serious business of playing for laughs this summer. They form the cast of the summer stock series, a set of two one-act plays being staged by Peninsula Players.

“A Marriage Proposal” by Anton Chekhov and “Writer’s Block” by Edward James will be performed as a set at River City Playhouse in Ilwaco at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and again on Aug. 18 and Aug. 19. Two matinee shows will also be offered, at 2 p.m. Sunday and on Aug. 20.

Barry Sears, who is directing for the first time, will appear in both plays. He previously played the same character, a hypochondriac suitor, in Chekhov’s comedy. “That was about 40 years ago,” he laughed.

The play made its debut in 1890 and was loved by Tsar Alexander III, although the author once dismissed it as a “wretched, boring, vulgar little skit.”

The humor comes from the manner in which the father and bride-to-be greet the proposal: the three characters cannot stop bickering about their adjoining land ownership and the superiority of their hunting dogs.

“We have the silliest arguments over nothing,” said Kathy Warnert, who portrays the bride, appearing in her fourth play opposite Sears.

She noted some of her prior roles lacked substance. “I get to sink my teeth into meatier, strong women characters,” she said. “That’s fun. All my previous characters have been airheads.”

Completing the cast is David Immel, a retired performer whose singing and acting has been a fixture of recent Peninsula Players shows. “I have always wanted to be in a Chekhov play,” he said.

The other play, also a comedy, is written by James, an actor who retired to Astoria and directs theater at the Charlene Larsen Center for the Performing Arts and elsewhere.

Its plot contains surprise twists. The story focuses on an author and his actress wife who live on the Oregon Coast, giving Sears’ crew challenges to create authentic wind and rain sound effects.

After success with his first novel, the writer, Sears, struggles for inspiration. A new muse enters — Warnert’s “Mystery Russian” character — who claims to be fleeing from the mafia. “It’s an extremely clever play,” she said. “It is a mystery wrapped in a conundrum.”

Nancy McAllister plays the wife. It’s not her first onstage role, but her energies have more often been employed by the troupe behind the scenes.

Outside the theater, she serves as a judge and community leader. “Public speaking is different from acting, memorizing lines, getting into character and the whole shebang,” she laughed.

Warnert noted McAllister is a welcome collaborator. “She goes from 0 to 60 in no time,” she said.

Two one-act comedies

“A Marriage Proposal” by Anton Chekhov and “Writer’s Block” by Edward James

7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday at River City Playhouse, 127 Lake St., Ilwaco

Additional shows at 7 p.m. Aug. 18 and Aug. 19 and 2 p.m. Aug. 20

Tickets are $10, available at the door and at Okie’s Thriftway Market in Ocean Park, BOLD Coffee, Art and Framing in Long Beach and Olde Towne Trading Post in Ilwaco

www.peninsula-players.com