The Cemetery Club

by Ivan Menchell

Directed by Robin Saywood

Selected dates from November 3rd to 19th, 2016

Three Jewish widows meet once a month for tea before going to visit their husband’s graves. Ida is sweet tempered and ready to begin a new life, Lucille is a feisty embodiment of the girl who just wants to have fun, and Doris is priggish and judgmental, particularly when Sam the butcher enters the scene. He meets the widows while visiting his wife’s grave. Doris and Lucille squash the budding romance between Sam and Ida. They are guilt stricken when this nearly breaks Ida’s heart.

The Broadway production starred Eileen Heckart as Lucille. It was made into a film, starring Ellen Burstyn, Dianne Ladd, Olympia Dukkakis.

“Funny, sweet-tempered, moving.” – Boston Globe

“Very touching and humorous. An evening of pure pleasure that will make you glad you went to the theatre.” –Washington Journal Newspapers

The Cemetery Club opened on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in New York City on May 12, 1990. This production was originally presented by Howard Hurst, Philip Rose, Sophie Hurst, and David Brown at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on March 30, 1990. It was directed by Pamela Berlin.

Description from Samuel French, Inc.

Tickets on sale October 1, 2016 at Ticketpro.

The Girl with the Golden Ear

Written by Ryan Van Horne

Directed by Kim Bartlett

Selected dates from March 9th to 26th, 2017

Marjorie is a single mother working in the male-dominated radio industry of the 1960s and 70s. She has innate musical talent and uses that to rise from receptionist to music director at WROZ. In doing so, she becomes a pioneer in commercial radio and has a profound influence on the North American music scene.

The Girl With the Golden Ear has a knack for picking hits – even from obscure artists – and people clamour to get their songs played on her station. Other radio stations copy her playlists which are full of cross-over hits – songs that defy stereotypes and act as ambassadors between classes, cultures, and races. For her, music is a salve for the soul and she uses it to help ease tensions during a race riot in her city. As her successes pile up over the years, she develops a reputation as a trendsetter who bucks conventional wisdom, often proving just how unwise conventional wisdom can be. Things aren’t always smooth, though, as she is forced to deal with sexism, a changing industry, and government bureaucracy.

The Girl With the Golden Ear is inspired by a real person who has a remarkable talent and accomplished remarkable things, yet in retirement values her privacy and prefers not to be identified. In a blend of fact and fiction, The Girl With the Golden Ear offers a glimpse into a little-known but fascinating part of Canada’s history.

The Girl With the Golden Ear went through a reading at the DaPoPo Live-In Festival in October 2013. The play has been revised and the Bedford Players production is the premiere.

Tickets on sale February 9, 2017 at Ticketpro.

Steel Magnolias

Written by Robert Harling

Directed by Kim Shaw

Selected dates from June 1st to 17th, 2017

The play is set in Truvy’s beauty salon in Chinquapin, Louisiana, where all the ladies who are “anybody” come to have their hair done. Helped by her eager new assistant, Annelle (who is not sure whether or not she is still married), the outspoken, wise-cracking Truvy dispenses shampoos and free advice to the town’s rich curmudgeon, Ouiser, (“I’m not crazy, I’ve just been in a bad mood for forty years”); an eccentric millionaire, Miss Clairee, who has a raging sweet tooth; and the local social leader, M’Lynn, whose daughter, Shelby (the prettiest girl in town), is about to marry a “good ole boy.” Filled with hilarious repartee and not a few acerbic but humorously revealing verbal collisions. A sudden realization of mortality draws on the underlying strength—and love—which gives the play, and its characters, the special quality to make them truly touching, funny and marvelously amiable company in good times and bad.

A first play which met with immediate critical and popular acceptance in its premier production by New York’s WPA Theatre. Concerned with a group of gossipy southern ladies in a small-town beauty parlor, the play is alternately hilarious and touching.

“Harling has given his women sharp, funny dialogue…The play builds to a conclusion that is deeply moving.” —NY Daily News.

Adapted from Dramatists Play Service.

Tickets on sale May 1, 2017 at Ticketpro.