THEATER OF THE AMERICAN SOUTH presents top-quality plays featuring professional directors, actors, and designers. All performances are in the Boykin Cultural Center, a showpiece vaudeville theater built in 1919 and beautifully restored in the late 1990s.
STEEL MAGNOLIAS by Robert Harling
Steel Magnolias is a tale of abiding friendship among six Southern women bonded by their local beauty parlor. They hold their ground and hold on to each other in the face of unworthy husbands, unkind providence, and untimely death. A blend of hilarious humor and touching drama, Steel Magnolias shines with a humanity that is both quite Southern and entirely universal. The play was triumphantly adapted for film in a 1989 feature starring Julia Roberts and Sally Field. Donna Shannon, who directed Theater of the American South’s acclaimed 2007 production of Driving Miss Daisy, returns to the festival to direct.
Performances: Thursday and Saturday at 8:00 pm and Sunday at 2:00 pm
FAIR AND TENDER LADIES by Lee Smith
Fair and Tender Ladies features indomitable mountain woman Ivy Rowe telling her story of a rich and passionate life spent in Appalachia. Ivy speaks through a succession of charming and disarming letters sent over many decades to friends, lovers, and family members. Blessed with wry humor and a remarkable capacity to love, she is able to find beauty on the steep slopes of a rocky and unforgiving place. All of the lines of Fair and Tender Ladies are drawn from Lee Smith’s award-winning novel, hailed as a “tour de force” by the Los Angeles Times. Quinn Hawkesworth, star of Theater of the American South’s celebrated 2007 production of Oldest Living Confederate Widow: Her Confession, returns to the festival in this one-woman play.
Performances: Friday at 8:00 pm, Saturday at 2:00 pm, and Sunday at 7:30 pm
Stuart Walston, Inc. Custom Interiors will host a reception to celebrate the opening of Fair and Tender Ladies on Friday, May 16 from 6:00-7:30 p.m. See Events for more information.
Tickets for Theater of the American South plays, cooking demonstrations, and garden party are available online, www.theateroftheamericansouth.org (under TICKETS link), by phone at (252) 291-4329 x10, or in person at the Arts Council of Wilson box office located at 124 Nash Street SW in Wilson, NC.
Ticket prices for Theater of the American South plays are $20, $18 for seniors (age 60 and above) and students. Passport Tickets covering a combination of events are also available for purchase.
Tickets purchased other than in person will be held at the Boykin Cultural Center, in the case of a play; at the site of the demonstration, in the case of a cooking demonstration; or at the Walston home, in the case of the garden party. For information on dinner theater tickets, please visit www.playhouseofwilson.com or call (252) 291-8951.
