BTCPA stages ‘Bad Year for Tomatoes’
The Bay Tree Council for the Performing Arts will soon stage its second production of the 2022-23 season, “A Bad Year for Tomatoes,” by John Patrick and directed by Mark Richardson.
Performances will be held Feb. 9-11 at 7 p.m. and Feb. 12 at 2 p.m. A dinner will be available each performance, but it must be reserved and confirmed in advance.
Tickets may be purchased from 2-4 p.m. weekdays at the Weatherford Centre or by calling 256-356-9829. For group sales, contact Beth Hammock at 256-668-0045.
The cast includes Tina Smith, Scotty Kennedy, Holly McKinney, Brittany Faris, Theron Struzik, Sharon Page Strickland and Brente Jeffreys, along with Jeanmarie Moore as stage manager.
According to the play synopsis, gracious, glamorous Myra Marlowe, fed up with fame after a very long career as a television actress, retreats to the small town of Beaver Haven, Vt. She plans to live quietly and anonymously, write her juicy autobiography and grow her own tomatoes.
The complaints of her faithful agent and less-faithful lover, Tom Lamont – that she is throwing herself away on a backwards backwater of a town – fall on deaf ears until she gets to know her neighbors.
Reba and Cora, the Hospitality Ladies, are full of rapid-fire gossip and rapid-fire questions. Woodcutter Piney is impressively bearded and smells of the great outdoors, and he terrifies his victims with the force of his sales pitch. Willa Mae Wilcox, the widow woman with the purple shutters on her house, put a voodoo curse on her husband. With these colorful characters inviting themselves over at every hour of the day, Marlowe gets no time to write.
In frustration Marlowe invents a dangerous, mentally-disturbed sister – based on her first, best-known TV role, Sis Sadie – to frighten away her neighbors and give her some peace and quiet.
The upstanding citizens of Beaver Haven, however, react in unexpected ways to Sadie’s shrill, childlike charms and sad plight Before her charade is over, Myra finds herself accused of murder.
