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2011 Season
Dearly Departed
May 6,7,8, 13,14,15, 2011
Not since STEEL MAGNOLIAS has a more colorful and dysfunctional
group of Southern eccentrics gathered below the Mason-Dixon line.
When the patriarch of the Turpin family keels over dead in the first
scene, the struggle to get him buried involves the whole clan,
including the not-so-grieving widow who wants to put "Mean and
Surly" on the tombstone. "If you were amused by the kind of bucolic
mayhem of…GREATER TUNA, this more ambitious trip down a rustic main
street could be just your dish of cola." —NY Post. "Dearly Departed
is drop dead funny." —NY Daily News.
In the Baptist backwoods of the Bible Belt, the beleaguered
Turpin family proves that living and dying in the South are seldom
tidy and always hilarious. Despite their earnest efforts to pull
themselves together for their father's funeral, the Turpin's other
problems keep overshadowing the solemn occasion: Firstborn Ray-Bud
drinks himself silly as the funeral bills mount; Junior, the younger
son, is juggling financial ruin, a pack of no-neck monster kids, and
a wife who suspects him of infidelity in the family car; their
spinster sister, Delightful, copes with death as she does life, by
devouring junk food; and all the neighbors add more than two cents.
As the situation becomes fraught with mishap, Ray-Bud says to his
long-suffering wife, "When I die, don't tell nobody. Just bury me in
the backyard and tell everybody I left you." Amidst the chaos, the
Turpins turn for comfort to their friends and neighbors, an
eccentric community of misfits who just manage to pull together and
help each other through their hours of need, and finally, the
funeral.
4 men, 6 women (double casting): 10 total
All Shook Up
July 22,23,24, 29,30,31, 2011
All Shook Up tells the story of a square
little town in the middle of a square state in the middle of a
square decade where a lonely young girl dreams of hitting the open
road. Into her life rides a guitar-playin' roustabout who changes
everything. Combining all-time favorite Elvis hits with a healthy
dose of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, All Shook Up is surefire
fun for rock 'n' roll fans of all ages!
Director: Jack Stevenson
Musical Direction: Angela Moore
Stage Manager: Barbee Jones
Personnel Chair: Donna Medlin
 On October 30th, 1938, the United
States experienced mass hysteria--most pronounced on the east coast
in New York and New Jersey--in response to a radio broadcast put on
by Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater On The Air. The public
reaction has prompted decades of research into mass hysteria
including our decision to produce the show and air it yet again!
Join the Uwharrie Players as they recreate this historic
Halloween broadcast to be broadcast over local radio stations WSPC
(1010 AM) and/or WZKY (1580 AM).
 Robert
Inman's
A High Country Christmas
December 2,3,4, 9,10,11, 2011
Depression in a rural mountain area where
families struggle to keep body and soul together. Miserly curmudgeon
Silas McTavish owns and operates a general store—with the help of
his long-suffering clerk, Abner Veazey, and Abner's son, Caleb—where
hard bargains are struck and credit is never allowed. Misery extends
to physical suffering—Caleb with an injured foot and the infant
daughter of the neighboring Walker family with pneumonia. As Silas
prepares for bed, a mysterious stranger appears—his name simply
"Guest"—demanding to be put up for the night. Silas reluctantly
agrees in return for payment of a dollar. At midnight, the Guest
appears at the foot of Silas' bed and commands him to follow on a
journey through Christmas past, present and future. Their first stop
is Silas' boyhood home in Scotland, where as a young man he
announces to his stunned family that he is going to America, leaving
his sweetheart, Fiona, behind. Her memory stirs a long-dormant place
in his heart. The second stop is Abner Veazey's home, where his
large impoverished family steadfastly maintains Christmas cheer
despite Caleb's worsening condition. Mrs. Walker arrives with her
sick infant, fearful for the fate of her husband, who is lost in a
blizzard. The final stop of Silas and the Guest—Christmas future—is
a graveyard where a funeral service is underway for Caleb and the
Walker infant, whose lives could have been saved by a doctor. As the
mourners depart, Silas spots his own gravestone, and the Guest tells
him that he died alone and unmourned. The Guest departs after
reminding Silas that he has the power to alter Christmas future.
Silas awakens on Christmas morning deeply moved by his nightlong
journey. He arranges for Caleb and the infant to be taken down the
mountain to a doctor, makes plans for a return to Scotland, and
serves notice to one and all that he is a profoundly altered man. |
