for some real fun when Alton Little Theater presents HALLELUJAH GIRLS, May 1st thru the 11th at the Showplace. The play is the second production in a three-year commitment director Lee Cox made to playwrights, Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope & Jamie Wooten. Last season’s opener SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY was a crowd- pleaser and Cox just knows that audiences will “hoot and howl” with joy when they meet the wonderful gals that gather each week for a little beauty treatment and a whole lot more in the small town of Eden Falls, Georgia (and there’s a couple of fabulous guys thrown in just to add to the fun!). Cox and Kevin Frakes co-direct and headline the cast; the two ALT veterans have been friends and worked on many ALT projects but have never appeared on stage together and felt that the roles of “Sugar Lee” and Bobby Dwayne” were written with them in mind! The ensemble cast is aptly handled by ALT’s sure-fire favorites: Donna Bryant Minard (as Carlene the “Black Widow” of Eden Falls), Gail Drillinger (as Nita, a repressed housewife hooked on Romance novels, Carol Hodson (as Mavis,the sardonic woman who finds her inner Goddess), Anne Frakes (as Crystal, the wacky singing receptionist), Debbie Maneke (as Bunny Sutherland and Sugar Lee’s arch rival), and Gary Wilson (playing Porter Padgett, the too-energetic would-be-suitor). The show is just pure fun with a superfluous plot but the appropriate interest in a still for home-made Brandy, the Civil War, the ART of celebrating Holidays, some singing, an explosion – and most important- the question of weather ex-lovers can finally resolve their difference and get back together after thirty years of misunderstandings….well what do you think happens? Most anything and everything surely happens in this fast-paced show with 36 costume changes, 110 props and a whole lot of L-O-V-E.
Kevin Frakes had fun recreating an old abandoned Church -turned-Day Spa but left it to Lee Cox To come up the Spa Décor (early American Cheetah!). Audra Ray is stage managing the show and will be assisted by two youthful “Cheetah Girls” aka as Sydney Shansey and Rileigh Bellito (who make all the quick stage changes and enjoy Sugar’s Lee’s Playlist of Country Love Songs). Anne Bailey and Michael Cox will handle lights and Sound for the production. The May comedy is the perfect respite from our “real” lives and also gives theater-lovers the chance to pay early-bird prices on Season Tickets for the 81st Season; DIXIE SWIM CLUB will be the third Jones, Hope & Wooten offering in May 2015 – but the playwrights have already sent Cox an advance copy of the sequel to the HALLELUJAH GIRLS and want some feedback from Midwest audiences as to their favorite quotes…i.e. “Sugar Lee” favorite is that ” Life is Too Short to Wear Boring Clothes” – So can’t you just see how FUN this show will be and who knows, maybe the authors will come for a little visit.
Box Office Reservations can be made at 618-462-6562 or Tickets can be purchased on line: http://www.altonlittletheater.org/. The production is suitable for audiences age 12 and older but it absolutely necessary to bring your good sense of humor and a willingness to suspend belief for just a few hours and let yourself be entertained by the “colorful” citizens of Georgia! Say Hallelujah!
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