The Huntsville Community Theatre is bringing small-town Texas to the stage this week with its performance of the popular play “Daddy’s Dyin’ Who’s Got the Will?”
The show begins at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Huntsville’s Old Town Theatre, 1023 12th St., and continues nightly through Saturday, with a matinee performance at 2 p.m. Sunday.
The play centers around members of the Turnover family who have come home to a small Texas town to await the death of their father, Buford, played by Dewayne Springer.
“Daddy’s Dyin’ is part of a trilogy by Texas playwright Del Shores,” director Robby Bardwell said Monday. “I have directed a few of Shores’ plays before and really enjoy his view on Southern humor and the way he looks at Southern life.
“What I love about Del Shores work it that it includes characters all people can relate to at some level,” he said. “It is a good, entertaining play that will make you laugh one minute and cry the next.”
In his first time with the HCT, cast member Sam Weeks plays the role of Orville, the overbearing, stubborn and abusive son of the dying patriarch.
“It has been such an interesting process playing this role,” Weeks said. “I like that Shores can really nail down the characters.
“He understands how their minds work in a way that makes them really speak to the audience, and really makes them come across as real people.”
For cast members Jordan Smith and Jennifer Grainger, this production allows them to be a little bit more themselves, while at the sme time getting the chance to be people they would never want to be in real life.
“We get to use our deep Southern accents and wear the big wigs,” said Huntsville resident Smith, who is playing responsible sister Sara Lee in the production. “It is very exciting. I think people will really like this play and will be able to see their own family members in our characters.”
Grainger, a senior drama major at Sam Houston State University, plays the role of the family’s youngest sister Evalita.
“This is the biggest role I have ever played,” Grainger said. “Evalita is this trashy woman who has been married and divorced six times. She is like no one I have ever met.
“I have been in theater my whole life,” she said. “I love playing characters who are unlike myself — people I would never really want to be.”
Other members of the cast include Angela Bell as Marlene; Ashton Sonner as Mama Wheelis; Monica Bradley as Lurlene; and Jack Ivy as Harmony.
Tickets for Daddy’s Dyin’ are $10 for general audiences, $8 for seniors and $5 for students with valid identification.
Reservations can be made by calling the box office at (936) 291-7933.
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Community Theatre stages popular play
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