Strong women lead the way in Colonnade double feature

At the conclusion of the two one-act plays that open at the Catoosa County Colonnade today, playgoers may want to go home and hug a grandmother.

After all, both "Driving Miss Daisy," a 1987 drama by Alfred Uhry that later was made into an Academy Award-winning movie, and "To Kiss a Rose," a locally written play by J.C. Smith in which teenager Rose finds a confidant in an unexpected place, have smart, elderly women at their center.

Smith, who is co-director of both plays, said his Closed Door Entertainment production group originally was slated to do only "Driving Miss Daisy." However, since it is only a one-act play, the group cast about for something else.

"I had one show that was almost completed," he said, "so we decided to go with that one."

"To Kiss a Rose" deals with teenager Rose's ponderings about her first kiss, an issue she doesn't want to discuss with her parents. Thrown together with her grandmother, she hears the older woman's own love story from the 1940s as she determines her own path.

She learns that, despite the different eras, both she and her grandmother Rosalie "dealt with similar problems," Smith said. "Some of the same issues she went through are still there now."

"To Kiss a Rose" has a cast of six.

"Driving Miss Daisy" focuses on wealthy Jewish widow Daisy Werthan of Atlanta and the uneducated chauffeur, Hoke Coleburn, who is hired for her by her son, Boolie, after an automobile accident leaves her uninsurable.

Their relationship, which Daisy accepts grudgingly, unwinds at the dawning of the civil-rights era. As the era progresses, she teaches him to read and leans on him more as a close friend and not as an employee.

"The show touches on so many different things," said Smith.

Not only do the personal relations between the two people change, he said, but the public and professional relations do so as well.

In a show with a cast of three, Smith said, it is vital to have a good cast. His includes "unbelievably strong" Vicki Mangieri as Daisy, "out of left field" Cornelius Brooks as Hoke and Colonnade veteran Mark Morgan as Boolie.

IF YOU GO

* What: "Driving Miss Daisy"/"To Kiss a Rose."

* When: 7:30 p.m. today, Saturday and Nov. 20-21; 10 a.m. Nov. 21.

* Where: Catoosa County Colonnade, 264 Catoosa Circle, Ringgold, Ga.

* Admission: $11, $9 seniors/students, $8 groups.

* Phone: 706-935-9000.