A lonely, young orphan planning to marry a soldier enlisting in World War II could use a friend, but she gets more than she bargained for when four Texas women throw her an impromptu wedding in the comedy, which opens today at the Catoosa County Colonnade.
“Wedding Belles,” a Community Players production that will be offered in a limited engagement today and Saturday, is written by “Smoke on the Mountain” author Alan Bailey and Ronnie Claire Edwards, who portrayed Corabeth Godsey on the 1970s television series “The Waltons.”
“It’s humorous,” said director Kim Parrish, “but it also has so much heart.”
The director said audiences who like “Steel Magnolias,” “Smoke on the Mountain” and “First Baptist of Ivy Gap” will like “Wedding Belles.”
“This is their show,” she said. “The author (Bailey) has outdone himself on this one.”
The author, in a 2009 interview with the Times Free Press, said the four residents of Eufala — best friends, two of them sisters — who decide to throw the wedding “are typical Texas women” who have attained “a certain level of comfort, a certain status in town.” Indeed, he said, “as a group, they sort of run this town, particularly with more of the men away” in the war. When the 19-year-old bride-to-be shows up on a bus to meet her fiancé and continue on the bus to Galveston to marry before he ships out, the women go to work.
The comedy — which was nominated as an American Theater Critics Association New Play of 2008 — will appeal to all audiences because “these characters are so funny,” Parrish said. “They fight, they make up, they relate to one another. They’re good Samaritans to a young girl who has no one in the world but her fiancé.”
IF YOU GO* What: “Wedding Belles.”* When: 7:30 p.m. today and 1 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday.* Where: Catoosa County Colonnade, 264 Catoosa Circle, Ringgold, Ga.* Admission: $11 adults; $9 seniors/students.* Phone: 706-935-9000.* Website: colonnadecenter.org.
Unlike “Smoke on the Mountain,” the director said, the interplay among the characters is not interrupted by musical numbers, and the production is more of a straight comedy than the oft-presented “Smoke on the Mountain.”
“You can tell how these women really love each other,” Parrish said.
The director said her actresses, Elisa Curole, Kim Jenkins (who portrayed June in the production company’s “Smoke on the Mountain”), Amy Denton (making her Colonnade debut), Jan Daigle and Amanda Dullen are the show’s belles.
“I’ve had a great time working with the ladies in the cast,” Parrish said. “I couldn’t ask for better actresses.”