When David Scott retired from his day job in Leavenworth, Kansas, he moved to Warsaw. Wanting to continue his involvement in theater, he looked around and found Heartland Community Theatre in Clinton. Joicie Appell was directing a show, “Laughing Room Only,” he said, which David auditioned for. He was cast as a detective, and also had a role in the production of last spring’s “You Can’t Take it With You.”
Last fall, he played a movie director in “Moonlight & Magnolias,” whose character helps the producer with an emergency rewrite of the movie script for “Gone with the Wind.”
“I was a director,” David said. “Now I am the director.”
David is making his directorial debut in the first production of Heartland’s 2023 season, “The Cemetery Club.” Like the previous productions, it is a comedy, one that revolves around the friendship of three women whose husbands died within the last four years, leaving them in various stages of grief.
The humor derives from their different personalities and approaches to life and loss, with the funniest scenes taking place in a cemetery, where they talk to their husbands. Elaine VonSpreckelsen plays Lucille, who complains to her dead husband about his affairs, which she is getting even for by flirting, buying furs and having fun.
Doris, played by Karen Switzer, is still emotionally tied to her husband, talking to him as she prunes the ivy on his grave. Ida, played by Kate French, waxes nostalgic about the smell of cigar smoke— she feels guilty about not letting her husband smoke in the bedroom — but is starting to let go of the past.
Throwing a spanner in the mix is Sam, played by Sam French, who Lucille picks up at the cemetery, but who likes Ida.
“The Cemetery Club” was on Broadway in 1990, and was made into a movie in 1993 with Ellen Burstyn, Olympia Dukakis and Diane Ladd. It is also the name of a documentary about a group of people who meet in a cemetery in Israel every week to sit, talk and settle world affairs.
The first act of the play takes place in Ida’s living room and at the cemetery. During the intermission, refreshments will be available. The second act of the play revolves around the women being bridesmaids in the wedding of their friend Selma, who is into serial matrimony. The fourth member of the cast is Becca Fox as Mildred, another wedding guest.
It was the humor plus the small cast that drew David Scott to choose the play, he said. When he was in “You Can’t Take it with You,” with a cast of 18, it was rather crowded backstage, he said. The way the women deal with life after loss also caught his heart, David said.
“It’s like ‘Steel Magnolias,’” he said. “It’s got a lot of humor in it, and there are scenes that we can all relate to.”
Sam has the best lines on grief, noting that people should do what feels right for them, not follow what other people advise. He is ready to move on, despite his first awkward attempts at dating.
“What is life, if not one chapter after another, waiting to be written?” he asks.
Like Sam’s forays into dating and the friends’ emotional ties with their spouses, the past continues to intrude on the present, revealing the conflicts inherent in moving on. The play ends with two of the characters back at the cemetery.
“The Cemetery Club” opens Friday, March 10 at 7 p.m., and continues Saturday, March 11, at 7 p.m., Sunday, March 12 at 2 p.m. and Saturday, March 18 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $12.50 and are available at the Clinton Chamber of Commerce, 202 S. Main Street, Re/Max Truman Lake real estate, off Hwy. 7 east of Clinton at 5 NE 91 Rd., and at the door.
The theatre is experimenting with having an extra Saturday night performance instead of a Thursday night one.
Heartland Community Theatre’s 2023 season has two more comedies scheduled. In June, it’s “Just Desserts,” by Craig Sodaro, a murder mystery farce set at a charity bake-off, on stage June 9, 10, 11 and 17.
The fall production is “West of Pecos,” a western spoof by Tim Kelly. Shows are Sept. 15, 16, 17 and 23.
Heartland Community Theatre is located just off the northwest corner of the Square, at 108 Washington St., Clinton, MO 64735. Acoustic screens are being built for the interior walls of the theater, which used to be the Crest Movie Theater, with plans for them to be in place for this production. Actors in “The Cemetery Club” wear microphones, which improve audibility considerably.
Heartland Community Theatre is a not-for-profit organization that relies on ticket sales to cover expenses, with the goal of providing the experience of live theater by seasoned performers and stage crew.
