North Georgia Community Players present ‘Leading Ladies’ for final weekend

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The members of the North Georgia Community Players will perform “Leading Ladies” Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Cast members are Steven Webster (Rev. Wooley), James Cash (Butch), Ron Leslie (Doc), seated Julie Best (Audrey), Ricky Siegel (Jack/Stephanie), David Spivey (Leo/Maxine), Susan Kent (Florence Snider), and Julie Harris (Margaret “Meg” Snider). Tickets are $12-$20 and shows will be at the Dillard Playhouse.

This is the final weekend of “Leading Ladies,” a hilarious play performed by The North Georgia Community Players at the Playhouse in Dillard City Hall.

This is one of the most popular plays performed in America and with good reason.

It is funny. Very funny.

It’s a story about two English Shakespearean actors, Leo (David Spivey) and Jack (Ricky Segal), who find themselves stuck in 1950s America and so down on their luck they are performing "Scenes from Shakespeare" on the Moose Lodge circuit in the Amish country of Pennsylvania.

But more than that. It’s a story of Margaret Snider (Julie Harris), a small town Pennsylvania woman who wants to be swept off her feet and onto the bigger world.

Enter the Englishmen. When Leo and Jack hear that an old lady (Florence, played by Susan Kent) in York, Pa., is about to die and leave her fortune to her two long-lost English nephews, they resolve to pass themselves off as her beloved relatives and get the cash. The trouble is, as they get close to York, they discover the relatives aren't nephews, but nieces!

No worries. Men played women’s roles in Shakespearean times, so why not now?

Jack and Leo decide to pass themselves off as the dowager’s nieces, and complications abound. Audrey (Julie Best), a local York resident, first puts the lads on the wrong course. Doc (Ron Leslie), can’t tell guys from girls or dead from living, and his son Butch (James Cash), can’t, well, do much of anything.

Margaret is engaged to be married to Minister Duncan Wooley, (Steven Webster) but once she meets Maxine and Stephanie, she unexpectedly must choose between her dreams and her impending reality.

Are you feeling as if you missed a sidesplitting, uproarious evening? You are in luck because there are three more opportunities for you to join the riotous fun! The play will be presented Friday and Saturday, Nov. 18 and 19, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 20, at 3 p.m. at the Dillard Playhouse. Reserved Seating tickets are available at ngcommunityplayers.com. Tickets are $12-20.

Knowing Shakespeare might help but is absolutely not necessary.