Eccentric Family Funeral Is Unlikely Comedy At Sunset Playhouse

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800 Elm Grove Road • Elm Grove • WI • 53122

Phone 262-782-4431 • Fax 262-782-3150

www.sunsetplayhouse.com

Media Contact: Jonathan West, Managing Director

jwest@sunsetplayhouse.com, 262-782-4431, x233

Eccentric Family Funeral

Is Unlikely Comedy

At Sunset Playhouse

ELM GROVE, WI—JUNE 2 When a widow demands that the epitaph on her husband’s tombstone reads “Mean and Surly,” you might suspect that the funeral could be a little unusual. The new Sunset Playhouse production, “DEARLY DEPARTED,” gleefully expands upon that idea.

On stage at the community theatre June 2-26, the comedy pokes good-natured fun at an eccentric family’s efforts to bury its patriarch. The show, written by David Bottrell and Jessie Jones, has been labeled “drop-dead funny” by the New York Daily News.

Steeped in Deep South folkways, “DEARLY DEPARTED” skewers an array of overwrought relatives who contribute to the chaos surrounding the funeral. Despite its nutty humor, the play also finds some poignancy in the Turpin family relationships.

At one point, an exasperated son declares to his wife: “When I die, don’t tell nobody. Just bury me in the backyard and tell everybody I left you.”

The story begins when the clan’s leader, Bud, drops dead unexpectedly. His family is a beleaguered collection of misfits. His sister, Marguerite, is a Bible-thumping believer who accuses her son of being a Satan. Bud’s overweight daughter devours junk food to cope with life. His son, Junior, has no job and is saddled with an unhappy wife and a brood of unruly children.

Somehow, all of them must pull together to give Bud a proper funeral. The situation becomes more and more ridiculous as the bereaved choose between funeral homes, caskets and church music.

“The play was a smash,” reported Leslie Kimbell, who directed the comedy in March at Georgia’s Winder-Barrow Community Theatre. She set her show in the 1980s “with big hair and big attitudes …it was a huge hit and the best-selling show we’ve ever done.” Everyone can identify with at least one person in the play, Kimbell said in a telephone interview. They will be reminded of a relative or even themselves.

Although the story is set “somewhere below the Mason-Dixon Line,” everyone can relate to it, agreed executive director Norman Ussery.

“You are forced together by a funeral and it brings out the best and the worst in people,” he said. His February production in Winston-Salem, NC also was successful. Ussery cast a man in the role of Aunt Marguerite and the switch was a big hit with the audience. The male actor’s gruff, gravelly voice and aggressive personality made the character of the zealous woman even more humorous, Ussery said.

In Anniston, Ala., a 380-lb. male played Delightful, the unresponsive, food-focused daughter of the deceased Bud. The actor wore a wig and was extremely funny, according to Kim Dobbs, who directed the play at the McClellan Theater.

“People like silly,” she said.

Full-priced tickets for DEARLY DEPARTED are as follows:

Thrifty Thursdays (Preview & last Thurs) $10

Friday & Saturday $20

Remaining Thursdays & Sundays $18

Seniors (60+) $16

Students $15

All seats are reserved. Tickets can be purchased in advance or at the door. For more information or to order tickets by telephone, call the Box Office at 262-782-4430. Box Office hours are Tuesday through Friday 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. and Saturdays 1:00 p.m.- 4:00 p.m.. Tickets may also be ordered on-line at www.sunsetplayhouse.com.

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