Dearly Departed

Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic,
the Broadview Heights Spotlights Theater
has indefinitely postponed this production.
Check back for updates, and thank you for your support.

Show Synopsis

In the Baptist backwoods of the Bible Belt, the beleaguered Turpin family proves that living and dying in the South are seldom tidy and always hilarious. Despite their earnest efforts to pull themselves together for their father's funeral, the Turpins' other problems keep overshadowing the solemn occasion: Firstborn Ray-Bud drinks himself silly as the funeral bills mount; Junior, the younger son, is juggling financial ruin, a pack of no-neck monster kids, and a wife who suspects him of infidelity in the family car; their spinster sister, Delightful, copes with death as she does life, by devouring junk food; and all the neighbors add more than two cents. As the situation becomes fraught with mishap, Ray-Bud says to his long-suffering wife, "When I die, don't tell nobody. Just bury me in the backyard and tell everybody I left you." Amidst the chaos, the Turpins turn for comfort to their friends and neighbors, an eccentric community of misfits who just manage to pull together and help each other through their hours of need, and finally, the funeral.

Cast

Adam Bowers, Junior
Krysta Halupnik, Lucille
Sue Jeromson, Marguerite
Bob Kenderes, Clyde/Reverend Hooker/Norval
Victoria Kirgesner, Delightful/Nadine
Keith Kornajcik, Royce
James Lenahan, Raybud
Jaclyn Phelps, Juanita/Veda
Sarah Price, Suzanne
Lisa Freebairn Tarr, Raynelle

Dearly Departed is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York.