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The Girls of the Garden Club
The Girls of the Garden Club
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Author: John Patrick Publisher: Dramatists Play Service (cover may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 65 Pub. Date: 1980 Edition: Acting ISBN-10: 0822204487 ISBN-13: 9780822204480 Cast Size: 17 female, 2 male
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About
the Play:
The Girls of the Garden Club is a full-length comedy by
John Patrick. Featuring one-line zingers, and unique characters with lots of heart, the play centers on Rhoda's unwavering desire to become the president of local garden club. To do so, she will have to outwit the savvy Lillybelle, who knows little about gardening but plenty about politics and strategies. For every comic characterization onstage, you may recognize someone you know.
The Girls of the Garden Club deals with the antics of Rhoda
Greenleaf and family as the election for garden club president nears.
For Rhoda gardening is all and the presidency of the local garden
club her highest goal. But standing in her way is the
worldly, well-heeled incumbent, Lillybelle Lamont, who
peppers her speech with French phrases and is a general pain in the
neck. How to oust Lillybelle and install herself as president becomes
Rhoda's obsession – with husband, children and home all pushed
aside as she pursues her own quest. Despite help from other club
members Rhoda is stalled, until her daughter's boyfriend comes up
with a novel idea – he slips a voice box into Rhoda's prize plant,
turning it into the world's only talking flower. As it has been
agreed to have the presidency of the garden club go to whomever wins
a first prize in the Flower Show, Rhoda appears to be a shoo-in. But
then, as fate would have it, complications arise. Rhoda's plant
apparently dies; it comes miraculously back to life; Rhoda wins first
prize; Lillybelle cries foul; the "plant" gives Lillybelle
a few choice words; and the shaken Lillybelle retires in defeat. To
make matters perfect Rhoda's long-suffering husband agrees, at last,
to give her the money for a greenhouse – and, as the play ends, the
"girls" of the garden club are happily joined in a
triumphant, stirring rendition of the Garden Club song.
The Girls of the Garden Club premiered in 1979 at the
Baldwin-Wallace Summer Theatre in Berea, Ohio and has been delighting
audiences ever since. An entertaining and fanciful comedy, and one of
the most successful plays for regional, high school, and community
theatres.
Cast: 17 female, 2 male
What people say:
"The Girls of the Garden
Club is a delight because it reflects reality. For every
comic characterization onstage you can recall someone in your own
life as a double offstage." — Chronicle-Telegram
"The Girls of the Garden
Club by John Patrick uses 'Golden
Girls' humor and a green thumb to bring the audience to their feet on
opening night. This quick-witted play ... will have you laughing even
if you don't know a carnation from a cactus." — Daily
Globe News
"…chockful of nutty laughs."
— Women's Wear Daily
"…goofy, extravagant and
enjoyable." — New York Daily News
"John Patrick's
comedy ... wears its decades well... The show appeared in 1961 but
isn't at all stuck in that era." — Roanoke Times
(Roanoke, Virginia)
About the Playwright:
John Patrick (1905-1995) was a prolific American playwright
and screenwriter, writing more than a dozen screenplays and some 30
plays. He had several Broadway successes, most notably Teahouse of
the August Moon (which was awarded a Pulitzer, a Tony and a New
York Drama Critics Circle Award) and The Hasty Heart. His
movie scripts are impressive with Three Coins in a Fountain, The
Shoes of the Fisherman and The World of Suzie Wong as well as
adaptations of the two plays mentioned above. His "Opal"
series of
plays remain popular with high schools and community
theatres.
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