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The Girls of the Garden Club

The Girls of the Garden Club
Your Price: $18.95 CDN
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

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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