About the Play:

Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues.

Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music is a full-length comedy by Lee Blessing. It's not just about country music! That's just the name of the bar that Jim owns! A fun, romantic comedy, featuring a country bar-owner, a nun with a funny way of shouting out obscenities at the wrong moment, her aunt and the hilarious, unlikely romance that unfolds with snippets of "good country music" from the hall-of-fame juke-box.

Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music is about the personal heartaches and public eccentricities of colourful characters attempting connection in a good-ole-boy bar in Houston, Texas. The title of the play is taken from the name of the bar that serves as the setting. The bar used to be a biker bar, owned by tough, hot-tempered ex-biker Jim Stools, but now it's a place for beer and boot-scootin', managed by Jim's true love, Eve Wilfong. When Eve's teenage son, Jay Bob, comes to spend the summer, Jim suddenly finds out what it means to be the “father” of a teenage boy. They are paid a visit by her niece Catherine Empanger, a novice nun who's been asked to leave her convent. It seems Catherine suffers from a curious compulsion to yell obscenities at the wrong moment, and even, on occasion, bark like a dog. She immediately become the object of the affections of an honest if simple urban cowboy, Roy Manuel, who wants to court Catherine whether she's a nun or not. Eve feels she should give her niece the benefit of her experiences with men before allowing her to venture back into the mad modern country world. What follows is not simply comic and well-observed, but romantic and affecting as well. Warmed by the wafting tunes of country's favorite singers, Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music is a breezy charmer that will have your audience laughing all the way home.

Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music was commissioned and then first produced as a one-act play in 1982 by the famed Actors Theatre of Louisville, and subsequently premiered as full-length play in 1984 at the Actors Theatre of St. Paul, Minnesota. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and has become a staple of community theatres and regional repertory houses.

Cast: 2 female, 2 male, 1 boy (around 15)

What people say:

"It's got runaway nuns, romance, Tourette's and, yes, a jukebox full of good country music: everything we look for in a night out." — Orlando Weekly

"Truly one of the most entertaining productions of the season! Delightfully witty." — Richmond Times-Dispatch

About the Playwright:

Lee Blessing is an American playwright who remained in his hometown of Minneapolis working in regional theater before relocating to New York when he was in his forties. The author of over twenty plays and screenplays, he been nominated for Tony and Olivier Awards as well as the Pulitzer Prize. He is professor emeritus at Rutgers University, where for a dozen years he headed the Graduate Playwriting Program of Mason Gross School of the Arts.