Greenwood Little Theatre, after halting its productions for more than a year due to the pandemic, is ready to get back in the spotlight.
The theater group put out audition calls earlier this week for its fall production, “Crimes of the Heart,” a tragicomedy to be directed by Forrest Hodge, which will debut in October.
In the meantime, the Little Theatre will host a fundraising event beginning at 7 p.m. Aug. 7 at the Confederate Memorial Building, 215 Henderson St.
The show, “A Million Dollar Evening,” will feature music from the “Million Dollar Quartet.”
“We’re back. The theater’s back. We’re up and running, getting ready to put on shows and entertain the Delta again,” said Nichole Henry-Buchanan, a former president of the group’s board.
Performing in next weekend’s show will be Taylor Buchanan on guitar, Paul Brown on piano and Nathan Wright on drums, all of Greenwood; Joe Forrester of Indianola, who will be singing; and Seth Hill of Clarksdale, who will play the bass guitar.
From left, Nathan Wright, Joe Forrester and Taylor Buchanan play during a rehearsal for “A Million Dollar Evening,” a Greenwood Little Theatre production that will be held Aug. 7 at the Confederate Memorial Building beginning at 7 p.m. (By Gerard Edic)
The “Million Dollar Quartet” was a name given to Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash when they recorded together during a jam session in December 1956 at the Sun Record Studios in Memphis.
“It’s going to be a blowout show. This is going to be a landmark event.
This is going to breathe the life of music back into the Delta,” said Taylor Buchanan, the husband of Henry-Buchanan and a regular Little Theatre actor.
“We’ve been practicing for several weeks now. It’s great to be with a live band,” Forrester said.
Will Perkins, the theater’s board president, said they were “looking for something that we knew we could pull off working within our own group of our own talent. One of the downsides of COVID has been the difficulty in finding volunteers. So we cast a small net within our own community and found this show would be a good fit. We have some guys who are familiar with all of this music, and everything fell into place.”
Tickets for the show, which cost $75 and can be reserved by calling 219-3822, include admission, food and two drinks. Proceeds from the ticket sales benefit the Little Theatre, which has not had a live production since the musical “Annie,” which was performed in December 2019.
“The Outsiders” was supposed to take the stage in March 2020 but was canceled due to the onset of COVID-19.
The Little Theatre is also working with the Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District to have the theater’s productions performed at the auditorium of Davis Elementary. There are ongoing construction issues at the theater’s W.M. Whittington Jr. Playhouse at 707 Sycamore Ave., which is also why the fundraiser show will be held at the Confederate building.
The school board recently voted to allow the Little Theatre’s use of the school auditorium as a performance venue for four years pending revisions made to a contract between the Little Theatre and the school district.
- Contact Gerard Edic at 581-7239 or gedic@gwcommonwealth.com.
