Dinner theatre is coming to Covington, at least for one night.
The play “Red Velvet Cake Wars,” a Southern-inspired comedy, will be performed the evening of March 23 at Georgia Piedmont Technical College’s Bobby Williams Parkway location.
The event is being sponsored by the Caldwell and Cowan Relay for Life team, which was looking for a way to get the community involved and support local actors and the arts, said team members Scott and Ronda Ellis, husband and wife.
The plan is to have a full night of entertainment, start with hors d'oeuvres and mingling at 4:30 p.m. with dinner being served at 6 p.m. and the show to start after that. The play will last about an hour and a half.
Tickets cost $25 per person and are pre-sale only – they will not be sold at the door. They can be purchased in a number of ways, including at Caldwell and Cowan Funeral Home, 1215 Access Road, by calling (770) 786-7062 or by emailing Scott Ellis at scott.e@caldwellandcowan.com or Kari Saunchegraw kari.s@caldwellandcowan.com. Scott Ellis said tickets can even be delivered to people.
All proceeds will go to Relay for Life, after the food expenses are paid for. Georgia Piedmont college is donating the use of its facilities and the local actors will also perform for free. Local high school Key Club members will help serve. The goal is to have a crowd of 300 people.
Local actress Gina Hay Bryan, who has appeared in multiple performances in the Metro Atlanta area, will be directing the performance.
“Red Velvet Cake Wars” is about three eccentric Verdeen cousins – Gaynelle, Peaches and Jimmie Wyvette – who pick a bad time to throw their family reunion. Outrageous antics ensue and snowball into a crazy climax in the small town of Sweetgum, Texas.
“Having ‘accidentally’ crashed her minivan through the bedroom wall of her husband’s girlfriend’s doublewide, Gaynelle is one frazzled nerve away from a spectacular meltdown. Peaches, a saucy firebrand and the number one mortuarial cosmetologist in the tri-county area, is struggling to decide if it’s time to have her long-absent trucker husband declared dead. And Jimmie Wyvette, the rough-around-the-edges store manager of Whatley’s Western Wear, is resorting to extreme measures to outmaneuver a priss-pot neighbor for the affections of Sweetgum’s newest widower,” according to a description from dramatists.com.
“We were just trying to figure out fundraisers no one else had done,” said Ronda Ellis. “We’re trying to get the community involved in larger numbers.”
