Foothills Players announces its second season

Members of the cast of “Steel Magnolias” rehearse a scene from the upcoming Foothills Community Players production. From left, Dianne Cserbak (Ouiser), Aja Rodriguez (Truvy), Lisa Slagle (M’Lynn), Amy Dale (Annelle), and Eileen Conway (Claree).

Foothills Community Players starts its second season next month with a bittersweet comedy and finishes next summer with a big musical production.

The Blount County-based, all-volunteer theater group presents four plays from September through next July. Three are at downtown Maryville's Capitol Theatre. The last - the musical "The Music Man" - will be staged at the new Clayton Center for the Arts now being built on the Maryville College campus.

The season begins with the funny and tender "Steel Magnolias" Sept. 17-20. The classic farce "Arsenic and Old Lace," follows Nov. 19-22. The romantic comedy "Sabrina Fair" plays Feb. 11-14 as a Valentine's offering. The play is the basis for both the Humphrey Bogart and Harrison Ford films entitled "Sabrina." But the play includes a third suitor - a Frenchman - for Sabrina's hand.

"The Music Man," the group's largest and most elaborate production in its young history, is July 2-4 and July 8-11.

Foothills Vice President John Cherry said the group will experiment with some dinner theater. The Nov. 20 "Arsenic and Old Lace" performance will be done as dinner theater. "If that goes well, we will do all of 'Sabrina Fair' as dinner theater," he said.

But the major step this season is Foothills' first musical production, "The Music Man." "We were very well received by the Blount County arts community our first year," Cherry said. "They supported us and bolstered us to tackle a musical our second year."

"The Music Man" will include multiple sets and a larger cast than previous productions. And the company isn't stopping at the number of characters in "The Music Man" script. "We have a plan to include the entire community," Cherry said.

Terry Silver Alford, who teaches theater classes at the University of Tennessee, is directing "Music Man." Amy Moore Morton, Appalachian Ballet artistic director and the Van Metre School of Dance director, will do the choreography.

Foothills Community Players began in 2008 without grants or "large infusions of cash," Cherry said. Money came in from fundraising and ticket sales; an estimated 2,000 people came to see the first year's four productions.

Foothills has applied to be a resident theater group at the new Clayton Center. The troupe would still be flexible enough to present future plays at the center, the Capitol or another Blount County space, Cherry said.

Future considerations include making one of the annual four plays a more serious production. "Maybe we do some lighter Shakespeare. We are thinking about things like 'Days of Wine and Roses,' which is a very dark love story. Something a little more edgy but something still good because it exposes your audience to theater," Cherry said. "We want people coming to the theater - that is our main objective."

Amy McRary may be reached at 865-342-6437.

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