DIXIE SWIM CLUB Opens in Murfreesboro Friday Night

The Dixie Swim Club - the Jones-Hope-Wooten comedy about five Southern women who meet on their college's swim team and hold a beachfront reunion every year thereafter - opens this week at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts, in a new production helmed by George W. Manus Jr.

The Dixie Swim Club runs November 11-20 in the CFTA art gallery, where a group art show featuring the works of four women artists is currently on display. Manus' cast includes Memory Strong-Smith, Kathleen Jaffe, Anne Armstrong Black, Bethany True and Lisa Davis.

"Husbands, sicknesses, divorces, children, grandchildren - all these things happen, and the women laugh with each other and they argue, but there's a bond that never separates them," says Manus. "The five women in the show are experiencing the same thing. We laugh, we cry and through it all we are developing a close bond of friendship."

In the script, the annual reunion allows the five women an opportunity to get away from their families and renew their friendships. The rule: no husbands, no kids, just the girls. The play is filled with hysterical one-liners delivered by five funny, vibrant women whose reunions take place at four different intervals of their lives: ages 44, 49, 54 and 77.

The theme of friendship is easy to relate to for the performers in the production. Kathleen Jaffe who plays the role of Veradette, compares her character's friendships in the show to the one she has with her own best friend: "My oldest friend and I have known each other for more than half our lives. What I love most about our friendship is that we know and appreciate each other exactly as we are - even though we're completely different people now. Sometimes it's months (and in a couple of cases, more than a year) between conversations, we always pick up as though we just spoke yesterday. Truly, she's like another sister to me."

Memory Strong-Smith, cast as Sheree, relates the relationships in the show to her own relationship with her husband, Matt Smith, instead of with her female friends. "The kind of friendship these women have is that kind of unconditional acceptance that is usually reserved for family and spouses. The ability to continue to get together the same weekend every year for 50 years takes commitment and forgiveness. I am certainly not the same person I was even five years ago. We all grow and change and become different people as we age, and it takes acceptance and love to allow them to grow and change and become different people right along with you. Men, I think, can have this type of relationship easily, but women are different. Women are complex and sometimes easily offended. We can get distracted by raising children and work and all the other things that women have to do to survive, but because of that it's actually more important that we have this type of relationship - to help keep us grounded; connected to ourselves. It's rare and beautiful and should be protected."

At the Friday performances on November 11 and 18, the Center hosts "Girls Night" at The Dixie Swim Club performances. Cabaret style seating will be set up, and audience members are encouraged to bring food and beverages and make an evening event of it with their friends and family. Female centric vendors will be on hand, and goody bags and a door prize will be awarded.

At the same time as the run of The Dixie Swim Club, the Center is also displaying a group art show of work by local female artists October 25-November 29. The show is comprised of mixed mediums work by Joyce Cummings, Laine Cantrell, Cara Brown, and Noelle Tillman. This show is free and open to the public for viewing 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and during show times.

Tickets can be purchased on the Center's website at www.boroarts.org, by calling (615) 904- 2787, or at the Center's box office at 110 W. College St. in downtown Murfreesboro. Prices are $15 for adults; $13 for seniors, students and military; and $11 for children. Group tickets are available. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday evenings and 2 p.m. on Sunday afternoons.

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