Wilkinson 'Goes Home Again' for CHURCH BASEMENT LADIES

After 30 years away from her first professional theater home, Tennessee theater icon Martha Wilkinson proves that you can go home again as she directs Cumberland County Playhouse's first show of the 2016 season: Church Basement Ladies, which opened at the Crossville theater last Saturday, January 16.

Returning to CCP to direct a cast of Playhouse favorites - including Jason Ross, 2015 First Night Honoree Carol Irvin, Patty Payne, Weslie Webster and Lindsey Mapes - the experience was, Wilkinson admits, "cool, but weird."

"Does that make sense?" she asks rhetorically, less than an hour after the production's final dress rehearsal. "It's weird to be there, back to where I started my professional theater career in 1985 and now I'm back there, after having worked for 30 years. It's weird to go back with the knowledge I've gained since then, coupled with how much I learned while working there."

Wilkinson came to CCP from her hometown of Rome, Georgia, in 1985, first appearing in Tennessee, USA!, subsequently taking on other roles at the Playhouse, including Maria in The Sound of Music, Catherine in The Foreigner and Hodel in Fiddler on the Roof. Since that time, she has made Nashville her home and has continued a successful career as both a professional actor and director. She has directed for Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, SPIRIT Community Inc, People's Branch, Street Theatre Company and Nashville Repertory Theatre.

And - Thomas Wolfe's novel exhortation, notwithstanding - for Wilkinson, coming home to Crossville and the welcoming warmth of her CCP family has resulted in a creative process that has been "really low-stress and a lot of fun," she says.

"I have been working with seasoned performers who know what they're doing, so going into it I knew they would have a good time with the script and that the process would be a smooth one."

"[Music director] Ron Murphy is wonderful and the cast has been very welcoming," she says. "And everyone at the Playhouse has been encouraging and supportive. It's been a great experience."

Wilkinson, who renewed her three decades-long friendship with Irvin at last September's 2015 First Night Honors - at which the two women were feted along with seven other Tennessee theater titans - had also worked with Mapes (along with her sister Amanda Mapes) in a summer musical production of Annie at Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, where Wilkinson is artistic director.

"It's been so much fun working with Lindsey again and to walk into rehearsal and see the young woman she has become," Wilkinson says. "It's kind of 'mortalizing' to have something like that happen - to work with someone as a child and then as a young woman."

Putting Church Basement Ladies on its feet, as it were, has been "fairly easy," Wilkinson maintains. "It's presented in the Adventure Theatre, so it's in a three-quarters configuration and so I have one less audience group to play to than at Chaffin's Barn."

Based on the best-selling book Growing Up Lutheran, the Playhouse production of Church Basement Ladies will feature Carol Irvin (Southern Fried Funeral, Inlaws, Outlaws...) as Mrs. Snustad, Weslie Webster (Gypsy, Inlaws, Outlaws...) as Mrs. Engelson, Patty Payne (Barbara's Blue Kitchen, Inlaws, Outlaws...) as Mrs. Gilmerson, Lindsey Mapes (The Fox on the Fairway, A Chorus Line) as Signe Engelson and Jason Ross (The Fox on the Fairway, Scrooge) as Pastor Gunderson. This celebration of the church basement kitchen and the women who work there highlights these four women and their relationships as they organize the food and the problems of a rural Minnesota church. From the elderly matriarch of the kitchen (Irvin) to the young bride-to-be learning the proper order of things (Mapes), these women handle a record breaking Christmas dinner, the funeral of a dear friend, a Hawaiian Easter Fundraiser, and a steaming hot July wedding. They stave off potential disasters, share and debate recipes, instruct the young, and keep the Pastor (Ross) on due course while thoroughly enjoying, (or at least tolerating) each other. Audiences will recognize these funny and down to earth Church Basement Ladies as they watch the church year unfold from below the House of God.

"It all takes place in Minnesota, but it's a universal story in which audiences will recognize people they know, which makes it tangible to them," Wilkinson suggests.

Church Basement Ladies will run through March 25. Tickets are available by calling (931) 484-5000 or online at www.ccplayhouse.com.

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