New play making a splash in New Bern

Testing the theatrical waters with a new comedy is risky for even the most dramatic of playhouses: With an unfamiliar story and no buoyancy from past reviews the proposition is often sink or tread the boards for producers and actors alike.

Yet even with this caveat, New Bern's 3PW, Inc. should have an easier time of it than most when it opens "The Dixie Swim Club" in early August. Not only is the storyline one with which local audiences will quickly identify, it's a storyline authored by playwrights with impressive pedigrees.

Five Southern women, friends since their days together on the college swim team, meet every August for a long weekend in a cottage on North Carolina's Outer Banks. There, for decades, relationships have been renewed, secrets have been shared and tears have been shed on marriages, children, health and, of course, sex.

Four of those weekends, spanning 33 years, and a twist of fortune in the second act, are the subjects of "The Dixie Swim Club." The leading ladies age from their 40s to their 70s during the course of the play.

"Steel Magnolias" meets "Beaches" - not an inaccurate summary for such a plot, and not an inaccurate comparison of the writing given the level of talent that produced it.

Co-authored by Jamie Wooten (writer and producer for "The Golden Girls"), Nicholas Hope (winner, Southwest Regional Playwrights Competition) and Jessie Jones (co-writer for the play "Dearly Departed," adapted for film as "Kingdom Come"), "The Dixie Swim Club" is flush with Southern dialogue of the type that means so much more than it says.

And New Bern should like what it hears, say the play's producers and ensemble cast.

"There's a lot to identify with, even for a younger group of people, because it proves there's life to be lived afterward," said Martha Hall, tapped to play Sheree, the bully and team captain from Raleigh who has tried to maintain control both in and out of the water.

Not that issues of control are easily resolved in a play that has multiple leads.

"This one is truly an ensemble piece," said Patsy White, co-producer with Paul White and the actress plucked to play the overachieving Dinah. "Yet everybody is truly an individual. Every woman gets a chance to be the strong character."

Every woman also gets the opportunity to stage a few laughs, even for the male portion of the audience.

"Men will like this too because of the humor," Paul White said. "And there's a fight scene that will bring down the house."

That fight scene may help build the house, too.

Proceeds from this production will benefit renovation of New Bern's Masonic Theater - the oldest continually operation playhouse in the nation.

If you are going

What: "The Dixie Swim Club."

When: 8 p.m. Aug. 8 and 9 and 14 to 16; 2 p.m. Aug. 17.

Where: Masonic Theatre, Hancock Street, New Bern.

Cost: $15 advance at Bank of the Arts, New Bern; $18 door.

Contact: (252) 638-2577 for tickets.

You should know: Proceeds benefit renovations of the Masonic Theatre.