The Last Night of Ballyhoo is a play by Alfred Uhry that premiered in 1996 in Atlanta. Here the author employs much more direct and conventional means that work more blatantly to elicit laughs and tears. The Last Night of Ballyhoo was the winner of the 1997 Tony Award for Best Play (in one of the weaker years for new plays on Broadway).
Playwright Alfred Uhry found fame in the 1980s with Driving Miss Daisy, a Southern play about friendship, loyalty and prejudice.
But have you seen Uhry’s other important (and equally Southern) play? It’s- The Last Night of Ballyhoo written by Alfred Uhry for the 1996 Olympic Games, is a play infused with comedy set in Atlanta, GA in 1939. Uhry already well known for his previous Academy Award and Pulitzer Prize winning play Driving Miss Daisy, explores the lives of a German-Jewish family living in the southern Christian neighborhoods of Atlanta.
- TheatreWorks New Milford CT Live Theatre Western Connecticut.
Ballyhoo is a drama about coming of age and finding one’s identity, set in the small, cozy, social world of Atlanta’s affluent Jewish families, circa 1939. Specifically, it’s the Freitag/Levy family, who live well, if not extravagantly, given the time.
The story begins as the Nazis are starting their rampage in Europe … but the local premiere of film Gone with the Wind is creating a bigger stir in Atlanta—and daughter Lala (a college dropout and a bit of an ugly duckling played by Shannon Kendall) is starstruck.
In addition, it’s December, and Lala is decorating the Christmas tree—a family tradition, even though the family is Jewish, of German background. This distinctly Christian symbol strikes visitor Joe (Tyler Thompson)—likewise Jewish, but from New York and of Polish-Russian background—as odd. But then, the Frietag/Levy family seems to know little about the faith.
Lala needs a date for Ballyhoo, a debutante ball for the South’s Jewish aristocracy. In fact, Lala’s mother Boo (Marsha Black) regards Ballyhoo as the last, best opportunity to help her daughter land a husband. Joe, handsome and unattached, soon becomes the focus of Lala’s intense attention. But Joe’s more interested in Sunny (Alyce Hartman), Lala’s better-educated cousin, and Sunny reciprocates his overtures.
Lala’s mother Boo doesn’t want Joe marrying either of them—she takes a dim view of “the other kind”—Jews from a Polish-Russian background. But Joe is quietly encouraged by paunchy family patriarch Adolph (Stephen Miller), a measured, tolerant man who takes a long view of domestic disputes.
It’s a lovely, thoughtful, semi-autobiographical script (Uhry attended Ballyhoo as a teen), well-served in Imprint Theatre’s cleanly executed little production (directed by Amanda Aldrich), with nicely built sets (Regan Archer) and clever costumes (Marilyn Wilkison).
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