Waycross Area Community Theatre opens its 2025-26 season this week with the comedy, “Second-To-Last Chance Ladies League” at the historic Ritz Theatre in Downtown Waycross.
Show dates are Thursday- Sunday, October 2-5 and Thursday-Saturday, October 9-11. All performances are at 7:30 p.m. except the Sunday October 5 show, which is at 2:30 p.m.
Admission is $18, and reservations may be made online at www.waycrossritz. com. The theatre box office at will be open one hour before each show.
Directed by Pam Fields, the cast of “Second-to-Last Chance Ladies League” includes Tara Cox as Sedalia Ellicott, Rhonda Gatewood as Charlie Collins, Amy Worthington as Libby Ruth Ames, Kayla Dixon as Deedra Wingate, and Betsy Kingsbury as Monette Gentry.
In this delightful and uproarious comedy, four best friends — Libby Ruth, Deedra, Monette, and Charlie — each yearning to change their life before it’s too late, return to their beloved Laurelton Oaks, a wedding venue they know well, in one of their cases, all too well.
With Deedra’s purchase of the stately venue the others rally around her, and the business is ingeniously reimagined as “Occasionally Yours,” an events center for all kinds of fresh, new celebratory gatherings. With these women so involved in each other’s lives, what could possibly go wrong?
Basically, almost everything, what with Monett — flashy, vivacious, and self-involve — careening through a comic minefield of yet another divorce; salt-of-the-earth, treehugging Charlie struggling to survive her late-arriving mid-life crisis; and Libby Ruth — sweet, guileless but absolutely nobody’s fool — choosing to return to college and at the same time finding herself overwhelmed by the rebirth of her husband’s libido that keeps getting in the way of her studies.
Meanwhile, headstrong Deedra is doing her deadlevel best to fend off the eagle-eyed control issues of one practical and unflappable Sedalia Ellicott, the former owner, who refuses to relinquish the reins and exit gracefully.
In the course of one ferociously funny year, they joyfully throw themselves into hosting all manner of event — baby showers, bachelorette parties, memorial service — where everything that can go awry does. They are even compelled to participate in, yes, another lastminute, improbable wedding.
These tenacious women endure the laugh-out-loud adventures in hospitality and grow closer than ever as they tickle your funny bone and definitely capture your heart. This rollicking, fast-paced Jones Hope Wooten comedy will bring endless joy and waves of laughter.
Other productions planned as part of the WACT’s 2025-26 season are: “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” December 4-13; “The Wizard of Oz,” March 5-15; and “Murder’s in the Heir,” May 7-16. Season memberships for the productions range from individual (1 ticket per event) for $44.75 to platinum (25 tickets per event) for $1,010.75.
