Copious Notes

Joanna Jerome is Julia and Aubin Munn is Laura in Crish Barth's "Hill Cattle," part of the Midway Festival of Plays. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.

Woodford County may be a bedroom community of Lexington, but this weekend it is a hotbed of local theater.

Continuing in Versailles is The Woodford Theatre’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest, which got high marks from the H-L’s own Candace Chaney. Over in Midway, the Thoroughbred Theatre is opening the inaugural Midway Festival of Plays, a lineup of seven 10-minute plays.

Dara Jade Tiller, shown backstage at Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2008, is in the Woodford Theatre's production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Photo by David Perry | Herald-Leader.

The 10-minute format has its roots in Kentucky at Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival of New American Plays, though we rarely get to see the format around here. In a nice little piece of synergy, Earnest features Dara Jade Tiller, a former Acting Apprentice at Actors Theatre who performed in the 2008 Humana Festival.

The whole Woodford theatrical weekend shows nice synergy in the area theater scene. Both productions are creations of Woodford Countians, but have drawn plenty of interest from the Lexington theater community and others.

So, if you’re looking for an excuse to take a little drive out through horse country this weekend, here it is.

Think your late spring wedding is getting kind of nutty? The Futrelle sisters might make you feel a whole lot better about your circumstances. Estranged sister Honey Raye is back stirring up old tensions, Twink is trying to turn the reception into a pig roast, and Frankie is juggling emotional crises that quickly multiply.

And we haven’t mentioned that Twink is trying to drag her drunk boyfriend to the nuptials because she thinks that’s the key to getting him to pop the question, the mother of the groom is trying to sabotage the ceremony and the bride and groom are MIA.

It could only happen in Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, and Jamie Wooten’s fictional Fayro, Texas. Studio Players present the trio’s Dearly Beloved May 21-June 7 at the Carriage House Theatre on W. Bell Court., directed by Tonda-Leah Fields.