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.

VERSAILLES — Complete outsiders might drive into this town of 7,818 thinking it’s a really cute place, and it’s awfully sweet they’re putting up a production of Oklahoma at the local theater.

Evan Sullivan as Curly and Jessie Rose Pennington as Laurey in 'Oklahoma.' Photo courtesy of The Woodford Theatre.

Then they would settle into their seats and soon have to sweep their jaws off the floor when the lights come up on a morning sky so perfectly pink you’d think there wasn’t a back wall on the stage, and the actors are not only singing with these gorgeous voices but catching every nuance in Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein III’s show.

Now, if you’ve been following the steady evolution of The Woodford Theatre (until recently the Woodford County Theatrical Arts Association) under Beth Kirchner’s direction, you come expecting a much higher quality production than most people would presume a small town theater would put up. But that doesn’t mean Oklahoma isn’t a pleasant surprise, even to the initiated.

Like Lexington’s Paragon Music Theatre a few weeks ago with The King and I, Woodford Theatre has really outdone itself with this R&H production and taken its game to a new level. You have to wonder how Central Kentucky went nearly half a decade with no one regularly presenting musical theater, and now these triumphant productions are busting out all over.

It certainly helps to have Evan Sullivan and Jessie Rose Pennington, quickly becoming the leading man and woman of Lexington-area musical theater, in the leads.

Sullivan, a Woodford Theatre veteran, looks as comfortable in his chaps and cowboy hat playing Curly as he did in a suit and tie as Harold Hill last spring in Paragon’s Music Man. He’s a consummate actor with the right dose of charm for a musical theater leading man. And Pennington is a perfect foil for Sullivan playing Laurey, just as she was playing Marian in Music Man. Their first few scenes have a contentious chemistry that we can all see through, and it quickly thaws.

But they are just part of the show, and Kirchner has assembled a deep cast with some reliable standbys such as Melissa Rae Wilkeson as Aunt Eller. She shows empathetic grit and takes over several numbers such as The Farmer and the Cowman, which at one point she conducts with a pistol in her hand. Kirchner also has winners in the supporting couple of Adam Richard Fister as Will Parker and Sydney Steele, already a stage veteran in her junior year of high school, as Ado Annie. We must also give a shout out to Wes Nelson in the scene-stealing-special role of Ali Hakim, the traveling salesman who is Will’s rival for Annie’s affections, at least in Annie’s mind.

But the casting choice that really demonstrates this show’s depth is Brian Douglas Barker as Jud.

You can see a lot of community theater R&H productions that play the shows as puttin’ on the hits. But there is a real strong sense of pathos and melancholy in Barker’s performance that puts the theater in this musical theater production. Pennington’s reaction to him is also a key to this, as there is palpable fear in her voice and body the first time she talks about Jud.

Choreographer Jenny Fitzpatrick gets amazing dance work out of the cast, particularly in the ballet that closes Act I and that Farmer and the Cowman number. And Russell Mendez’s set and Todd Pickett’s lighting design finish this show’s professional sheen.

This is a production that could play towns many, many times Versailles’ size. And if you aren’t familiar with this troupe, maybe it’s time to get acquainted. It’s worth the drive.