Possum Point Players Presents DIXIE SWIM CLUB

Summer is almost here and it's time to hit the beach for a "group swim" with the Possum Point Players' presentation of "The Dixie Swim Club." Show dates for this funny and touching play are June 7, 8, 9, 14, 15 and 16. Theatre goers are advised to purchase tickets early; the June 9 matinee is already sold out.

Friday and Saturday performances are at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday matinees are at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20 for adults and $19 for seniors and students and may be purchased at www.possumpointplayers.org or by calling (302) 856-4560.

"The Dixie Swim Club" follows the lives of five women who first came together as members of their college swim club. The friendships formed then kept them tied together for the rest of their lives and they keep it that way with an everlasting knot of an annual reunion at the beach on North Carolina's Outer Banks. The play spans 33 years of the lives of these strong, spunky, yet loving and sympathetic, southern women. They joke, tease, disagree and always support each other. "The Dixie Swim Club" is full of laughs and sighs and life.

The cast includes Cat Baker of Georgetown, Beth DiGrasso and Cheryl Graves of Rehoboth Beach, Jill Lewandowski of Milford and Audrey Killen of Roxanna. Helen Barlow of Georgetown is director. The show focuses on four of the reunion weekends and takes the friends from their 40s into their 70s. Although each life takes turns and ups and downs, some characteristics stay consistent through the years.

Sheree, played by Baker, will always be the team captain, who organizes and directs everyone, but even the leader finds that not everything is under her control. DeGrasso portrays Dinah, the wisecracking but accomplished lawyer who is a career dynamo and mistress of the martini mixer. Yet, her professional victories are not matched in her frustrating personal life.

Lewandowski as Lexie is a pampered and outspoken southern belle who uses every advance of science and cosmetics to hold on to her looks and youth. She makes a hobby of marrying over and over and over again. Graves portrays Vernadette, who uses her humor and good-natured self-deprecation to lighten the mood and try to brighten the dark cloud that hovers over her life. She has decided to shrug off the chaos and laugh through it. Sweet, eager-to-please Jeri Neal, played by Killen, has thrown off the trappings of her first avowed calling and chooses a late entry into motherhood that takes them all by surprise and makes for a memorable weekend.

Through morning screwdrivers, trying to act like it's normal to travel in a clown suit, stashing foul-tasting organic hors de oeuvres in the potted plants and attempting to help a former nun dress for a job interview, these swim club members keep laughing at and loving each other. "The Dixie Swim Club" is suitable for audiences of all ages.

"The Dixie Swim Club" is presented through special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York.

Possum Point Players is supported, in part, by grants from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.