NEW YORK -- Last weekend in Manhattan, several friends from North Carolina were nearly late for the show they had traveled 500 miles to see, all because they were reluctant to leave their hotel TVs.
How could they? N.C. State was playing UNC.
Playwrights Paul Ferguson and Jill McCorkle may teach at - and cheer for - rival schools, but on this New York trip, they were very much on the same team. They were in town for the New York premiere of "Good Ol' Girls," a musical created by three Triangle writers and featuring two talented North Carolina actresses working in New York.
"Good Ol' Girls" opened Feb. 14 in a small Manhattan theater two blocks off Times Square. Based on the short stories of McCorkle and fellow Southern scribe Lee Smith, it features songs by Nashville veterans Marshall Chapman and Matraca Berg. Ferguson, a dramatist who teaches at UNC-Chapel Hill, wove the songs and stories into a musical revue. The show is scheduled to play at the Black Box Theatre until April 11.
Like any good Southern story, the tale of how "Good Ol' Girls" traveled from Chapel Hill to New York is a rambling one, full of setbacks and triumphs.
By Ferguson's count, the New York run is the 17th staging of "Good Ol' Girls." The first was at UNC-CH 10 years ago at the N.C. Literary Festival. No one in this storied group claims exclusive ownership of the idea, but Smith is the fulcrum on which the creative team turns. She's old friends with Chapman, a rockabilly pioneer, and slightly newer friends with McCorkle, a former student.
Chapman suggested that Berg - the songwriter who penned "Wild Angels," "Strawberry Wine" and dozens of other country hits - should be involved. Chapman and Berg selected songs from their repertoire that would illustrate Smith and McCorkle's short stories.
The result was a two-act musical featuring a cast of 11 women portraying dozens of characters created by nationally known writers Smith and McCorkle. A reporter from The New York Times happened to be in town for the festival and gave the show six words of ineffable praise: "a literary feminist country music revue."
"We all liked that a lot," McCorkle said. "Especially the literary feminist part."
A series of workshops followed. In 2002, Ferguson dipped into his resources and directed a N.C. Theatre touring production of the show. With the cast this time pared down to seven, "Good Ol' Girls" hit 15 cities in North Carolina, plus a handful of venues in other Southern states.
A Fayetteville revival
Then came what Ferguson calls, "the dormant years." There were no formal stagings, but many who saw "Good Ol Girls" remembered it. In 2007, one of McCorkle's nieces, an actress in Fayetteville, pushed for the Cape Fear Regional Theatre to revive the show. Bo Thorp, the theater's artistic director, agreed.
"That's how it got its legs back up," McCorkle said.
Thorp's 2008 production attracted top talent, including Liza Vann, an actress originally from Durham who came down from New York to see what the fuss was about. Gina Stewart, frontwoman of the Charlotte-based band Volatile Baby, also signed on.
"It was an event. It was more than a play; it was a celebration," Thorp said. "I just love the way it was so feminist and so Southern. I loved the voices of Jill [McCorkle] and Lee [Smith]. And it was so much fun for the audience."
Soon "Good Ol' Girls" became a larger-than-Fayetteville phenomenon. UNC-TV came down to film the production; stations across the country began airing the show in September. So far it has aired on 73 stations in 11 states. (Locally, viewers can next catch it March 18.)
Vann was particularly taken with the show and used her New York connections to recruit co-producers. The middle child from a family of 11, Vann is "a determined woman who can make things happen," Thorp said.
Moving to New York
Ferguson was also greasing wheels, and once the showbiz gears started turning, things happened quickly: In a matter of weeks last fall, plans were made for a New York run.
"I had to clear the decks," said Ferguson, who postponed other projects and started helping director Randal Myler rework the material for five women. All six of the Cape Fear actresses auditioned, but only Stewart and Vann, who is also producing, made the cut.
After callbacks, Myler called Ferguson, shocked and delighted. "We've got three genuine stars here," he said.
Those stars included Lauren Kennedy, the Raleigh native who usually performs on larger stages. She made her Broadway debut in "Les Miserables" in 2002 and earned acclaim for her powerful belting as the Lady of the Lake in the Monty Python musical "Spamalot."
Kennedy didn't see the 2002 "Good Ol' Girls" tour, but her mother did, and several of her friends had acted in the original festival performance. Last fall, Kennedy's agent called and suggested she audition, not knowing she was already familiar with the show.
"When I saw what it was, and that I knew so many people who have been involved with 'Good Ol' Girls' in the past, I was very intrigued," Kennedy said via e-mail. "I listened to the music, read some of the script, and I was sold."
Last weekend after a matinee, Kennedy and her "Good Ol' Girls" co-stars met the show's creators. There in the lobby, the women starting gabbing like only Southern ladies can. Smith was particularly thrilled to meet the two accomplished older actresses in the show, Teri Ralston and Sally Mayes.
"You ladies were just beautiful," Smith said, embracing the strangers playing characters she knows so well on paper. "We writers, we just sit in our little rooms, making up this stuff and writing about our childhoods. And now there you are, these beautiful women onstage."
The reviews are in
Reviews of "Good Ol' Girls" have praised the performers but expressed concerned with the musical's structure. The five women play about three dozen characters over the course of the show: diner waitresses, beauty parlor owners, wives of alcoholics. Broadway World called the characters "feisty and determined." The New York Post was less kind: "'Good Ol' Girls' makes me glad I live in New York," intoned the paper's theater critic. "These gals seem a fairly troubled lot."
The question is how many Southern sympathizers in the Big Apple will line up to buy tickets. The Black Box Theatre, located in a larger complex, seats just 62 people. The small stage holds only a handful of props (benches and beer bottles), and a map of the Carolinas, projected onto a screen behind the stage, provides the only semblance of a set.
It's a bare-bones production by any standard. Most New York theatergoers expect more bells and Broadway whistles. But the entourage of more than a dozen Carolinians who traveled north for the opening was hardly disappointed.
"Lee and I just keep looking at each other. We are thrilled to be off-Broadway," McCorkle said. "You know, we're just thrilled to have the chance. We're just gonna go with our fingers crossed and hoping for the best, but we are going to enjoy the ride for as long as it's riding."
