hi i'm carol and hi carolyn and we are the drama divas we are teachers at cherry hill high school west i teach twelfth grade english and i teach drama and when we are not dealing with the drama of the drama we are we go around and see productions in our local area and we recently had the opportunity to see the savannah sipping company at the south camden theatre company in camden new jersey yes we did it and i really the south and the theatre company has a very unique and interesting history in the city of camden it's been around for about thirteen years it started in the sacred heart church which is right across the street right and it was started by father michael doyle and michael doyle father doyle is a sort of local hero in the camden area he is you know he's been there for years and years he has done a lot for the cannon community and recently has been recognized by the community in ram and they've named the street after him when the theater company grew out of the church basement they moved it across the street to a bar that was on the corner and  i and i believe i'm not one hundred percent sure but i believe that the family of the bar sold it to the theater company and to father to will for a dollar and it's really a lovely theater right and this season they're dedicating their season to female playwrights so the entire season are placed by women and which is awesome for them to do the season right and i think it's a good move because i i think right now the society is open to this idea of recognizing the accomplishments of women might we have the me too movement we have you know these women who are speaking out and standing up for themselves and i and i really think that it was a really smart choice on behalf of the company to sort of dedicate this season to women and i understand one of the shows is going to be by a local playwright which i'm really looking forward to see right and this show was written by jesse jones nicholas hope and jamie wooten and jamie woo wrote the girls and you see a lot of that golden girl sit com element in in the show right so just to give you an idea the play is written begins with these four women meeting at well actually three women meeting at a hot yoga class where they're very unsuccessful much like i would be out of the class i would last as much as marla faye probably lasted so they meet at this hot yoga class and they decide th going to get together at one of the characters random house and have cocktails on a friday night and in the process of meeting up they exchange stories they and in your golden girl so she comes along and they sort of help each other get through the drama that they've sort of encountered in their and it sort of you know i think it strikes hope for a lot of women right you sacrifice much of their life to there work and then you see these men who get promoted over you so i thought that was really yes that's true and then dot is this older character the oldest of the women and she has just been widowed and moved with her husband planning on retirement they were going to do all the these things in there in savannah and now she finds herself alone in the city and then you have marla fed a who's just one of the funniest character as she her husband left her for a twenty three year old dental hygienist that she calls rinse and sister who is sixty five and has going has alzheimer's and is not even recognizing her anymore and i think the theme of the of the play is really interesting because one of the lions that starts the play i think it's more of a she said you know destiny brought us together us and it's this idea that these women are sort of put together unexpectedly and  grow from their friendship with right other and they learn from each other and as i was watching it it was very powerful to watch this relationship between them develop and it sort of reminded me because you can't help but for you can't help but be reminded that it really reads like a television show it does right i mean it really flows like that the television show and it reminded me of those great relationships of those female characters in t v shows the golden girls  you know lucy and vivian right you know mary richards and rhoda and you know going back really far you know that show that was very successful with jane kirton was you know kate now and how these women are always a point in their lives where they are looking to redefine themselves and i think the play is really going to speak to women who are a our age you know fifty ish who are at a point in their lives when they're trying to redefine themselves their children are grown their husbands have died you know they've retired or are you know they're trying to figure out where they want to be in their careers and and they draw on each other and through their relationship with each other they really they really do become much better people right and and we read the script before we came and i wasn't sure how it was going to play on the stage but it's almost like you know it's thinking about the film it's like watching you know when you binge watch netflix because it's kind of like  you know once sick once you know half an hour episode after the next half an hour episode and the way they split that up the playwrights but that up is with these monologues in which they kind of come out and and they don't break the fourth wall so that fourth wall between the audience and the the actors they don't actually break it but because they're not really speaking to the audience they're just kind of telling the audience ok this is the time that pass this is what happened while it passed this is what i'm going through this is my reaction so each character does a certain point in the script and you sort of get their reaction from them and for me that was the best part of  the play because that's where we really really got to know who these women were and sort of their own relationships with each other and it you know you and i talked about as we were watching it it sort of reminded me of that of you know on survivor with the survived with the carrot the player and their characters and survivor too but the player is sitting up on the rock talking to to us and the audience are you know in big brother when they go into the diary room and they are talking to us about all of the events and their reactions to those events and it really that's really what it reminded me of and i love that part and i have to say because i want to talk about the actors so the the woman who played dot who i i enjoyed very much and she's the oldest character conny norwood and her relationship with jinx the character who is the life coach michel romano that was really really there was a lot of moments that there was a lot of connection between the two actors there was a can definitely understood syncs is i think because of her relationship with her sister and her god it's going  varada who was hilarious and got gosh there's an actress who took risks like she came out she was just drug addict just or she you know she kind of carried herself she took command of the stage she was lovely to watch and very very funny was very funny and then you have stacy skinner played randall who sort of like the straight guy she is she is dorothy to the other women if you look at think about the golden grace she's like the dorothy to those other women because she's trying to get them to do the right thing and they're not always listening to her so i was to be you know she says i only do it if it's logical right logical and so these women are trying to shake themselves up take some risks do those kind of things and you know so they go to the renaissance there but they walk the ghost  disasters and they were they were all disasters but but because that's real life right and when we see these images of valentines where you know everybody's happy and everybody's candy out of a box that's not real and what a lot of people don't understand is that the origins of valentine's day had nothing to do with love it was a pagan holiday where they would take the young girls and strip them naked in the streets and then the men w get drunk and then beat the crap out of them so that they would be fertile when they marry them so that i don't know if the writers intentionally made valentine's day a disaster but i was glad they did it was really pretty clever is they took the romance out of it right and what these women did was on their own home bright found their you know and that see their happiness right when you know that one of the funniest lines is when dot state says to her when you were younger you were probably a beautiful woman and she realizes right you know i don't need that right life she doesn't need that and her and i and i and i think for women this idea that you find empowerment from each other and powerman as we get older i really thought the play did that really well i agree and i also think that the the set so so just in the space of the south camden theatre company i would say it's it's probably about one hundred people hundred people is a really intimate space which is great because you know you're sitting in the back you might as well be sitting in the front right so the view is is there's no problem seeing all the details of the set or the actors or any of that and i loved that they created this huge awful veranda in a very small space very detailed  t they only have one entrance really to take them really offstage they created the door to get them into the kitchen but that only took them around to the back of the set but i thought that they did such a beautiful  we walked into the theaters like we both were just light and the lighting design for the for the set it was lit beautifully it created the the the seasons and the t they they didn't a wonderful job with the set and randall mccain did a fantastic job staging this production so i can't so when we when we do shows that are high school we have like eighty to one hundred kids on stage and i find a place for everyone in this stage to have four actors on stage the whole time is is a difficult thing to block in the small space and he did a wonderful job there was movement there not just sitting because i do i think about the gold girl sitting in the kitchen eating like we are these great cupcakes from greensleeves in flemington and they're sitting there and they're you know eating in the kitchen and it kind of gave that feel but you can't just sit and watch for two hours women sitting and so he created nice movement within the within the scenes which i thought was really really great and you know there's this this chase scene and they all take their turn and you know they're chasing each other around the set and it was it was really reminded me of those like you know dick van dyke v and lucy moments those sort of slapstick moments but it was never like over the top slapstick where you thought this is ridiculous it right you know it was timed well so it ended when you needed to in and it was you know it was fun it was just yeah i think that the women in the show had a really nice reporter with each other i found that  i just found that i was you know starting to to want to hear more about their story and who they were and you like them yeah you know by the it actually do you never think they're pathetic in any way shape or form even though they all have these these issues and and you know but they were they were you know whiny because you know that yeah that would irritate you not why they're not going to you know they're not this is their life and they've made the best of it and they you know they at the end they they have this you know moment and you know i really i really like that there's this there's this line in the play that really was and i thought one of the most important lines and randy says she's she's talking about her grandmother who is also this character that's in the play but that's not really in the play right and this this woman who sort of walks around the periphery who's also this sort of strong  force and randal's life but she says you know we have as a you know our our family roots are twisted and deep and i think that that's who we all are you know our family roots are all twisted in deep and and  what these women have done is they've created their own family whose roots are also you know twisted and deep and they are you know they're very dependent on each other and i i think if you are you know anybody should go see it but i think if you know especially women who are who are looking at a time in their lives where you know they are they're sort of trying to figure it out you know what's next you know what's next for me and i think this would be a good way it's funny are some their subordinates to it i you know i when it's real it's not like a lot of these shows that they write for women over fifty i think it's real like they're dealing with real problems that we all face you know many people do that i'm going to retire here and then there are their spouse dies you know and what do you do you're in the town by yourself how do you find yourself how do you do you read to redefine yourself is really what i think that's what that's about that's right sort of redefining who we are in this moment and time and and it and it works out for all of them but that's different for each for graham and the south camden theatre company is is a real gem in camden it's not difficult to get to do you know it's it's maybe ten fifteen minutes from cherry hill and minutes from terry who i'll go straight down six seventy six either from north or south takes six seventy six there is parking and you can park in the church law go across the street right and it's just a lovely space for a fun evening or man a right you choose to see it which i would suggest you go see it and they do have they do have subscriptions if you're interested in seeing the other shows and maybe you'll come see it and we'll be there when you see it and we'll be there and if not you know it's a nice reasonably priced night of theatre that you you know could share with your friends and see something new and different because it's not like the big theater where they're doing you know the big broadway shows these are these are plays and by the male playwright so you can't go wrong th year and it's affordable right and that's i think i think sometimes people think theater is not accessible but this one this one definitely is can i eat my cake yeah you can eat your cake ok thank you greensleeves good night