Cast members held their first organizational meeting and reading of the United Church annual spring play at the Trinity United Church in Preeceville on January 31.
The play is scheduled to perform in three communities over three days: in Stenen on April 28; Sturgis, April 29; and Preeceville, April 30.
“The Villain Wore a Dirty Shirt is a comedy set in the western era with cast members bringing the play to life,” said Pat Prokop, director. Hazel Urbanoski and Carla Lewis are producers.
“The first reading went over great with many interested individuals stepping up to fill the characters’ positions,” Prokop said.
“Laundries are big business in the mining town of Digalittledeeper,” said a synopsis of the play.
“The ‘Tub and Scrub’ is operated by Olympia Klenz and Sweet Sally,” it says. “The young sheriff is in love with Sally, but every time he gets close he turns into a babbling fool.
“Meanwhile, our villain, Phineas Flatworm, discovers Olympia has been rinsing gold flecks from miners’ laundry for years, and she’s amassed a tidy sum.
“The villain figures if he had the only laundry in town, he’d make a million!
“With the aid of his hilarious mother, Mrs. Mugwump, and Lola-Lola, a talentless flamenco dancer, he gets control of the ‘Tub and Scrub.’
“Lola-Lola plans to marry Phineas, but not if Mrs. Mugwump has anything to say about it! The other laundries ‘mysteriously’ burn down. Mayor Haggle gives the ‘Tub and Scrub’ a civic award, and a ghost accuses the villain of his crimes.
“The highlight of the wacky spoof is a laundry fight that hasn’t been equaled since the pie-tossing days of silent films,” the synopsis says. “The evildoers are brought to the soap-bar of justice, and the sheriff conquers his shyness and proposes to Sweet Sally.”
