For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls

A "melodrama plus," this play cleverly intertwines a classic "losing the homestead" plot with a realistic subplot in which high school drama students are putting on (what else?!) a melodrama. The Colonel and his daughter Belle are trying to keep the family restaurant (and Belle's heart) from the clutches of the villain I.C. Blizzard, a fast food franchiser. The hero, Beau, suffers from a perpetual crisis of confidence that he deals with by cooking and obsessive psychoanalysis. The student characters trade insults that imperfectly hide a budding romance. Holding both plots together is the Colonel's no-nonsense Yankee wife, who is the drama teacher of the high school. The two plots dovetail nicely at the end, as the high school play triggers the resolution of the "real" melodrama. With a big cast and lots of laughs, this play also makes a perfect faculty/student production.