Saint Sebastian Players to Present Eudora Welty and Pa Kettle Double-Bill, 8/21-25

As a diversion for late summer, a double bill of "Shower of Gold" from The Golden Apples by Eudora Welty and "An Evening with Percy" by Ed McGuire takes place August 21-25 at the Saint Sebastian Players Theatre at St. Bonaventure, 1625 W. Diversey, Chicago. These performances are a Sebastian Studio Project, a program of the Saint Sebastian Players (SSP).

Eudora Welty is the undisputed female literary voice of the American South. Her storytelling skills won her fame and adulation throughout the South and then worldwide after her 1973 Pulitzer Prize for The Optimist's Daughter. Weaving myth and poetry, as well as the sacred and the profane, Welty's words in "Shower of Gold" come to life on the stage in the persona of the earthy Katie Rainey, played by Chicago actor Angela Bullard. Miss Katie recounts the bittersweet love story of Snowdie and King McClain-the mythical Danae and Zeus playing out their love story inside Welty's South at the turn of the century.

"An Evening with Percy," written and performed by SSP company member Ed McGuire, brings to life Hollywood actor Percy Kilbride, whose most famous character was Pa Kettle. This character, along with Ma Kettle and their movies from the '40s and '50s, saved Universal Studios from bankruptcy. The actor's life and characters quickly became indistinguishable, and McGuire has created a performance of Kilbride reminiscing about the times gone by and the modern ways that seem so foreign to him.

Performances of "Shower of Gold" and "An Evening with Percy" take place August 21-25, Weds.-Sat at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m., at St. Bonaventure, 1625 W. Diversey, at Marshfield just west of Ashland, in Chicago. Free parking is available in two lots. Tickets are $15 and are available at brownpapertickets.com/event/416345 or by calling 773-404-7922.

All programming is subject to change. For information, visit saintsebastianplayers.org.