(WALNUT RIDGE, Ark.) – The theatre program at Williams Baptist University will open its 2025-26 season with the comedy A Bad Year for Tomatoes. The production opens its 3-day run on Thursday, Oct. 1. It will be staged in the evenings on Thursday and Friday and conclude with a matinee performance Saturday, Oct. 3, in WBU’s Startup Chapel.
A Bad Year for Tomatoes is a two-act farce written by John Patrick and directed by Melinda Williams, assistant professor of communication arts at WBU.
The play tells the story of a starlet, Mary Marlowe, who is fed up with the pressures of fame and visits a small New England town to hide out and write her autobiography. Her prying neighbors cause Myra to invent a mad, homicidal sister (who’s really Myra in a wig). To complicate the situation, the local handyman falls in love with the “batty” fictional sister, and the local church ladies fixate on saving her soul.
“The play is just fun,” said Williams. “There is a line in the play taken from a poem by Sir Walter Scott that says, ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!’ I think that sums up the complications in the play.”
The cast features Macy Miller of Walnut Ridge playing Myra Marlow. Her agent, Tom Lamont, is played by Isaiah Doty of Pocahontas. Myra’s prying neighbors are played by Molly Tabor of Walnut Ridge, Kendal LeQuieu of Cabot and Chara Quattlebaum of Forrest City. Piney, the local handyman, is played by Cade Elam of Jonesboro. Rounding out the cast is Kaylee Leake of Wynne.
A Bad Year for Tomatoes begins at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, Oct. 1 and 2, with a matinee performance at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3. Admission for the production is $5 for students and senior citizens and $8 general admission.
WBU is a private, Christian university in Walnut Ridge.
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