Community Players

Clare Boothe’s satire of Hollywood casting takes place during the summer of 1938, and the whole country is talking about the casting event of the decade–who will play Velvet O’Toole, the epitome of Southern aristocracy and charm, in the movie version of the smash Civil War novel, Kiss the Boys Goodbye? Lloyd Lloyd, a hot young Hollywood director, is aboard a train headed for New York with his big discovery (Cindy Lou Bethany, the daughter of a Georgia congressman) secretly stashed in the next compartment. Rumor has it she is a shoe-in for the role of Velvet-once she passes muster with the film’s producer, Herbert Z. Harner. But Lloyd has other plans, Cindy Lou is a saccharine sweet Southern belle, whose charms are thick enough to slice with a machete. Lloyd hopes that once Harner gets to look at a real Southern belle, he’ll hire Brooklyn-born Myra Stanhope, the studio’s slightly tarnished star attraction, who Harner has declared box-office poison, and with whom Lloyd is having an affair. Cindy Lou’s unveiling is to take place at the Westport, Connecticut home of Horace Rand, editor of the sophisticated humor magazine Manhattan, Rand has planned an amusing little weekend. In addition to Harner, Lloyd and Cindy Lou, he and his wife have invited three other guests: Madison Breed, a left-wing newspaper columnist, B.J. Wickfield, Breed and Rand’ stuffy, conservative publisher, and “Top” Rumson, Leslie’s handsome, but naïve polo-playing cousin. Tagging along with Rumson is none other than Myra Stanhope, tipped off by Lloyd, and hoping to use this weekend to secure the role of Velvet O’Toole for herself, at any cost.