Female friendships highlighted WTC’s ‘The Cemetery Club’

Susi Kohler, Gail Cleveland and Alicia Blake in "The Cemetery Club" (photo courtesy of Whitefish Theatre Company)

| September 23, 2021 12:00 AM

The Whitefish Theatre Co. presents its first Black Curtain theatre production of the 2021-2022 season with “The Cemetery Club” at the O’Shaughnessy Center in Whitefish. This “funny, sweet-tempered, and moving play” has performances Sept. 25 and 26 at 7:30 p.m. Due to the recent spike in Covid-19 cases,

masks are highly recommended and greatly appreciated when attending this show.

Ida, Lucille and Doris are part of a club — the Cemetery Club. Every month they meet at Ida’s New York house for tea and then trundle off to the cemetery to remember the good times and gossip at the graves of their late husbands. Lucille fancies herself as a flamboyant swinger, Doris is a traditional matronly widow,

and Ida is somewhere in between. The fun-loving camaraderie between friends gets turned upside down, however, when widower Sam the butcher enters the scene and the ladies vie for Sam’s attention.

Called “’Steel Magnolias’ meets ‘The Golden Girls,’” “The Cemetery Club” is a touching and humorous play about enduring friendships, cherishing the past, and embracing the future.

“The sweet, simple and committed friendships of the characters in “The Cemetery Club” is really what drew me to this play,” director Katie Nixon said. “The show offers a great reminder of how important it is to remember the good times of our past and how vital it is to create good times in our present.”

Cast members include Susi Kohler as Ida, Alicia Blake as Lucille, Gail Cleveland as Doris, Joanna Ward as Mildred, and Andrew Matulionis as Sam.

Viewers are reminded that as a Black Curtain production, there will be minimal staging, set and props and actors will be reading from a script.

Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for students for all shows. Tickets can be purchased at the box office at 1 Central Avenue in Whitefish or by calling 862-5371. Box office hours are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and one hour before a performance. Individual tickets can also be purchased online at