Brian Friel’s beautifully crafted, award-winning memory play “Dancing at Lughnasa” (pronounced Loo'-nasa) opens in the Poe Theater on Thursday, June 20 as Heartwood Theater’s final production of Season 21. Widely regarded as Friel's masterpiece, this haunting play is Friel's tribute to the spirit and valor of the past.

This extraordinary piece is an exploration of nostalgia, set in the fictional town of Ballybeg, County Donegal, Ireland in 1936.  It is a story of five unmarried sisters eking out their spare existence, with brief interludes, colorful bursts of music from the radio, their only link to the romance and hope of the world at large. The action of the play is told through the memory of Michael, the illegitimate son of one sister, as he remembers the five women who raised him.

He is only seven in 1936, the year his elderly uncle, a priest, returns after serving for 25 years as a missionary in a Ugandan leper colony. For the young boy, two other disturbances occur that summer. The sisters acquire their first radio, whose music transforms them from proper Catholic women, to shrieking and stomping in the kitchen. And he meets his father for the first time, a charming Welsh drifter who strolls up the lane and sweeps his mother away in an elegant dance across the fields. From these events, spring the cracks that destroy the family foundation, forever.

The five sisters are portrayed by a tightly-knit group of local actresses: Nanette Fraser, Teralyn Reiter, Abigail White, May Halm and Emily Sue Barker. Morgan Shattuck returns to the role of Michael, having played this same role 18 years ago in the Poe Theater, while a student at LA.  Joe Lugosch, a cast member along with Shattuck in this play in 2006, portrays Gerry, Michael’s father, and Tim Cunningham carries the role of uncle/priest. Under the direction of Griff Braley, the cast of eight is supported by Annalise Garnett and Ryan Kohnert (tech crew), costuming support by Heidi Kopishke.

This moving piece is a perfect choice for Heartwood and a perfect choice for theater lovers. Not to be missed! Performances are scheduled in the Poe Theater on the Lincoln Academy Campus: Saturday matinee on June 22 at 3 p.m. and at 7:30 p.m. on June 20 and 21, 27-29. The Poe Theater is air conditioned.

Tickets are $5/students through college and $30/all adults.  Student tickets are kept to a mere $5, through the sponsorship of Peapod Jewelry and First National Wealth Management. Reservations strongly recommended by emailing info@heartwoodtheater.org or phoning Heartwood at 563-1373.

Heartwood’s 21st season is sponsored by Bath Savings Institution and Chesterfield Associates, Inc. “Dancing at Lughnasa” is presented with special permission of Dramatists Play Service, Inc.