LITTLE ROCK — Center on the Square in Searcy was looking for a one-act play to perform at its Dessert Theater, and humble board member Dot Hatfield of Beebe finally spoke up when she and the executive director were alone.
“I said, ‘I don’t like to be pushy, but I wrote one,’” Hatfield recalled.
Pushy? Lana Hallmark, executive director of Center on the Square, couldn’t wait.
“I said, ‘I don’t even have to read it - I want to do it,’” Hallmark said.
Hatfield’s award-winning one-act play, R.I.P. Emma Lou Briggs, will open at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Center on the Square, 111 W. Arch St.
“It’s been an amazing experience for me to watch those words on paper happen on the stage,” Hatfield, 77, said.
Hatfield moved to Beebe in 2000 with a pretty good repertoire of acting gigs, even though she didn’t start acting until she was in her 50s.
“I’ve been the grandma in lots of plays,” she said, laughing.
She also started writing fiction after she retired and is the author of two self-published novels and a book of her short stories that have won awards.
The format is a little different for this Dessert Theater performance, Hatfield said. The 20-minute play will be performed first; then dessert will be served. Four Searcy teenage actors will perform scenes from Hatfield’s books, and she will read a scene from one of her short stories and answer questions from the audience.
Hatfield wrote R.I.P. Emma Lou Briggs five or six years ago, she said, for an Arkansas Writers Conference contest in Little Rock.
“The criteria for entering it was it needed to address a senior-citizens issue, and that’s what it does,” she said.
The play won first place.
“The premise is, it’s the day after Emma Lou Brigg’s funeral, and her children come together to see what to do with her house,” Hatfield said.
Performing as the three daughters in the play are Shelly White and Suzanne Guymon, both of Searcy,and Carolyn McNamee of Heber Springs. Madison Kuebler plays the granddaughter, and the brother-in-law is played by J.R. Thomas of Searcy.
Dale Ellis of Little Rock, a former member of the Center on the Square board who has performed with Hatfield, will moderate the question-and-answer session.
Hatfield said the play is “a little poignant with some light moments in it. It’s not deathly serious.” No pun intended.
“It’s not autobiographical or anything, but I’ve seen so many people who have gone through something like that, as well as myself with my own parents, and it’s just part of life,” she said.
Hallmark said that’s one of the reasons she wanted to direct the play.
“I lost my mother about six years ago. I felt a real connection to what [the characters] were going through,” she said.
Hallmark said she and Dot are close friends, and she wanted to give the play “special attention.”
Hatfield, who grew up inTexas, said she was always interested in acting and writing. When the mother of four moved to Nashville, Tenn., where her son Steve May lives, she started doing community plays.
“When I was in Nashville - and I was in my 50s and 60s there - there were more opportunities [to perform], ” she said.
She retired from her job at a Nashville crisis center and decided to move to Beebe, where her sister lives.
“I thought Beebe was a nice town,” Hatfield said.
“When I moved to Beebe and found there was a community theater nearby, I called up and asked, ‘Do you have open auditions?’”
She’s been on the Center on the Square Board of Directors for the past six years.
She’s performed in Lost in Yonkers, as the grandmother, and played a 90-year-old in Leading Ladies.
With Hatfield being a fiction writer, it’s handy that her son in Nashville owns a publishing company.
Hatfield said The Last To Know is about a woman whose husband dies and he’s not where he’s supposed to be. He dies in Lincoln, Neb., and she think she’s in Dallas. It’s about widowhood, too.
“That’s kind of a spiritual coming-of-age novel,” Hatfield said. “I never thought I wrote in the Christian genre, as I understand it, but it’s kind of faith based.”
To Find a Home was published this year. It’s set in the 1960s and follows an 11-yearold girl who finds out she’s adopted, “which used to be kept a secret, and her quest to find out the truth about all that,” Hatfield said.
A scene from that book will be read by Madison Kuebler, Marisa Ayers, Libbie Turner and Morgan Pruitt.
That novel is available at Hastings, www.dothatfield.com and Amazon.com, “but, also, there are several in the back end of my car,” she added, laughing.
Caleb Keese, 26, artistic director for Center on the Square, said he had no idea Hatfield was an author before she offered her one-act play.
“She’s a really humble person,” he said. “I was very surprised when I heard she was an author; that’s not something she really broadcasts around. She is one of those people whohas hidden talents, but the only reason they’re hidden is because she doesn’t go around telling people about them.”
He said he’s having fun producing Hatfield’s play.
“Working with local artists is really what we’re here for,” he said.
The Dessert Theater will continue at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, and Friday, July 22, and Saturday, July 23.
Hallmark said Hatfield has been to all the rehearsals, which has given the director insight into the characters.
“It’s a really unique opportunity for us as an arts organization to have somebody involved who is not only talented as a performer, but from the very beginning of the project, to have her input there,” Hallmark said.
“It’s fun to see it come alive; it really is,” Hatfield said. “It’s a brand-new experience for me, to sit back and watch it, because I’m not on stage.”
Tickets are $15, and reservations, which are required at least 24 hours in advance of the show, are available by contacting the Center on the Square box office at (501) 368-0111 or at 111 W. Arch St. in Searcy.
Three Rivers, Pages 53 on 07/14/2011