Event

That Championship Season

The Bay St. Louis Little Theatre will open its latest production "That Championship Season" on January 11th. The play is written by Jason Miller who is best known as the young priest in the movie "The Exorcist." The show won the Tony Award for Best Play, the New York Drama Critic's Circle, and the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. It has been recently revived on Broadway. The plot revolves around an annual custom of five men a high school basketball coach, now retired, and four members of the team that he guided to the state championship thirty years earlier meet for a reunion. "a straight-from-the-shoulder knockout.brimming with vitality." The New York Daily News. "Wow! Here at last is the perfect Broadway play for the seasonIt is gorgeous and triumphant." The New York Times.

The play has been adapted to two different movie versions in 1982 and 1998. The movie versions have starred the likes of Robert Mitchum, Paul Sorvino, Tony Shahloub, Gary Sinese, Vince D'Onofrio, and Bruce Dern.

The setting is at the coach's home in Scranton. On the anniversary of the high school basketball team's victory in the state championship game, four members of the starting lineup have gathered to celebrate the championship and to honor Coach who made them what they are today. None of the men's lives have turned out as any of them had hoped, and, on some level, all still look to their coach for guidance. The coach has been the one person who always gave them a sense of security. "The characters are all linked by a thirty year old victorious moment-in-time that is still woven in the fiber of their current lives," said Cheryl Grace, director of the play. Assistant director, Clayton Pennylegion, stated, "The play is a theatrical experience character-driven and sledgehammer dialogue. A theater-goer's delight."

The play is recommended for mature audiences.