Chagrin Valley Little Theatre

The Dixie Swim Club by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope & Jamie Wooten

Performance Dates & Tickets

About the Play

A hilarious and touching comedy about friendships that last forever…

Directed by Barbara L. Rhoades

Five Southern women, whose friendships began many years ago on their college swim team, set aside a long weekend every August to recharge those relationships. Free from husbands, kids and jobs, they meet at the same beach cottage on North Carolina’s Outer Banks to catch up, laugh and meddle in each other’s lives. The Dixie Swim Club focuses on four of those weekends and spans a period of thirty-three years.

Sheree, the spunky team captain, desperately tries to maintain her organized and ‘perfect’ life, and continues to be the group’s leader. Dinah, the wise-cracking overachiever, is a career dynamo. But her victories in the courtroom are in stark contrast to the frustrations of her personal life. Lexie, pampered and outspoken, is determined to hold on to her looks and youth as long as possible. She enjoys being married – over and over and over again. The self-deprecating and acerbic Vernadette, acutely aware of the dark cloud that hovers over her life, has decided to just give in and embrace the chaos. And sweet, eager-to-please Jeri Neal experiences a late entry into motherhood that takes them all by surprise.

As their lives unfold and the years pass, these women increasingly rely on one another, through advice and raucous repartee, to get through the challenges (men, sex, marriage, parenting, divorce, aging) that life flings at them. And when fate throws a wrench into one of their lives in the second act, these friends, proving the enduring power of ‘teamwork’, rally ‘round their own with the strength and love that takes this comedy in a poignant and surprising direction.

About the Playwrights

Jessie Jones co-authored the award-winning classic, Southern-fried funeral comedy, DEARLY DEPARTED, and its feature film adaptation, “Kingdom Come,” which was released by Fox Searchlight Films. Her short stories have been published in literary journals and she has written for television sitcoms and an animated series for Walt Disney Productions. As an actor, Jessie has appeared onstage in New York and in regional theatres as well as in television and film.

Nicholas Hope won the Southwest Regional Playwrights Competition for his first play, A FRIEND OF THE FAMILY. He has written episodic television for Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Studios. As a casting director, Nick was Director of Casting for Theatre Communications Group in New York, The Goodman Theatre in Chicago and ABC Television in New York and Los Angeles.

Jamie Wooten wrote or produced nearly four hundred episodes of network television, won the Writers Guild of America award and spent many seasons with Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia as a writer/producer on the classic television series “The Golden Girls.” Having enjoyed long and successful careers in show business, the playwrights’ work has been seen by millions of people across the U.S. and around the world. Between them, Jones, Hope, and Wooten have lived and worked in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Austin, Vancouver, Sydney, Australia, Guam and Cannes, France.