| Patio/Porch | |
[[File: Patio/Porch promotional image | |
| Dates | 28 - 30 May 2026 |
|---|---|
| Venue | The Tower Theatre |
| Director | Gloria Rowe |
| Writer | Jack Heifner |
| Producer | Julie Morrow |
The Folkestone-Hythe Operatic and Dramatic Society presented Patio/Porch by Jack Heifner at The Tower Theatre, Folkestone, from 28–30 May 2026. This amateur production was presented by special arrangement with Broadway Licensing, LLC, servicing the Dramatists Play Service collection.
Synopsis
Two short plays by Jack Heifner which provide endearing studies of small town Texas women. In Patio, Pearl is throwing a going away party for her older sister, a hairdresser who is leaving to make it big in the city. As they bustle about the patio their conversation gradually reveals more and more of their differences and dreams and the emptiness that has pervaded both their lives. Porch is a striking hour in the lives of a mother and daughter in a sleepy town crippled by a Texan heatwave. Through the mother’s dry and often cutting humour we see how her daughter has become trapped by maternal ties and her own inadequacies in a moving portrait of two women, beset by quiet desperation whose only weapons are sarcasm, sublimated passions and, finally, the truth.
Foreword
I first read this play back in 2011 when I was studying American Theatre Arts in small town Texas. Jack Heifner was the playwright in residence at the time and this play formed part of our playwriting course. Being taught by the playwright himself gave me a much wider insight into the context and inspiration of the play and that's one of the main reasons it's stuck with me for so many years.
Patio/Porch looks closely at the lives of four ordinary women in small town Texas. Their hopes, dreams, fears and everything in between. Set in the 70s, the plays explore the roels and relationships of women, at home and in the wider world, themes which are just as relevant today.
It's been such a pleasure to direct these plays with four wonderful actors who have all immersed themselves in the world we are creating. They deeply understand the nuances of the text, the context of the characters and the journey we want to take the audience on.
I hope you enjoy watching this intimate snapshot into the lives of these women as much as we have creating it.
Gloria Rowe Director
Cast
Patio
- Michelle Hartley as Pearl
- Friesia Schuil as Jewel
Porch
- Sheelagh Blackham as Dot
- Emmie Rhodes as Lucille
Production Team
- Director: Gloria Rowe
- Producer: Julie Morrow
- Stage Manager: Hannah Manton
- Set Design: Hannah Manton
- Props: Hannah Manton
- Lighting Design: Eleanor Boyle
- Lighting & Sound Operation: Andy Hartley
- Wardrobe: Emma Franks
- Prompt: Tracey Carmen
- Wigs: Davey Lewis
- Set build: Andy Hartley, Hannah Manton, Gloria Rowe, Julie Morrow, Michelle Hartley, Izzy Warden, Adam Button & Olivia Wickens
- Graphics/Media: Malcolm Laye
- FHODS Marketing: Merewyn Forrest
- Photography & Video: David Shackle, George Holness & Julie Morrow
For The Tower Theatre
- Events & Marketing Manager: Michelle Hartley
- Front of House Manager: Gary Ingoldby-Spate
- Theatre Operations Lead: Andy Hartley
- Technical Theatre Lead: Eleanor Boyle