Timber Lake stages ‘The Spitfire Grill’ Aug. 11-21

Hannah (right) serves up advice in Timber Lake’s production of "The Spitfire Grill." (Photo provided)

Staff Report

MOUNT CARROLL, Ill. — Timber Lake Playhouse (TLP), northwestern Illinois’ professional summer theater, follows the smash hit Children of Eden with the heartwarming musical The Spitfire Grill. Based on the 1996 film of the same name, this folk musical of hope and redemption runs Aug. 11-21.

Gilead, Wis., is a small, rural town where the waitress spills the gossip as she fills your coffee cup. When a young woman with a secret past arrives, the unsuspecting town doesn’t exactly roll out the welcome wagon. But working together, they help each other rediscover the joys they’d lost and find that their roots run deeper than they’d ever imagined. A celebration of the towns we call home, The New York Times called The Spitfire Grill, “Shear nourishment for the soul.”

Guest director Matthew Teague Miller from Napa, Calif., stages The Spitfire Grill. Miller spent three years in the touring cast of the Broadway production of Les Miserables. His recent directing credits include Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat starring Kherington Payne from TV’s So You Think You Can Dance and the Napa Valley Premiere of The Phantom of the Opera.

Miller directs TLP favorites Erica Vlahinos as Percy, Aaron Conklin as Joe, Katie Wesler as Shelby and Brandon Ford as Caleb.

Guest performers for this production are Wisconsin natives Marcia Sattelburg as Hannah and Judy Knudtson as Effy.

Tickets for The Spitfire Grill are available online at www.timberlakeplayhouse.org or by calling the Box Office at (815) 244-2035, open 11 p.m.-6 p.m., daily.

From the Aug. 10-16, 2011, issue