A trio of Tennessee sisters in their early 40s reunite for an entertaining albeit largely uneventful 4th Of July weekend back home in Julie Shavers’ World Premiere Southern Gothic comedy The Baptist Witches of Shelbyville, now playing once a weekend at the Whitefire Theatre.

It’s been a decade or two since eldest sis Lucinda Moon (Mamie Gummer) hightailed it off to a life of Southern California sunshine (and marriage to a husband with more than enough bucks to support his wife’s screenwriting “career”), which is doubtless why her slightly younger sister Birdie (Shavers) can’t help comparing their two lives and finding hers coming up short.

Lucinda doesn’t have to deal with Birdie’s health issues for one. (The latter suffers from “some bronchial something,” or maybe it’s just allergies, plus her husband Terrell may have gone and given her herpes “from that whore at the Nissan plant,” plus maybe the next time Lucinda visits, it might be to put Birdie in the ground, or if not her, then someone else.)

Nor does Lucinda have to deal with their potentially homicidal Mama Moon (Gigi Bermingham) on a daily basis, or their quarrelsome senile Granny, or Birdie’s biracial 20-year-old daughter (Angelie Simone’s Lottie ), who’s just gotten fired from her job at the local Rite Aid, or a sister like Kitty (Ashley Ward), who may be Birdie’s fraternal twin but that doesn’t mean that Birdie “might have had a different daddy than ya’all.”

If it’s not already clear, Shelbyville, Tennessee native Shavers has concocted some colorful characters  (from memory? from a fertile imagination? from a combination of both?) and the couple of hours (including intermission) that we spend with them are enjoyable ones.

What The Baptist Witches of Shelbyville lacks is a plot of the kind whose twists and turns helped make the Mississippi Magraths in Beth Henley’s Crimes Of The Heart and the Louisiana lovelies of Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias so memorable.

Indeed about the only thing that “happens” in The Baptist Witches Of Shelbyville is a boating excursion that has one of them falling overboard (and rescued sometime between the Act One blackout and the start of Act Two), that and the eleventh-hour revelation of a long-buried secret from the past.

That’s not to say that I didn’t find Shavers’ comedy amusing and entertaining, because I did, or that director Daniel O’Brien hasn’t elicited terrific performances from Bermingham, Gummer, Simone, Ward, and the playwright herself, because he has.

In addition, Derrick McDaniel (name misspelled in the program) delivers his accustomed vibrant lighting design, but Carmen Ziller’s production design consists largely of patio furniture occasionally backed by David Louis Zuckerman’s projected slides, and scene changes take a bit too much time to accomplish.

On the plus side, Zuckerman’s sound design and Cameron Clarke’s are both A-OK, Ned Mochel’s fight choreography once again impresses, and musicians Ammon O’Brien on guitar and Ivie James O’Brien on upright bass provided preshow entertainment on opening night.

The Baptist Witches of Shelbyville is produced by Black Rocking Chair. Run crew Juliana Liscio voices a mostly off-stage Granny. Judith Borne is publicist.

There may be no plot to speak of (or actual witches for that matter) in The Baptist Witches of Shelbyville, but Julie Shavers’ Southern-fried comedy does feature some fabulous actresses and more than a few laughs. It’s no Crimes Of The Heart or Steel Magnolias, but there are worse ways of spending a couple of hours than with the Moons of Tennessee.

Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks.
www.whitefiretheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
April 3, 2026
Photos: Jeff Lorch

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

Tags: Julie Shavers, Los Angeles Theater Review, Whitefire Theatre