SEQUIM — Tickets are on sale now for two January performances of “Miss Lillian, a Life of Some Significance.”
The prize-winning one-woman play will be at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 18 and 2 p.m. Jan. 19 on Olympic Theatre Arts’ Caldwell Main Stage at 414 N. Sequim Ave., with reserved seating. Space is limited.
Tickets are $25 and are available at the theater box office between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays or online at OlympicTheatreArts.org.
Winner of “Best Biographical Play” – United Solo – New York – 2016, film and television actress Carol Swarbrick stars in the show about Jimmy Carter’s mother written by Jim Dries and presented by Olympic Theatre Arts and the League of Women Voters.
Lillian Carter, who died in 1983, was much more than President Jimmy Carter’s mother — she was a social activist, humanitarian, nurse, peanut farmer and nurturer. She celebrated her 70th birthday in India while serving in the Peace Corps.
The play introduces this woman who refused to bow to the attitudes of her Southern surroundings, a free-thinker who enjoyed professional wrestling, who nurtured the best human qualities in all with whom she interacted, organizers said, adding that she also loved her soap operas and a glass of good bourbon.
While Swarbrick and her husband, Dries, were putting together the show, former President Jimmy Carter saw a video of an early draft of the play and invited them to come to Plains and “meet more of the family,” Swarbrick said.
There, he introduced Swarbrick to the congregation at his church as an actress “who has perfected a play about my mother,” she said.
“Most recently, President Carter introduced me to some members of the congregation as his ‘Second Mother,’ ” Swarbrick said.
One of the first performances was at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Mo., in commemoration of Bess Truman’s Birthday, hosted each year by the local D.A.R.
Swarbrick also has portrayed Lillian Gordy Carter in The Villages, Fla.; the Key City Playhouse in Port Townsend; and on Theatre Row in New York City.
Artist Sharman Owens created a portrait of Swarbrick as Miss Lillian that will be raffled off during the run of the show.
Owens is donating all raffle proceeds from the painting to Olympic Theatre Arts.
For more information, call the theatre at 360-683-7326.
