Hickory – The upcoming benefit performance for Women’s Resource Center of Love, Loss And What I Wore still has tickets available for the October 5 event. The $60 ticket includes an elegant evening with a buffet dinner at Market On Main downtown.

The award-winning play is co-written by Oscar nominee Nora Ephron. Ephron is known for her work on films such as When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, and Julie & Julia. The co-author is her sister Delia Ephron, screenwriter of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Michael, and Hanging Up.

After newly formed local group Well Behaved Women Theatre Company picked Love, Loss And What I Wore as their debut performance, they quickly chose to make the show a WRC benefit, says director Shawna Wilson.

Women’s Resource Center (WRC) has served women and families in the community for thirty-seven years. WRC provides one-on-one assistance, goal planning, and advocacy to support women through life’s trials, due to domestic violence, unstable housing, and any other insecurity a woman can face.

About the play, celebrated NYC columnist Liz Smith said, “So funny and so powerful; so dear and sweet; so remindful of our female wiles, our worries, our insecurities, our remembrances of mother, father, sister, brothers, lovers…”

Chronicling the lives of real-life women and their relationships to and memories of the clothing they wore at crucial points in their lives, the play is presented with the actresses seated on stage, each playing multiple characters.

Director Wilson has chosen six of the area’s most talented and experienced performers. Collectively they’ve received more than 15 Kay Awards from Hickory Community Theatre audiences.

Molly Bass is a local playwright. Her plays have been performed all across the country. Every blue moon she is onstage rather than writing for it. A graduate of Davidson College and UCLA, Molly is a part of her family’s business, Bass-Smith Funeral Home, and is currently fixated on James Taylor (of course) cranberry orange muffins and ridiculous dresses.

Tammy Lail, is area manager for AccuForce Staffing and is “thrilled to join this cast!” It gives her great joy to support the Women’s Resource Center, alongside women she highly respects in the theatre community. No stranger to the stage, she studied acting/directing at UNCG. She just completed a successful production of Sordid Lives with Just Two Guys Productions. She feels honored to use her talents in the support of women and the LGBTQ community.

Pamela Livingstone is Artistic Director Emerita of Hickory Community Theatre, having served there for 20 years. Although Pam’s acting career led her to membership in Actor’s Equity, AFTRA, and SAG, the last time she was on stage was 35 years ago when she played Goneril in King Lear. She has worked as an actor, director, producer, playwright and theatre teacher in Chicago, Minneapolis, Southern California, Indiana, Ohio and Portland, Oregon, where she lived before moving to Hickory.

The cast also features three additional well-known local actresses, Dorothy Collier Best, Connie Bools, and Chrissy Colavecchio Schramm.

Audience members are encouraged to celebrate themselves by bringing photos of their favorite outfits to the show. These will be displayed for the night on a clothesline, along with photos of the play’s actresses in their beloved outfits. In addition, a donation box for WRC’s No Strings Attached Program, which provides free menstrual products, will be on-site for those who want to bring donations.

“We are deeply grateful to these talented women for supporting Women’s Resource Center in such a fun and unique way,” says Morgan. “This will be an unforgettable evening, raising much-needed funds for our Center. It embodies our mission of women helping women, which is at the heart of everything we do at WRC.”

Sponsors for the event include George & Sandra Clay in memory of Pat Anderson; Bass-Smith Funeral Home; Dr. Dori Hunt; Jason Brown at The UPS Store; Focus Newspaper; A Woman’s View, and McKinney-Graham Dental Arts. Additional sponsors include Lake Hickory Realty; Vitality; Bill Morgan; Catawba Radiology; MG Partners Wealth; Patrick, Harper & Dixson; Steve Austin of Steve Austin AICP Community Development Planner; Transportation Insight; Catawba Building Systems; Gannon & Bill Carr, in loving memory of Helen Carr and Lillian Wilson; Lisa Kamerait; Longview Lions Club and The Joan Everett Killian Company.

Tickets for the WRC October 5 benefit performance and buffet dinner are $60 and are on sale at the WRC website, wrchickory.org/fundraiser-events, with direct ticket links on WRC’s Instagram and Facebook pages. Purchasers can also call the Center at 828.322.6333, Monday through Thursday, 9 am to 4 pm. Tickets are also available at wellbehavedwomen.org. Seating is unreserved at tables of 10, with a total of 200 tickets available. A cash bar opens at 6 pm, dinner is at 6:30pm, and the performance begins at 8 pm, with one 15 minute intermission. Market on Main is at 335 Main Ave SW, Suite A, Hickory, NC 28602.

PHOTO: Caption: Three of the six actresses, Pamela Livingstone, Molly Bass and Tammy Lail, who will preform at a benefit for Women’s Resource Center.