It’s one thing to direct and act in a friend’s play, but it’s another thing to have her write a role specifically for you.
That’s what local playwright Merri Biechler did for Shelley Delaney, associate professor of theater and head of performance
.
Though she has done a plethora of roles, Delaney said she has always wanted to play Tammy Faye Bakker, the famously makeup-ed televangelist.
Tammy Faye was married to Jim Bakker, a televangelist himself who fell from grace when he became entangled in a sex scandal and was arrested for accounting fraud. Before that, the Bakkers had been the first hosts of The 700 Club and founded and hosted The PTL Club — both talk show-like Christian TV programs — from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s.
Just hours after appearing on Larry King Live, Tammy Faye died of colon cancer in 2007. In Biechler’s play Tammy Faye’s Final Audition, Tammy Faye is near the end of her life, and in a fevered dream, she enlists the men in her life to audition for one final TV show.
Delaney said trying to discover the truth behind the makeup and exploring Tammy Faye’s lack of irony is what has fascinated her since graduate school when she accidentally stumbled upon The PTL Club.
A first draft of the play will be read Tuesday at ARTS/ West, 132 W. State St., as a part of Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble’s Free Play Reading Series. Delaney will read the title role while fellow Ohio University professor David Haugen will read for multiple roles, including Jim Bakker.
If You Go
What: Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble presents a workshop reading of Tammy Faye’s Final
Audition
Where: ARTS/ West, 132 W. State St.
When: 8 p.m. Tuesday
Admission: Free
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