Driving Miss Daisy opens Rosebud Theatre’s 35th anniversary season

By Laureen F. Guenther Times Contributor

Rosebud Theatre begins its 35th anniversary season with Driving Miss Daisy, opening April 6 in Rosebud’s Opera House.
Miss Daisy – played by Judith Buchan – is an elderly widow who was just involved in a car accident. “Like lots of people that we know who are getting elderly, she doesn’t want to admit that she has a problem,” said Morris Ertman, artistic director. “She’s getting old.”
So Miss Daisy’s son – played by Paul F. Muir – hires a driver named Hoke – portrayed by Tom Pickett. Hoke is black and Miss Daisy is white, and they live in the southern United States during the height of the civil rights movement.
“It’s the story of a Jewish woman of wealth, and a black man, who wind up forging, over the course of 20 years, a friendship and a respect,” Ertman said. “It’s the story about a woman that grows old, and somebody who has the grace to take care of her, and take care with her, as she grows old.”
“This is the story of invisible people,” said Judith Buchan in an e-mail. “Who in the world would specially notice an elderly Jewish widow? Or her illiterate African American chauffeur? The playwright, Alfred Uhry, noticed them. He was writing about people he knew.”
This production tells a similar story to that of the Academy Award-winning movie, although, Ertman said, “we can’t take people on the kind of drives that they take in the movie.”
He’s brought in sound designer Matthew Golden, from Mexico, to make audience members feel we’re actually there.
“We’re going to hear everything from the car starting and we’ll swear it’s absolutely real,” Ertman said. “There’s a point where they’re in a traffic jam. And he’s going to create the atmospherics that make us feel like we’re really in that traffic jam.”
Buchan, guest actor, and Muir, resident company member, have performed together before, most recently in Rosebud’s Outside Mullingar. This is Tom Pickett’s first Rosebud Theatre production role, though he performed here on a Tent Meeting tour.
“He’s just a beautiful, beautiful actor,” Ertman said. “He’s also a man from the U.S., who also understood the nature of the (civil rights) struggle at the time. And he’s a man filled with a lot of grace.”
“Both he and Judith will bring (to their roles) an understanding of what it is to face the latter part of your life,” Ertman said. “Paul has an elderly mother himself. … Everybody’s life experience … will be a huge contribution to the show.”
The play itself has already made an impact on Buchan.
“There is such kindness,” she said.
“Prejudice and racial tension were problems then, and lo and behold, prejudice and racial tension are still problems now. The play is a gentle rendering of these problems. But perhaps that opens the door for us to see attitudes and ideas of our own that are not as generous as they could be.”
“You know how parents say, ‘Can’t you two just be friends?’” she said. “Maybe they can. Maybe we can.”
Ertman expresses his hopes even more simply.
“I hope they take away love,” he said. “I hope they walk away from the theatre, believing in love. That it really does carry the day.”
Driving Miss Daisy runs April 6 to May 19. Dinner theatre tickets with a meal prepared by new head chef Ken Onizaki, and a limited number of theatre-only tickets, are available at www.rosebudtheatre.com or 1-800-267-7553.