ST. GEORGE — Dixie State University Theatre has yet another hilarious and thrilling treat for audiences in its Summer Comedy Theater lineup, including “Five Women Wearing the Same Dress” and “The Lieutenant of Inishmore,” both presented through special arrangement with Dramatist Play Service Inc.

Five Women Wearing the Same Dress

Director Kristina Harding joins the theatre company this summer season. She will work with a talented cast of community members and theatre students in the “Five Women” comedy by Alan Ball, Academy Award and Golden Globe winner for Best Screenplay for “American Beauty” and creator, writer and executive producer of the HBO hit series “Six Feet Under” and “True Blood.”

“Five Women” is produced in collaboration with The Vagina Project at Dixie State. It is rated R for adult themes, language and … ugly dresses.

The play runs June 24-July 22 on Mondays and Fridays in the Eccles Fine Arts Center Black Box Theatre.

The play centers on five bridesmaids at an overwrought wedding reception in Knoxville, Tennessee, who take refuge in the bedroom of the bride’s sister, Meredith. Though their lone connection to one another is their relationships with the newlyweds, the bridesmaids from very different backgrounds learn they have more in common with each other than they do with the bride. As the afternoon wears on, the women joyously discover a common bond in this wickedly funny, irreverent and touching celebration of the women’s spirit

The New York Post described “Five Women” as a “wonderfully entertaining play …” and the New York Daily News called “a fresh-as-a-daisy comedy, funny as can be ….”

The Lieutenant of Inishmore

Josh Scott, of previous hits “Don’t Dress for Dinner,” “Spamalot” and “Boeing-Boeing” returns to direct his seventh season of Dixie State’s summer theater tackling Martin MacConagh’s dark comedy “The Lieutenant of Inishmore.”

“The Lieutenant” will leave audiences laughing and gasping, Dixie State’s release said, but noted the play is not for everyone; it is rated R for graphic violence, language, blood and … a cat.

The play runs June 23-July 23 on Thursdays and Saturdays in the Eccles Fine Arts Center Mainstage Theatre.

Playwright Martin McDonagh won an Academy Award in 2006 for his short film “Six Shooter,” wrote and direct “In Bruges” and “Seven Psychopaths,” and created acclaimed stage plays “Beauty Queen of Leenane,” “Pillowman” and “The Cripple of Inishmann.”

The play is a wildly black comedy lauded as Monty Python meets Quentin Tarantino. It opens on a lonely road on the island of Inishmore where someone killed an Irish Liberation Army enforcer’s cat. He’ll want to know who killed the cat when he gets back from a stint of torture and chip-shop bombing in Northern Ireland – he loves his cat more than life itself, and someone is going to pay.

“The Lieutenant” is “appallingly entertaining … gleeful, gruesome” according to the New York Times review, which said “Mr. McDonagh raises the carnage factor to a level that rivals Quentin Tarantino’s.”

The Sunday Times (London) said the comedy is “… cunningly constructed, deeply and intensely felt, bitterly blood curdling and breathtakingly funny.”

Event details

• What: “Five Women Wearing the Same Dress” at the Black Box Theatre
• When: June 24-July 22 on Mondays and Fridays, 7:30 p.m. (House opens at 7 p.m.)
• What: “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” at the Mainstage Theatre
• When: June 23-July 23 on Thursdays and Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. (House opens at 7 p.m.)
• Where: Eccles Fine Arts Center, Dixie State University at 100 South and 700 East, St. George
• Cost: General admission $10 | Group rate $5 (15 or more)
• Tickets and information: Box office telephone 435-652-7800 | online ticket booking

Ed. note:  Updated June 19 with dress rehearsal photos.

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