Stymied by your entertainment choices? Try the Pulitzer Prize yardstick -- there’s just one per year for drama (sometimes none). If the script subsequently wins a Best Picture Oscar, you’re looking at the kind of odds you get with Driving Miss Daisy, at Scottsdale Desert Stages Theatre through Sunday, January 12, 2014.
Of Alfred Uhry’s trilogy of plays about the Atlanta Jewish community, Daisy is the first and most celebrated (and easiest to stage in some ways, needing just three actors). When elderly widow Daisy Werthan can’t drive her car any longer, she hires an African-American chauffeur, Hoke Colburn. In 1948 Georgia, that’s not a recipe for instant BFFs or elevated social status, but the pair face their own obstacles and cultural bigotry to become close friends over the decades as the nation matures a bit as well. The story’s renowned for humor, sentiment, and, you guessed it, beaucoup driving.
Opening night is Friday, November 1, for a 7:30 p.m. show at 4720 North Scottsdale Road. Call 480-483-1664 or visit www.desertstages.org for tickets, $22 and $25.
Fridays, Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Starts: Nov. 1. Continues through Jan. 12, 2013
