Roses Taylor

Katie Grosvenor Hutcheson grew up in Memphis, but left the South to pursue an acting career in Colorado. When she returned home 10 years later, she said she found “everybody was still there, still the same and still gossiping about the same old things.”

That personal experience of the prodigal daughter returning home and her reacclimation to Southern culture is the basis of her play, “Southern Connections,” which opens in the Chattanooga Theatre Centre Circle on June 5.

“This is a comedy of manners,” said Ms. Grosvenor, who uses her maiden name as her pen name. “It’s about Southern elite society and pokes fun at it in a loving way. The play is filled with surprises and is quite funny.”

Ms. Grosvenor said the plot centers around two female leads, mother and daughter, who will be played by Roses Taylor and Katie Montague at the CTC. The daughter, KK, has left the South and become a successful businesswoman in Chicago. She is summoned home because the family’s historic homeplace is about to be put on the market.

“The title is the running joke of the play. KK’s mother has to connect every name mentioned to somebody else she knows. Everybody who sees the play will know somebody who does that,” said Ms. Grosvenor.

“It’s that aspect of Southern culture and how we place everybody — who you know,” said Roses Taylor, who plays KK’s mother, Lillian. “There are themes of old money vs. new money and of reconciliation in the play.”

If the title sounds familiar to CTC patrons, it’s because the play was presented in a staged reading in 2006. That script has been reworked by Ms. Grosvenor and Jamie Lawrence of Birmingham, Ala. Mr. Lawrence formerly taught script analysis at Yale University School of Drama and now is employed with the Alabama Shakespeare Company.

Ms. Grosvenor said finetuning the script has been a two-year process. Having invested his time and effort in the work, Mr. Lawrence agreed to direct the CTC’s production. He is temporarily residing in Chattanooga to do so. His assistance has been funded by a Community Foundation grant, the playwright said.

This is Ms. Grosvenor’s second production to be staged. “Willie Beavers,” the first play in a trilogy about the death of Medgar Evers in Mississippi, was presented twice in New York City at Love Creek Productions, a theatrical company that performs new works. “Willie Beavers” was also presented by a CTC troupe in a state competition.

News releases from the CTC reveal that “Southern Connections” namechecks the Junior League, Colonial Dames and “anyone who has ever been called by a double first name.”

“The play has a lot of fun in it,” Ms. Taylor said. “Even though there are little conflicts within the play, there is a lot of love and affection and loyalty.

“It’s not a trivial play. There are very strong themes that almost everybody experiences, and they are done in such a healing, light and joyful way,” the actress said.

“All the characters are drawn with love,” said Ms. Grosvenor. “It just pokes gentle fun at our Southern stereotypes and the culture shock of returning to the South. I hope the audience recognizes themselves and their friends onstage, and that they can laugh and have a new perspective about things.”