WBTT stages the backwoods comedy ‘Dearly Departed’

Even if you’ve never heard of the play “Dearly Departed,” you may know the story.

In 2001, playwrights David Dean Bottrell and Jessie Jones adapted their script into a screenplay. The play was originally intended to be about a white family, but the film version, titled “Kingdom Come,” featured an African-American cast that included Whoopi Goldberg, LL Cool J, Toni Braxton and Jada Pinkett Smith.

“Dearly Departed” is next up at Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe in Sarasota.

The comedy-drama revolves around a Southern family in the wake of the sudden death of the family’s patriarch, whom none of them liked. He dies at the outset of the play, and the story progresses as family members gather. It ends with the funeral.

The play is popular with local and regional theater around the country. In fact, Island Players in Anna Maria staged “Deary Departed” just two years ago.

Co-writer Jones is part of the popular three-person writing team known as Jones Hope Wooten. The trio writes mass-appeal comedies that are usually broad and not especially sophisticated.

Bottrell is known more as an actor than a playwright. He has played a lot of quirky characters, on shows from “Mad About You” to “True Blood.” His comedic style is decidedly less mainstream than Jones’.

Details: April 19-May 27, Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe, 1646 10th Way, Sarasota. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. $39.50 adult, $22.50 student and active military. 941-366-1505, westcoastblacktheatre.org.

This story was originally published April 10, 2017 at 3:38 PM with the headline "WBTT stages the backwoods comedy ‘Dearly Departed’."