‘SPITFIRE GRILL’–“SIX FLAGS OVER GILEAD”

A unique and tender kinship develops in American Blues Theater’s brilliant revival of “The Spitfire Grill,” the folk-stylized musical based on the 1996 film by Lee David Zlotoff with book and music by James Valcq and book and lyrics by Fred Alley. Crisply directed by Tammy Mader with musical direction by Malcolm Ruhl, the story follows a year in the lives of three women—stellar performances by Jacquelyne Jones as Perchance “Percy” Talbott, Dara Cameron as Shelby Thorpe and Catherine Smitko as Hannah Ferguson—and others who live day-to-day in the idyllic Wisconsin town of Gilead.