“Come Home, It’s Suppertime will open its 17th year in November at the We Piddle Around Theater in Brundidge. Tickets are now on sale for performances on November 8, 9 and10 and 15, 16 and 17 by calling 334-685-5524.

Cathie Steed, ticket chairman, said the ticket price has remained the same.

“The aim of the Brundidge Historical Society has always been to keep our tickets affordable,” Steed said. “We like to believe, at $25, we have the best ticket in town.”

The ticket includes the pre-show, a full country-style supper with dessert and Alabama’s Official Folklife Play, “Come Home, It’s Suppertime.”

Lawrence Bowden, president of the BHS, said when the play opened in 2002, it did so without any great expectations.

“I don’t think any of us had any idea the play would be more than a one-time event,” he said. “I’m sure no one thought that our original folklife play would still be going on 17 years later. But, because of the dedication of the cast and crew and the thousands who have ‘come home at suppertime,’ we’re still around and are so thankful to be.”

“Come Home, It’s Suppertime” is performed in November and April each year with a cast and crew of around 45 “locals.”

“Each year, we welcome new members to our family and we are family,” Bowden said. “The ‘come home’ family is made up of ages 9 through 90-something. When you go to some plays, the old people are young people with gray powder in their hair. We don’t need gray powder.”

Bowden said the cast has welcomed Jesse Graham, a lecturer, Troy University, Theater and Dance, and Noah Williams, a senior university theater student, into the family. Graham is directing the play and Williams is working with the younger members of the cast.

Bowden said none of the cast members are actors.

“We’re storytellers,” he said. “We want to tell the stories of hard times and the people who lived them, just like grandpa would have told them while sitting on the front porch.”

“Come Home, It’s Suppertime” tells stories of settin’ up with the dead, cotton pickin’ and moonshinin’ on the branch head. The music is familiar – tunes like “I’ll Fly Away” – and some not so familiar, like “Smokehouse Blues.”

“The play will make you laugh and then a salty tear will fill your eye. And, when you leave, if we’ve done what we set out to do, you’ll have experienced what it’s like to be ‘at home at suppertime.’”