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This Spring, the Public Theatre of Kentucky is excited to produce the Kentucky premiere of DESIGNING WOMEN, THE PLAY by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason. Written by the author of the iconic TV Series from the 1990s, it premiered in 2021 to sold-out houses in a co-production at Theatre Squared and Arkansas Rep.

This play is recommended for patrons who are 18 and older. Contains adult language and themes.

Set in Atlanta during the 2020 elections, the play provides a fresh, topical update on the original characters of Sugarbaker’s Design Firm. We meet the characters from the series, but we pick up in 2020, and the women have aged just a few years from when the series ended. The women partners are in their 40s and 50s.

We find the ladies negotiating not only their ever-evolving relationship but also their conflicting opinions on all that is going on in America right now. Deeply divided on many cultural and political issues (despite humor-fueled discussions about all of them), the women eventually reach a previously unfathomable decision to sell Sugarbaker’s and go their separate ways. How they make their way back to each other and manage to cobble a fragile rapprochement (without compromising themselves or their personal beliefs) serves as the unifying theme of the play. It is a classic situation comedy, with a lot of humor, skewering Southern stereotypes of all kinds.