The Spitfire Grill
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A musical based on the 1996 film by writer-director Lee David Zlotoff, The Spitfire Grill is, as much as anything, about belonging and adopting.
Percy (short for “Perchance,” oddly enough, as in “perchance to dream”) has spent the last five years “buried alive” in a women’s prison. Paroled, she heads straight for Gilead, Wisconsin–a dead little backwater outside Prairie du Chien–just because it looked good in a picture she cut out of a travel book. The local sheriff finds Percy work and board at the eponymous diner, and the citizenry take note. Effy, the town gossip, is immediately on the phone weaving fictions about the newcomer. Brooding Caleb–a dispossessed prince of Gilead–eyes her warily. Hannah, the crusty old widow who owns the Spitfire, is initially wary as well–but warms, of course, as Percy’s simple virtues become apparent.
