Special to the American Press

The Lake Charles Little Theatre dishes dark family comedy — and spills major tea doing it — in “Crimes of the Heart,” onstage Friday through Sunday.

The play is a tragicomedy about the intrigues, secrets and scandals of three sisters, the Magraths, who are thrown together for a reunion because, well, Babe Magrath’s decided to shoot her husband.

The play, by Beth Henley, won the Pulitzer Prize. It also inspired an A-list film in 1986 starring Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek.

It takes place in the family home where the sisters grew up. “Now, the girls are grown, but their games continue, and they gossip and confide about infidelities and adulteries, scandals and betrayals,” as Roger Ebert said in his review on the film version.

“These are no ordinary girls, Ebert noted. “Their mother got national front-page publicity for hanging herself and the family cat at the same time.

The sisters — Babe, Lenny and Meg — face truths about themselves and each other. The common denominator is, ultimately, love — and maybe not being surprised anymore by the things they do.

The people surrounding them have their own stories, too. There’s a scandalized cousin next door, an ex-lover who checks in, and a family lawyer who has to help deal with a major problem about photographs.

The cast features Chelsea Klumppace as Lenny Magrath, Cindy Alexander as Chick Boyle, Dan Alexander as Doc Porter, J.C. Domangue as Meg Magrath, Emily Patton as Babe Botrelle, and Peyton Stanford as Barnette Lloyd.

LCLT stalwart Joy Klumppace returns as director for the production, which closes the 2024-25 season.

Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, April 4-5, and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 6, at Southlake Theater, 4720 Nelson Road.

Tickets are available at lclittletheatre.com and at the door.