"Bewitched, bewitched, you’ve got me in your spell, bewitched, bewitched, you know your craft so well.” Maybe you never knew there were lyrics to the theme song from the TV show “Bewitched,” but there are and they were recorded by none other than Miss Peggy Lee. And it could also have been the theme song for our most recent endeavor in the community theater department.

The curtain has come down on “Bell, Book and Candle (BB&C).” It was a great play with a great cast that I want to take this opportunity to personally thank. With one exception, all of the cast members were new to Milledgeville Players (MVP) productions.

For Brandon Lynch, this was not only his first play with the MVP, but his theatrical debut — period. Now Brandon has been on stage many times but as part of a large aggregation — think Georgia College Jazz Band and Concert Band. But he stepped right into the role of Shep Henderson, even though playing a saxophone was not part of the character.

This is the role played by Jimmy Stewart in the movie and Rex Harrison in the original Broadway production. And now the name of Brandon Lynch can be added to that stellar roster.

John Geist, our one returning veteran in this play, was so believable as inebriated author Sidney Redlitch, you would almost have thought he had some experience playing that type of role!

But it was the young ladies that made up the Holroyd girls that really stole the show. Leanne Branch was wonderful as Aunt Queenie, playing a character both nutty and eccentric while maintaining an almost child-like personality — though perhaps a bit more flirtatious than your typical “child.”

Jennifer Watkins, who has appeared on the Russell stage before with the Georgia College theater department, seemed to channel a wonderful combination of Jean Arthur and Irene Dunne in her characterization of Nicky Holroyd, bringing out a combination of sarcastic, sardonic and mischievous personalities.

And though it is difficult to believe anyone could make you forget about Kim Novak, Lisa Morgan came as close as anyone could in playing Gillian Holroyd.

As the central character of the play, Lisa had to be on stage most of the time, something which is not the easiest thing to do (I know from experience). But she was great in playing a character that had to show several different sides to her personality as the play progressed including sweet, sexy, mistrustful, kind, vengeful, playful and many others.

This was Lisa’s first play with the MVP, though she was involved with our last murder mystery dinner. Hopefully she will be coming out for many more productions in the future.

Finally, Leigh Thompson showed an uncanny ability in both correctly casting this play and in directing the participants to find their inner witches and sots. Oh, and I mustn’t forget Dumpster Hendry, the finest feline actor to grace the Russell stage since — well, we won’t go into that.

The only thing missing was YOU! And without meaning to belabor the point, these folks put in a lot of work bringing this play to the stage and attendance was, shall we say, on the weak side.

The MVP have been trying to figure out ways to get the word out for plays and other things we do for years and no matter what we do, we still have people coming up going “I didn’t know you were doing a play,” or “Gee, did you publicize this any” or “Are you going to finish that baked potato?”

Live theater needs a live audience. Whether it is for the MVP, Georgia College, local high schools, whatever. If you have ever been involved in a play, you know how much work it is. So please, come out and support local theater.

OK, enough scolding. We move on. And, as any reader of this column should know, our next production will be “The Pajama Game.” We haven’t done a big old hunkerin’ Broadway type musical for quite some time, so this will be “interesting” to say the least. But it’s a great show.