THE STORY: It’s azalea season in Natchez, Mississippi, and the annual pilgrimage of tourists are swarming through the historic mansions. In Mayweather Hall, Penelope Mayweather, a once beautiful Southern belle, is horrified by the tourists who are led through her home by an energetic guide at fifty cents a head. But the money isn’t enough to keep Penelope from the clutches of those “Dawnyankees” down at the bank. Thus when a young author, John Salguod, turns up, she is persuaded to take him as a roomer. However, it develops that John is visiting under an assumed name because he has written a book banned in Natchez. The locals consider it a gross libel on their way of life, but it is a bestseller everywhere else. Penelope’s frantic efforts to keep him hidden from her neighbors are frustrated when Carol, her soon-to-be married, pretty young cousin, comes to spend the night. When her parents discover she stayed a second night, scandal looms. The irate parents, blaming Penelope, threaten to take over Mayweather Hall, which they can do by forcing foreclosure through the bank. But meantime John finds Penelope’s diary which she wrote over a period of forty years, giving embarrassing details about most of the town’s citizens. John’s publisher arrives on the first morning of the Pilgrimage and offers Penelope a fabulous sum for her memoirs. Carol is in love with John, and at the end the two are married, and Mayweather Hall is out of hock! (22 tourists are called for, 8 men, 14 women. All are speaking parts. The tourists are necessary, but it is easy to omit several, or to add some.)
