Opening of “Whorehouse” attracts large UNCP crowd

By Ariel Houchens
Senior Staff Writer

The “Whorehouse” was doing big business at Givens Performing Arts Center (GPAC) Feb. 25.

About 1,000 people attended “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” and the show drew an unusually large number of students, said Patricia Fields, executive director at the GPAC.

“It’s been one of our better shows this year,” said Fields.

The production was brought to UNCP by The Park Avenue Theatrical Group (PATG) from New York.

The PATG performs somewhere in the United States or abroad every night of the theatrical season.

Friday night, the cast was dressed or hardly dressed and ready for their Pembroke performance.

The audience clapped along with the band to start off the show and some people were whooping and hollering with the cowboys later on in the performance.

The play embellishes on a true story of a brothel in La Grange, Texas that was called “The Chicken Ranch.”

It is based on an article that Larry L. King wrote about Chicken Ranch. The story is not about prostitution, according to King.

“It’s about the hypocrisy that exists in society regarding sex,” King said.

In the play, a publicity-seeking television personality, Melvin P. Thorpe, comes along with plans to expose the whorehouse on his watchdog program.

Chicken Ranch, run by Miss Mona, is a place dear to many men in the community, including some of the local politicians.

The brothel has been no secret, but when media pressure is applied to the governor, he can no longer dance “the side step” and is forced to close down Chicken Ranch.

The governor calls up Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd, an old friend of Miss Mona, and tells him to close down the whorehouse.

Sheriff Dodd does not want to close down Chicken Ranch but has no other choice because the Texas brothel has become the talk of the entire nation.