Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen gets the theatrical treatment in the new production, “The Honorable Mister Marigold,” which will be performed Thursday, Oct. 3, at the F.M. Peterson Theatre at Pekin Community High School beginning at 6pm.

The show, part of the community’s bicentennial celebration, costs $10 per person to attend, with tickets available at the door or online beginning after the Marigold Festival at dirksencenter.org

It was commissioned by the Dirksen Congressional Center and focuses on Sen. Dirksen’s final days in September 1969 as America grappled with racial tensions and the ongoing Vietnam War. Dirksen looks back at his legacy and the things he loves, all while answering some tough questions about the future.

In the play, Dirksen is being interviewed by a reporter getting background before a television special – a planned TV appearance that was canceled only by Dirksen’s death. Though fictionalized, this fly-on-the-wall encounter between Dirksen and a young journalist makes extensive use of thoughts, answers, and opinions taken word-for-word from the senator’s own speeches and interviews.

Putting Dirksen on the stage is particularly appropriate considering that Dirksen himself enjoyed his forays into community theater during his 20s, when he was a regular participant in shows at the Pekin Union Mission and elsewhere around town.

He was even one of the stars of the featured production for the city’s centennial, “A Thousand Years Ago.” Dirksen left that show with more than just community acclaim. He also soon began to date his co-star, Louella Carver, a love that would blossom into marriage and a lifelong commitment to one another.

The title of the play comes from Louella Dirksen’s similarly-titled memoir and references Sen. Dirksen’s love of the marigold flower.

The show, which is being promoted for production in theaters around the country, stars one of this year’s class of Pekin Community High School Distinguished Alumni and a central Illinois advocate for arts education. 

Longtime voice actor and radio personality Larry Kenney will portray Sen. Dirksen in the show just days before receiving his alumni award. Kenney spent nearly 35 years bringing characters to life as a regular part of the “Imus in the Morning” radio show hosted by Don Imus and syndicated across the country. To a different generation, he’s an integral part of the voice cast for two different iterations of the popular “ThunderCats” animated series.

Meanwhile, the other starring role of journalist Carol will be performed by Nikki Romain, the co-founder and executive director of Peoria-based ART Inc., or Artists ReEnvisioning Tomorrow. The nonprofit located in Peoria’s former Greeley School offers cultural events as well as arts, science, technology, and math programs for students. Romain’s lengthy background includes work as an actor, singer, and writer performing on stages as distant as Italy and Los Angeles as well as in Chicago.

The Dirksen Center commissioned another central Illinoisan to write the play beginning in 2021. Limestone Community High School alum Wade Dooley, who later served as a congressional intern for Congressman Ray LaHood, scripted the show. He performed research in the Dirksen Center’s archives during the pandemic’s shutdown of live theater shows.

Dooley, who now resides in the New York area, brings an extensive background as an actor and playwright to the endeavor. Some may also recognize his name from the credits of the hit CBS network TV show “Elsbeth,” where he works as a writers’ assistant.

Doors open at 5:15pm the day of the show. With welcoming remarks and an intermission, the production is slated to last approximately two hours.