Submitted photo From top, Molly Galano, Jeanine Rees and Sydney Campbell star in Selah Dessert Theater’s production of “Eleemosynary.”

Selah Dessert Theater’s next production is as challenging as it is hard to pronounce.

“Eleemosynary,” which opens May 14 for a seven-performance run in the theater space above Selah Restaurant in Struthers, is the second play by Lee Blessing that director Mary Ruth Lynn has staged there, following “A Walk in the Woods” in 2022.

“His writing is really beautiful, but it’s so specific and pretty wordy, and it’s really hard for the actors to memorize, particularly if you have an actor that really wants to get every word exactly correct,” Lynn said.

“Eleemosynary,” which means charitable or giving of alms, is the story of three generations of women.

The oldest, Dorothea, wasn’t allowed to get an education by her father, and she married young and started having children. After her first husband dies, she remarries a man who promises to let her go to college, but he reneges on that promise.

“She’s a brilliant woman, so she chooses to become eccentric, because if you’re eccentric, you don’t have to answer to anybody,” Lynn said. “You can just be who you are. You’re accepted as weird, and you can live your life doing whatever you want.”

Her daughter Artie is equally bright, but she rebels against her mother’s dominance and when she becomes pregnant, Artie rebels against motherhood, abandoning her daughter Echo to be raised by Dorothea.

“Echo is a brilliant young woman in her own right, perhaps the most mature of the three women, even in her young age,” Lynn said. “She becomes a lover of words and works very hard to win the National Spelling Bee. That is her goal, and Echo does win the spelling bee with ‘eleemosynary.'”

It is a memory play with a non-linear storyline told in a series of vignettes. Lynn said she is using both lighting changes and underscoring to make the transitions easier for the audience to comprehend and to make the story easier to follow.

The set is primarily platforms, but the production requires some unique props, such as a pair of wings that Dorothea creates and tries to get Artie to test out by jumping from a water tower.

“Those wings kind of reappear throughout the play and kind of symbolize a woman’s freedom to fly on her own and to be her own person with her own independence,” Lynn said.

The cast features Molly Galano as Dorothea, Jeanine Rees as Artie and Sydney Campbell as Artie’s daughter Echo. Lynn has worked with all three actors before.

“All are very accomplished actors in their own right,” Lynn said. “I have seen Jeanine take on different personalities, so I knew that she would be able to take on the role. Molly is a veteran actor, and I have seen her handle difficult scripts, difficult language, which this play has, and she can be a chameleon. So I knew that she would be able to step into the shoes of this very eccentric older woman and carry it off.

“Sydney, I have worked with once. She is a wonderfully intuitive younger actress. She just knows what to do on stage, and she’s hard working, she listens, she pays attention. She’s very giving to other actors on the stage, and she has a very young look, and so I knew that she would blend well with the other two. It’s a difficult show, and I knew I needed experienced people to do it.”

Like other Selah Dessert Theater productions, “Eleemosynary” will run for three weekends.

However, due to a schedule conflict with one of the actors, performances in the final week will be on Thursday and Friday instead of the normal Friday-Saturday schedule.

If you go …

WHAT: Selah Dessert Theater ­ — “Eleemosynary”

WHEN: 8 p.m. May 14, 15, 16, 22, 23, 28 and 29

WHERE: Selah Restaurant, 130 S. Bridge St., Struthers

HOW MUCH: Tickets are $19.50 and are available online at www.selahrestaurant.com/theater-events.