By Craig Horleman

DOVER — Kent County Theatre Guild’s latest production “The Wild Women of Winedale” is out to prove that it’s never too late to clear the clutter.

This funny and touching comedy focuses on three women at crossroads in their lives — the Wild sisters of Winedale, Virginia — Fanny and Willa and their eccentric sister-in-law Johnnie Faye.

This trio has been through much, including the early demise of two of their husbands. Fanny isn’t handling her 60th birthday well, while Willa is so stressed out from her nursing job, she resorts to vodka and angry knitting to cope.

Johnnie Faye, determined to put a year of widowhood behind her, is looking to find a man with a house since hers is at the bottom of a Florida sinkhole.

The show starts Friday at the guild’s Patchwork Playhouse, 140 Roosevelt Ave., Dover.

Bill Hartung directs an all-female cast.

“It’s three women who are all at turning points in their lives for various reasons. And they come together and decide to tackle the next phase of their lives with bumps and bruises and laughter and jokes,” Mr. Hartung said.

“It’s really been a pleasure because I’ve got so much skill in this cast with so many years of experience. And every single one of them have taken whatever little bit of direction I give them and have just totally run with it and have made the characters their own.”

Jazsmin Johnson, 26, is the youngest member of the cast playing the oldest character, Fanny. This is her first acting role at Kent County Theatre Guild after serving on stage crew and playwriting.

“I wasn’t going to audition for any shows, but my mom said, ‘All you do is work. You need to go do something.’ I missed the first audition but I said ‘Let me just go out and audition, get out the house, see what’s going on. And then two days later, I got the call asking to be Fanny,” said Ms. Johnson, who has degrees in theater and English and has acted elsewhere but not in the last five years.

She said her castmates have been very supportive.

“I couldn’t have asked for a more fun cast and accepting cast. I always tell them ‘I’m nervous since it’s been so long since I’ve been on stage.’ I’m usually behind the scenes either managing or writing or something. So having them here and them being experienced and just helping me work through my nerves and my lines. It’s really been the best thing I could have hoped for,” she said.

Lanie King said she is having a blast with her crazy character of Johnnie Faye.

“My character is kind of a cross between Blanche Devereaux from ‘The Golden Girls’ and Delta Burke from ‘Designing Women.’ She’s a sassy Southern drama queen who doesn’t quite know her own strength and courage. I think the relationship that deepens with her sisters-in-law really helps bring that out of her. So she’s that drama queen. But I think in time, she gains a lot of confidence,” Ms. King said.

Patrice Hartung, Mr. Hartung’s wife, rounds out the trio playing nurse Willa Wild.

“Taking care of people is her reason to live,” Ms. Hartung said.

“She’s stressed because so many hospitals, they’re cutting staff and putting more on the nurses and then you’ve got insurance companies and everything. So she’s trying to find ways of getting around the stress since she hates exercise and she tries drinking. She tries the angry knitting stuff.

“And it just reaches the point that they’re making her a manager, which means she can’t deal with people. And she can’t deal with that.”

While the show, written by the trio of Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten, has its moments of humor, it also strikes a chord with many.

“It’s a funny play, but there is that kind of undercurrent. I am literally a woman that is of the age of this play. And if you think about the themes of loss and family, I have way too many women my own age who have lost their husbands recently,” Ms. King said.

“So just bringing that kind of undercurrent of like ‘What do you do now when you get to a certain age when people don’t see you as much because you’re older, what do you do?’

“How do you reinvent yourself? How do you keep going? Although it’s really funny, there’s really the truth underneath it of ‘We all will get to this point at some point and how do you do it? What do you do?’”

Ms. Johnson said she is looking to her fellow actors for help in navigating her much older role.

“I always also look to them for help because I haven’t experienced or hope to really not experience all of the wrinkles. They’ve experienced both the best and worst in life and if there’s anyone else I can learn from, it is my castmates who are not only older adults, but older women,” she said.

“So they help me out a lot when it comes to just anything on stage. Because I’m only 26, I don’t know what it’s like to be older and experience other things. And I’m really just finally stepping into adulthood. I still ask my parents for permission sometimes. So being here with them, it just kind of helps me loosen up a lot more.”

Though touching, Mr. Hartung said the laughs come fast and furious.

“Our first rehearsal, I just put chairs in a circle and gave everybody their scripts. Act One, Scene Two is the first scene the three main characters are on. And it was ‘Read a sentence, stop to laugh.’ ‘Read a sentence, stop to laugh.’ It was just that funny right out of the book. And I’m still hearing them laughing offstage because some of these lines and actions are just so doggone funny,” he said.

The five-member cast is rounded out by Joan Cohen and Johanna Marine, who each play multiple roles.

The show runs Friday and Saturday and May 10, 11, 17 and 18 at 8 p.m. and May 12 at 2 p.m.

For tickets, visit KCTG.org.