Vicksburg will have more gold than ever in its hills with the advent of a new theater group.

If you go

“Gold in the Hills” performances (through April):

• At The Vicksburg, staged by the Westside Theatre Foundation, Feb. 20 and 21, April 17 and 18, 8:15 p.m. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for children.

• At Parkside Playhouse, staged by the Vicksburg Theatre Guild, March 13, 14, 20, 21, 27, 28, and April 3 and 4, 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for children.

The Westside Players, more formally known as the Westside Theatre Foundation, staged the local favorite, “Gold in the Hills,” Friday and Saturday night in the Coral Room Theater at The Vicksburg Hotel on Clay Street. They’ve also announced 17 more dates for “Gold” this year at the downtown venue.

And the peanuts are back. At The Vicksburg, the audience can once again throw peanuts at the villain, a big draw for audience members who enjoy pelting the villain.

Westside’s founding members Jack Burns, Buddy Hallberg and Roy Bailey, though long associated with the Vicksburg Theatre Guild, say their new group will complement, not compete with, the oldest chartered theater guild in Mississippi.

“The atmosphere that can be created here for ‘Gold in the Hills’ with its smaller set — the audience can boo and hiss at the villain, sing along with the songs, sigh at the heroine, cheer the hero — it’s all part of the family atmosphere we’ve created here,” said Hallberg, who is directing the play at the new venue. “That’s really what we want.”

The play will also continue to be staged — without peanuts — at Parkside Playhouse in the spring and summer by the Vicksburg Theatre Guild, which has put the old-fashioned melodrama into the Guinness Book of World Records with nearly 73 years of productions.

Peanut-pelting at the Parkside had to be curtailed after a fire there in 2006 showed rodents had been carrying the nuts off and storing them in the walls.

Between the two theater groups, Vicksburg will have “Gold” in its hills at least twice a month in 2009. The same cast members, for the most part, will appear in both venues.

“The community loves ‘Gold in the Hills’ and wants more of it,” Burns said in an interview in the Coral Room Wednesday night, where he was prepping props for the weekend’s shows.

Both the Westside Players and the Vicksburg Theatre Guild will produce other plays as well. Last month Westside held auditions for Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite,” which will be staged in March and directed by Bailey, and VTG auditioned for “The Fantasticks,” to be staged in April.

Mike Calnan, president of the VTG, said that while he has some concerns about Westside’s venture, particularly as it relates to “Gold in the Hills,” he wishes the new group success.

“There’s a lot of acting talent here in Vicksburg,” Calnan said. “I’m familiar with the venue at the Coral Room. For certain types of plays I think it’s wonderful.”

Calnan added that for the city’s actors as well as its theater-going public, the combination of the Coral Room’s small, intimate setting with the Parkside Playhouse’s larger, more traditional theater will be a great advantage.

First produced in Vicksburg on a barge in 1936, and later on the Sprague riverboat at City Front, “Gold” — the story of a relentless hero, a winsome heroine, a ruthless villain, beautiful can-can dancers and the wilder side of life in the infamous New York Bowery — is the longest-running melodrama in the world.

After the Sprague burned in 1974, the VTG moved its production to a converted church on Bowmar Avenue and finally to the Parkside.

Hallberg, Bailey and Burns have all starred in the play at various times as villain Richard Murgatroyd.

Burns said the idea for a second theatrical group evolved in the past several months, after the VTG in conjunction with The Vicksburg, the downtown hotel-turned-apartment complex, put on four performances of “Gold” in October and November.

“It needs to be downtown,” Bailey said. “We need to be appealing to the tourists.”

With help from what he termed “a core group” of helpers, Burns built a set in the old hotel ballroom, over the past 80 years the scene for weddings, dances, USO receptions and big band shows. Glenn Miller and Jimmy Dorsey and their orchestras played there, owner Mike Davis said.

Davis welcomed the theater activity, but wanted a commitment for a certain number of performances to make it worth his while to retain the set that takes up about a third of the room.

“It became a scheduling issue,” Burns said. “We needed more dates than what we could get. We had to use what we had here.”

Calnan expressed “some” concern about cast burnout, adding, “If it’s going on all the time — two performances a month, or more when the Vickburg Theatre Guild is doing it — if it becomes too routine; it’s not going to be special. But we’ll see how it plays out.”

At one time in the 1960s, Hallberg said, the play was performed as often as four times a week during its two annual runs in the spring and summer.

The performances at The Vicksburg in the fall were a big hit, with both audiences and cast members, Burns said.

“People that had been in the show for 30 or 40 years said this was the most fun they’d had since the Sprague,” Burns said. “We knew we wanted to stay here and we knew it could be big.”

Davis has set up a concession area to sell, in addition to bags of peanuts, hot dogs, popcorn, softdrinks, beer and wine coolers. Dinner theater is also in the works, and the room is still available for private functions.

There may be a rush for “Gold” in the hills in 2009, but it may be the peanuts that prove to be the biggest draw.

Bailey said he’s come offstage and found peanuts in his underwear, and the three all said that the actors enjoy the interaction with the audience.

“On the Sprague we used to take bets to see who could catch a peanut while onstage,” Hallberg said. “I’ve been hit in the eye, the mouth, all over. I’ve even had them bounce off my teeth.”

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Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburg.com.