On a night last week at the Vicksburg Theatre Guild’s Parkside Playhouse, director Paul Ballard and three members of the Four Plaids were practicing musical numbers for the guild’s January play “Forever Plaid.”

“Forever Plaid,” a musical that pays homage to the close harmony male groups of the 1950s and early ’60s, is the guild’s first production of 2012, a year that also marks the 76th anniversary of the guild’s charter, the 34th anniversary of the playhouse’s opening, and, Ballard hopes, a ceremony marking the payoff of the playhouse’s mortgage.

“We have now got our mortgage to under $20,000,” said Ballard, a Vicksburg dentist and guild president. “RiverHills Bank, which holds the mortgage on the building, has offered to help us with $10,000 toward the mortgage. We’re starting a fundraising campaign to pay off the balance. We’ve already gotten at least $3,500 in pledges.”