Steel Magnolias
I have directed Steel Magnolias four times. In fact, it was the first production I ever directed. That production didn’t go so well.
I was sixteen and determined to make theatre “my way!” My mother, being incredibly supportive, allowed me to move all the furniture out of our living room and install my beauty shop set. For two months my family sacrificed our television viewing so I could create art. I had a cast of extremely talented teens and we were determined to put on a play. That was until they all mutinied and quit on me. I remember the day well. We were attempting to rehearse while the stage hand, whose name I don’t remember, was hammering away on the set. The tension and stress of the situation exploded in my young, inexperienced director’s mind and I snapped. I yelled expletives that are not fit to print! Half the cast walked off the set never to return. I cried a lot, and begged, and begged some more, until we managed to scrape together enough women to put on the performance. I didn’t get it right, but we got the show up. To this day I credit the lessons learned on my first production for my rather jovial approach to directing. As the women of Steel Magnolias like to say, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
My second production of Steel Magnolias didn’t go much better. The cast loved me, but the faculty at the college I was attending were not as fond of our upstart theatre troupe. During the final week of rehearsals I was actually banned from the the theater. My cast would videotape rehearsals and then come to my apartment at 11 pm for a scene by scene dissection of their performance. The show was a great success! Even though one of the faculty members choose to deconstruct a set with a very loud hammer during the final performance. Needless to say, he was “a pig from hell!”
By the time I reached my third version of Steel Magnolias I was a professional director and college professor. I took on the production with a group of women who hadn’t been cast that semester as an acting project. I am happy to report the only difficulties in the process were a broken windshield, (I broke the windshield of the school van when I attempted to fit a 12 foot 2×4 in a ten foot van), and a severe case of giggles (I was on intense pain medication and during the final dress rehearsal I had a giggle fit that lasted over two hours).
And finally we reach my fourth, and perhaps, final production of Steel Magnolias. When you get it this right there isn’t much inspiration to do it again. (Although I would like to do a production entirely in drag.) This production was a delightful, and exhausting way, to spend the winter months. I am so impressed by the cast’s willingness to experiment with craft and to trust in themselves and my direction. I am glad to report that there were no screaming matches, no producers banning us from rehearsal and no broken windshields. The cast did have to pee in a bucket in a theater that had no bathrooms and on the final evening we did have a truck roll away into the street as we unloaded the platforms. But all were minor complications on the road to a smashing success.
As the curtain closes on the AC’s production of Steel Magnolias, I am reminded of the last two lines of the play. M’lynn, as she is mourning the loss of her daughter Shelby, turns to her friends and says, “You don’t know how wonderful you really are.” And Truvy, without blinking an eye responds, “Of course we do.” This is how I feel about the 6 amazing performers and 4+ dedicated stage crew that made our production live. They are each extraordinarily wonderful and, most of them, don’t know it. With only a month of rehearsals they put on a professional quality touring production. I give them a standing ovation for their hard work and thank them for helping me finally get Steel Magnolias right.
-Stephen Svoboda
