Box office opens this weekend in the Mabee Foundation Little Theatre. Culver-Stockton College’s Department of Theatre is pleased to welcome audiences to campus for their first show of the season, a production of Steel Magnolias by Robert Harling. The show will include four performances, beginning Thursday, September 21, and concluding on Sunday, September 24, 2023.
Steel Magnolias is set in Truvy’s Beauty Salon in Chinquapin, Louisiana, where all the ladies who are “anybody” come to have their hair done. Helped by her new assistant, Annelle (Zoey Kiser), who is not sure whether she is still married, the outspoken, wise-cracking Truvy (Megan Eaton), dispenses shampoos and free advice to the town’s rich old curmudgeon, Ouiser, (Baylee Northington) (“I’m not crazy, I’ve just been in a bad mood for forty years”); an eccentric millionaire, Miss Clairee (Kaitlyn Beth); and the local social leader, M’Lynn (Madison Pruitt), whose daughter, Shelby (Micah Peterson), is about to marry a “good old boy.” Filled with hilarious repartee and not a few acerbic but humorously revealing verbal collisions, the play moves toward tragedy when, in the second act, the spunky Shelby (who is a diabetic) risks pregnancy. Steel Magnolias is a play that draws on the underlying strength and love of its characters and shows the women as a genuinely touching, funny, and amiable company in good times and bad.
Performances will begin at 7:30 p.m. on September 21, 22, and 23 and a 3 p.m. matinee on Sunday, September 24, in the Mabee Little Theatre/Black Box. This production is directed by student Cassie Williams and faculty mentor Dr. Haidee Heaton. The student production team includes Kalista VanDerAa, Stage Manager; Mackenzie Coleman-Portell, Assistant Stage Manager/Props Master; Sebastian Pearson, Assistant Stage Manager/Props Master; and Brad Collins, Sound Design. They are led by the production team, including designer David Lane and technical director Michael York.
Admission is free to C-SC students, faculty, and staff. Admission for the public is $10 for adults and $5 for students and seniors. For further information or reservations, please contact David Lane at dlane@culver.edu or call 573-288-6398. C-SC Faculty, Staff, and Students can reserve tickets on Wildcats Connect.
Contact the Marketing & Public Relations Office, at pr@culver.edu or 573-288-6000 ext. 6728 for more information.
NOTE: A number that appears immediately after a person’s name (i.e. Jane Doe ’18) is a reference to the year that person earned their bachelor’s degree from Culver-Stockton.