Steel Magnolias

Steel Magnolias

A Southern Treasure
by Robert Harling
directed by John Feltch

April 10 – May 8, 2011

Have a good hair day.
Many things beside hair get done at Truvy’s hair salon, and that’s why it is the place to go in Chinquapin Parish, Louisiana. Gossip, revelations and witty Southern banter flow like refreshing sweet tea on a hot summer day. The opinionated Truvy and her new assistant, Annelle, play host to unlikely friends Ouiser and Clairee, the respectable and sociable M’Lynn and her beautiful daughter, Shelby. As the women come face to face with difficult times, they are brought together through strength and love.

“Smell that sweet fragrance? It's the intoxicating Steel Magnolias....”
–Lynn Jessup, Classical Voice of North Carolina
Read the full review

Running time: 2 hours and 30 minutes, including one fifteen-minute intermission.

Steel Magnolias on 88.5 WFDD's Triad Arts Up Close
Director John Feltch and actresses Beth Ritson and Catherine Charlesbois talk about the enduring quality of Steel Magnolias. With host David Ford.
Listen to the interview podcast from 88.5 WFDD here.

Sponsored by
NewBridge Bank


Production Sponsors
Our State Magazine     Moses Cone Health System    Compass Financial

Cast

Annelle
M'Lynn

Creative Team

Director
Scenic Designer
Costume Designer
Lighting Designer
Sound Designer
Dramaturg
Resident Vocal Coach
Casting Director
Stage Manager

Biographies

Cast

Elizabeth Meadows Rouse Elizabeth Meadows Rouse* (Truvy) Triad Stage: The Matchmaker. Broadway: The Rose Tattoo (Circle in the Square). Off-Broadway: Othello, The Comedy of Errors (Theatre for a New Audience); Sealed for Freshness (New World Stages). London: Shakespeare’s Globe, inaugural season, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. Regional: Dirty Blonde (Cleveland Playhouse); The Underpants (Portland Center Stage); Crimes of the Heart (Syracuse Stage); The Comedy of Errors (Actor’s Theater of Louisville); As You Like It (Long Wharf Theatre); The Country Wife (The Shakespeare Theatre); As You Like It (Baltimore Center Stage); Light Up the Sky (Alliance Theatre Co.); Born Yesterday (The Pioneer Theater). TV: 30 Rock, The Sopranos, Law and Order: SVU, All My Children, One Life to Live. Education: BFA, Southern Methodist University. MFA, University of Washington.
Elizabeth May Elizabeth May (Annelle) Triad Stage debut. Film/TV: The Adventures of Martin Dockery, produced by Monkeywhale for the 48 Hour Film Festival, 2010 City Wide Winner. Education: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; Bus Stop; Oklahoma! and Go, Dog, Go! at UNCG.
Elisabeth Lewis Corley Elisabeth Lewis Corley* (Clairee) is the founding artistic director of the Atlanta Shakespeare Company, now The Shakespeare Tavern. Triad Stage debut. Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway: A Woman without a Name, F.M. (Signature Theatre Company); Unchanging Love (Triangle Theatre); The Lizard of Tarsus (Harland Productions/Triangle Theatre); Math and Aftermath (Harland Productions); The Borderland (Currican); Men on the Verge of a His-Panic Breakdown (47th Street Theatre). Regional: Miss Consuelo (Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey); The Earthlings (7Stages Theatre); The Goat (Manbites Dog Theater); As You Like It, Dream Boy, The Turn of the Screw (StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance); Camino Real (Tenn Cent Fest). Film: Ten Hundred Kings, Manhattan Breakfast. TV: One Life to Live, One Tree Hill. Ms. Corley is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Actors’ Equity Association and AFTRA.
Catherine Charlebois Catherine Charlebois* (Shelby) Triad Stage debut. Broadway: Wicked, first and second national tours. Regional/Local: Hurricane (NYMF), Fiddler on the Roof (Syracuse Stage). Education: BFA in Musical Theatre, Syracuse University.
Beth Ritson Beth Ritson* (M'Lynn) was last seen upstairs in Triad Stage’s UpStage Cabaret as Amanda in For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls. Downstairs on the Triad Stage MainStage, she was last seen as Flo in Picnic, Hannah in The Night of the Iguana, Ada in Tobacco Road, Grindel’s Mom in Brother Wolf and Lizzie in The Rain Maker. Currently, Beth is a fulltime faculty member at the awesome Bennett College, teaches part time at Greensboro College, and is a Founding member of The Paper Lantern Theatre Co.
Cinny Strickland Cinny Strickland* (Ouiser) Triad Stage: Providence Gap, Beautiful Star (2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009). Other NC credits: NC Shakespeare Festival, Charlotte Repertory Theatre, Blowing Rock Stage Company, The Actors’ Ensemble, The Broach Theatre, Wilmington’s Dog Eat Dog Theatre. Regional: Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Cape Cod’s Monomoy Theatre, Pennsylvania’s Bristol Riverside Theatre. Education: BFA-Drama, NC School of the Arts; AB-Political Science, Princeton University. Other: guest artist, UNCSA School of Music; guest artist, Princeton University’s Theatre Intime; guest artist, Reynolda House Museum of American Art.

Creative Team

  John Feltch (Director) )is delighted to be back at Triad, where he previously directed Bell, Book and Candle. He has directed shows for the Alley Theatre (Gross Indecency), Clarence Brown Theatre (Stones in His Pockets) and Playmakers Repertory Company (Stones in His Pockets, Crimes of the Heart). He is also an actor and this past season he has appeared as Salieri in Amadeus at the Clarence Brown Theatre in Knoxville (with the Knoxville Symphony) and Dennis in the world premiere of Charming Billy at Roundhouse Theatre in DC. John was a company member at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas for eleven seasons and over seventy roles. (Houston Press Best Actor awards for Prior Walter in Angels in America and Henry in The Real Thing) His other credits include: Broadway: Enchanted April; Off Broadway: The Dazzle at the Roundabout Theatre. Other regional theatre includes: American Repertory Theatre, McCarter Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Hartford Stage, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center and PlayMakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill, NC (Independent Weekly Best Actor award for I Am My Own Wife and BestDirector award for Stones in His Pockets) Film: Tadpole, Waiting for Nick, About Time. John received his BA from Williams College and his MFA from UNC Chapel Hill. He has served on the faculties of University of Houston, Rice University and UNC Chapel Hill.
  Fred Kinney (Scenic Designer) Triad Stage: Ethel Waters, Tartuffe, Sleuth, Noises Off, Bus Stop, Proof, Angel Street, On Golden Pond. Other credits include: Ordinary Days, A Wrinkle in Time, A Year with Frog and Toad and Sunlight (South Coast Repertory); Peter Pan and Wendy, a new musical (Prince Music Theater); The Price and Old Wicked Songs (Vienna’s English Theatre); A Picasso (Pittsburgh City Theatre); Serious Money (Yale Repertory Theatre); Intimate Apparel (San Diego Repertory Theatre); The Grouch (The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey). He is recipient of the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Designers and holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.
  Kelsey Hunt (Costume Designer) is in her 6th season as Resident Designer at Triad Stage. Favorite past productions include: Ghosts (USITT-SE Design Expo ‘09 award winner); The Night of the Iguana, Tobacco Road, Brother Wolf; and A Streetcar Named Desire (honorable mention, best production design, Independent Weekly). She has worked with UNCG Theatre, Peace College, Glimmerglass Opera, Firebrand Theory Theatre Co., The Lortel Theatre and Lisa Zinni of Broadway’s Rent. Kelsey is a founding member of Hand in The Fire Theater Company which recently presented a production of One Flea Spare at Elsewhere Collaborative.
  Robert Perry (Lighting Designer) Triad Stage: Julie’s Dance. Off-Broadway: Boston Marriage (New York Shakespeare Festival); The Water Engine (Atlantic Theater Company); Reefer Madness (Variety Arts); Kingdom of Earth (Drama Department). Regional/Local: Drowning Crow (Goodman Theatre); Crowns (McCarter Theatre); Billy the Kid (LaJolla Playhouse); Coriolanus (Shakespeare Theatre); The Chairs (Intiman). MFA Yale School of Drama; BFA North Carolina School of the Arts; Assistant Professor of Lighting Design, University of Miami.
  Kate Brown (Sound Designer) is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts for Sound Design at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts from Virginia Tech. She worked for the Vail International Dance Festival, I.A.S.T.E., Local 22 in Washington as well as designing for the Virginia Commonwealth Coalition and the V-Day Campaign.
  Drew Barker (Dramaturg) is Triad Stage’s Artistic Associate and Resident Dramaturg, and a former Theater and Advanced Placement English teacher. Regional: Assistant to the Director of five shows at Triad Stage, Assistant Director of Oleanna at An Appalachian Summer Festival, Director of One Flea Spare, the first play by the Hand in Fire Theater Company produced in collaboration with Elsewhere Collaborative. Education: UNC Greensboro, BFA Theater Education & English, Study Abroad at the University of Hull, England and an Undergraduate Research Assistantship in Greensboro Theater History.
  Christine Morris (Resident Vocal Coach) Triad Stage coaching includes A Christmas Carol, Educating Rita, The Glass Menagerie, Around the World in 80 Days, Picnic, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Doubt, Tobacco Road, The Night of the Iguana, The Little Foxes; elsewhere: A Thousand Clowns (starring Tom Selleck) and Kudzu (musical based on Doug Marlette’s comic strip, with The Red Clay Ramblers) and numerous other gigs for regional and university theatre and video/audio projects. She is on the performance faculty at UNCG and also an actor, appearing most recently at Triad Stage as Cordie Grindstaff in Providence Gap. Her professional memberships include Actors’ Equity Association, Screen Actors’ Guild, and the Voice and Speech Trainers Association (VASTA).
  Cindi Rush (Casting Director) New York: The Time of Mendel’s Trouble, Peaceman, Jacques Brel, Six Dance Lessons In Six Weeks, The Thing About Men, Showtune, I Sing, Urinetown, Say Goodnight Gracie. Regional: Triad Stage, Act II Playhouse, Arena Stage, Goodman, Cape Cod Theatre Project, NOHO Arts Center (including “Pest Control”, “Dorian” and “Ghost and Mrs. Muir”), Actors Theatre of Louisville Humanafest. Film: Offspring, Made For Each Other, Home Movie, Jack Ketchum’s: The Girl Next Door, Headspace, Funny Valentine, Master Class. Other: Hats (Denver, New Orleans, Chicago). Casting Society of America Member, Casting Consultant for National Alliance For Musical Theatre, Casting Consultant for NYU Graduate Program for Musical Theatre Writing.
  Bree Sherry* (Stage Manager) Triad Stage: The Sunset Limited. New York: Fringe Festival 2010; American Gypsy (Kraine Theatre with Magic Mouth Theatre); My Sweet Charlie (Abingdon Theatre with LXP Productions); Hollow (Dixon Place). Regional: The Cocoanuts, Smokey Joe’s Café, Chicago, Two Gentlemen of Verona: The Musical (Seaside Music Theater); Cinderella, Jesus Christ Superstar, Hairspray (North Shore Music Theatre); The Servant of Two Masters, Rough Crossing (Yale Repertory Theatre). Education: BA in Technical Production and Design from Elon University, MFA in Stage Management from Yale University, School of Drama.

*Member of Actors Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States.

 

 

 

 
Triad Stage would like to thank our 2011-2012 Season Sponsors: Mitre Agency North Carolina Arts Council United Arts Council of Greater Greensboro
 
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