The Alliance Theatre is pleased to announce the cast and creative team behind its upcoming production of Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias. The quintessential story of family and friendship, this moving, Southern classic tells the story of six complex women sharing life’s ups and downs in the safe-haven created in a home beauty salon. The story follows a group of strong, spirited women who tackle life’s triumphs and tribulations together with classic Southern humor and style at Truvy’s Beauty Parlor in Chinquapin Parish, Louisiana, and centers on Shelby, who moves from wedding to childbirth to medical complications with a love of life and a willingness to face its possibilities bravely.
The Steel Magnolias creative team is led by Director Judith Ivey. Ivey, a two-time Tony Award®-winning actress, directed sold-out staged readings of Steel Magnolias in New York and Los Angeles to celebrate its 25th anniversary and benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in 2012.
The six dynamic women in Steel Magnolias will be depicted by Becky Ann Baker (Broadway: Good People, TV: Girls) playing the cheerful, straightforward Clairee, Mary Pat Gleason (TV: The Guiding Light) playing the delightfully cantankerous Ouiser, Deirdre Lovejoy (Broadway: Lucky Guy, TV: The Wire) playing salon owner Truvy, Beth Broderick (New York Theatre: The Mousetrap, TV: Under the Dome, Lost, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch) playing the steady M’Lynn, Sarah Stiles (Broadway: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever) playing Truvy’s newest beautician and new girl in town Annelle, and Zoe Winters (Off-Broadway: 4000 Miles, Much Ado About Nothing) playing the glowing newlywed Shelby, M’Lynn’s daughter. Sarah Stiles and Annie Potts were both part of Ivey’s 2012 New York Steel Magnolias benefit, with Stiles reading as Annelle and Potts reading as Truvy.
“This community of women is such a delightful and touching story to tell,” Director Judith Ivey said. “It truly is an ensemble play for if we didn’t have one of the six there would definitely be something and someone missing in the story. Their histories deepen this story beyond its surface of humor and teasing. The intelligence of that humor is based on those histories and relationships. It really is a love story celebrating the woman as well as the human being.”
Steel Magnolias is on the Alliance Stage October 22 – November 9. For tickets and more information, visit alliancetheatre.org/steelmagnolias or call (404) 733-5000.