The Ozark Arts Council Presents:
Steel Magnolias
Friday–Saturday, July 26–27, August 2–3, 7:00PM
Sunday, July 28, August 4, 2:00PM
Steel Magnolias will be performed Live at the Lyric (with 2 different casts!) July 26–27, 2024 at 7:00PM, August 2–3, 2024 at 7:00PM, Sunday July 28 at 2:00PM, and Sunday August 4 at 2:00PM. Tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors (55 and up) and students, and $8 for children (under 12), when purchased in advance; prices are $3 higher if purchased at the door.
The action 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 eager new assistant, Annelle (who is not sure whether or not she is still married) (Laken Rudelis & Jerry Carter), the outspoken, wise-cracking Truvy (Jane Harrison) dispenses shampoos and free advice to the town’s rich curmudgeon, Ouiser, (“I’m not crazy, I’ve just been in a bad mood for forty years”) (Lisa Johnson & Toinette Madison); an eccentric millionaire, Miss Clairee (Kelly Goodwin & Ann Lemley), who has a raging sweet tooth; and the local social leader, M’Lynn (Julianna Hamblin & Lisa Bailey), whose daughter, Shelby (the prettiest girl in town) (Katie Davis & Ella Rush), is about to marry a “good ole boy.” Filled with hilarious repartee and not a few acerbic but humorously revealing verbal collisions, when the play moves towards tragedy, the ladies must rely on the underlying strength—and love—which give the play, and its characters, the special quality to make them truly touching, funny and marvelously amiable company in good times and bad.
Concerned with a group of gossipy southern ladies in a small-town beauty parlor, the play is alternately hilarious and touching—and, in the end, deeply revealing of the strength and purposefulness which underlies the antic banter of its characters.
- Truvy: Jane Harrison
- Annelle: Jerry Carter
- Ouiser: Lisa Johnson
- Clairee: Ann Lemley
- M’Lynn: Lisa Bailey
- Shelby: Ella Rush
- Truvy: Jane Harrison
- Annelle: Laken Rudelis
- Ouiser: Toinette Madison
- Clairee: Kelly Goodwin
- M’Lynn: Julianna Hamblin
- Shelby: Katie Davis
“…suffused with humor and tinged with tragedy.”
– New York Post
“Harling has given his women sharp, funny dialogue…The play builds to a conclusion that is deeply moving.”
– New York Daily News
This joyful and exuberant, yet ultimately touching, comedy focuses on three women at crossroads in their lives—the Wild sisters of Winedale, Virginia—Fanny and Willa and their frustratingly quirky sister-in-law Johnnie Faye. This feisty and fun-loving trio has supported and cheered one another through life’s highs and lows through the years, including the early demise of two of their husbands. And they really need each other now, as Fanny experiences a hilariously inappropriate reaction to her 60th birthday, while Willa is so stressed out from her nursing job she resorts to vodka and speed-knitting to cope, and Johnnie Faye, determined to put her year of fraught widowhood behind her, desperately tries to find a man—preferably a man with a house, since hers is somewhere at the bottom of a Florida sinkhole. These women’s lives are further upended by the responsibility of caring for their free-spirited, ailing aunt and the realization that they are drowning under loads of family keepsakes and possessions nobody wants—especially them! With equal doses of hilarity and heart, these extraordinary women come up with delightful and surprisingly unorthodox ways to clear the clutter from their lives, their homes and their relationships so they can move their lives forward. Together they prove it’s never too late to take another one of life’s paths for a grand new adventure. This Jones Hope Wooten comedy is guaranteed to drive you wild with laughter—and motivate you to keep hounding the kids to please take that stack of quilts and Granny’s Christmas china!