Laughter and tears, gossip and home-grown advice are as prevalent as hair rollers in Truvy’s Beauty Salon, the setting of the heartwarming comedy-drama Steel Magnolias by Robert Harling, playing at Bristol Riverside Theatre on March 20-April 8. Susan D. Atkinson directs an ensemble cast of BRT favorites including Jennie Eisenhower, Diane Findlay,Laura C. Giknis, Barbara McCulloh, Susan Moses, and Jo Twiss.
Previews begin Tuesday, March 20 with opening night on Thursday, March 22. Performances run Wednesday through Sunday until April 8. Tickets are available from $30-$50, with discounts for students, military and groups. Tickets are available by visiting brtstage.org or calling the BRT Box Office at 215-785-0100. Bristol Riverside Theatre is located at 120 Radcliffe Street in Bristol, PA.
Set entirely in the beauty parlor of Truvy Jones, Steel Magnolias is about a group of lovable, zany women in Chinquapin Parish, Louisiana who share love, laughs, joy and even insults. The title suggests that female characters are as delicate as magnolias but as tough as steel. This is the unforgettable story of six southern women who stand together laughing in order to survive the tears. The 1987 off-Broadway hit was developed into a film starring Julia Roberts, Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis. Sally Field, Dolly Parton and Darryl Hannah, and subsequently revived on Broadway in 2005.
Susan D. Atkinson (Director) is the founding director of BRT. With a theatrical career spanning 40 years of directing, producing, and teaching on both the east and west coasts, she has directed well over 150 plays and musicals in her career, including world and area premieres from such playwrights and composers as Doug Katsoras, Mark St. Germain, Dan Rustin, Michael Hickey and Larry Gatlin. For BRT, Atkinson recently directed this season’s world premiere of A Raw Space as well as such shows as The Good Earth, Wintertime, Irma La Douce, Alive and Well, The Price, 110 in the Shade, A Sunbeam, Inspecting Carol, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Arsenic and Old Lace, A Little Night Music, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, Holiday, Talley’s Folly and Proof. In 1998, Ms. Atkinson directed Larry Gatlin’s Texas Flyer both at BRT and at Theatre Under The Stars in Houston, Texas.
Laura C. Giknis (Annelle) was previously seen at BRT as Maria in Up. She has appeared at People’s Light & Theatre Company in both Fallow and Panto: The Three Musketeers (The Later Years) and at 11th Hour Theatre Company in both Little Shop of Horrors and Reefer Madness. She was selected Best Supporting Actress of the Year (2009-2010) byPhiladelphia Weekly.
