By STU CLAMPITT
news@readthereporter.com
Carmel Community Payers (CCP) is bringing Steel Magnolias to the stage Oct. 4 to 13 at The Cat, 254 Veterans Way, Carmel – and for Director Elizabeth Ruddell, this is a production three decades in the making.
The Reporter spoke to Ruddell about the show, the cast, and why it took her so long to mark this one off her director’s wish list.
In the community theater world, a director will submit a play to the board for consideration, usually a season before it ever hits the stage. Steel Magnolias was quickly approved by CCP’s board.
“I submitted it last season and they hopped right on top of it,” Ruddell told The Reporter. “I’ve been wanting to do it for about 30 years so it’s finally my chance to do it. I was very happy about the chance to direct it.”
Ruddell said when she first saw the movie in 1989 with Dolly Parton, she “absolutely loved it.” She also loved a stage production of the show.
The actresses as themselves. (Back row, from left) Gabrielle Patterson, Casey Clouser, and Tanya Haas; (front row, from left) Susan Smith, Emily Haus, and Phoebe Aldridge. (Photo provided)
“The writer had written the stage play before the movie, and he also wrote the screenplay for the movie,” Ruddell said. “After I saw it, I was really wanting to get a really great group of women together to be able to do the show. I didn’t think that when I was younger I would have had the background to be able to. I hadn’t lived life enough, basically, to be able to do such a show. These women are all steel magnolias. They’ve all been through something in their lives that they had to overcome. So I wasn’t quite ready yet to be able to mount the show until I had lived life and had gone through a bit in order to be able to do it.”
Now Ruddell is ready to bring this show to audiences, and she has the cast to do it well.
“Casting went pretty smoothly,” Ruddell said. “I had an incredible amount of women come out for this show because it’s on everybody’s bucket list. It’s women that have come out and there are different parts in it for different times in your life. There are there are two very young characters in their 20s, there are two middle-aged characters, and then there are two older characters. These women might come out for it and they might have been in a production in the past and they played one part, but now they’re trying out for an older character.”
That situation is exactly what happened with one of her actors in this show.
“The gal that’s playing Truvy, the Dolly Parton part who is the owner of the hair salon, had been in two or three productions of Steel Magnolias before, as the character of Annelle, one of the younger characters,” Ruddell said. “She wanted to be in it again, and I definitely saw her as my Truvy.”
Ruddell said her cast shines because they can handle both the drama and the comedy of this show.
“A lot of people think that comedy is really easy, but it isn’t,” Ruddell said. “Actually, drama is a little bit easier because it doesn’t take a heck of a lot to be able to cry, but it does take a lot of effort to be able to make somebody laugh. I think that we found that that wonderful quality of everything together.”
Ruddell said this show would not be nearly as good for audiences without the work of her assistant director, Samantha Kelly.
“She is really fabulous!” Ruddell said. “She is my assistant director and my stage manager. She will be moving all the different props around on stage during the blackouts. She is an Encore [Association] award-winning stage manager. I’m very blessed to have her because she’s younger than I am and she brings a lot to this show. When we discuss the roles and when we discuss what we’re going to do in a certain scene, she brings a different perspective than I would have. I really appreciate that about her.”
Ruddell and her team are bringing Steel Magnolias to audiences for only two weeks this month. You can get tickets online at carmelplayers.org or you can call (317) 815-9387. Tickets are $18 Fridays through Sundays and only $13 on Thursdays.