‘Steel Magnolias’ flowers in Hillsboro

Bag & Baggage Productions brings Robert Harling’s classic comedy to the newly remodeled Venetian Theatre in downtown Hillsboro

The Forest Grove News-Times, Sep 10, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Courtesy of Bag&Baggage Productions

Cast members of “Steel Magnolias,” opening tonight at The Venetian Theatre in downtown Hillsboro, talk it up inside a hair salon on the set. A female-dominated story line brings gossip inside the small-town Louisiana salon to life in Robert Harling’s popular play, which was also made into a movie starring Julia Roberts.

ADVERTISEMENTS

A classic of American theater, “Steel Magnolias,” opens tonight, Sept. 10, in The Venetian Theatre in downtown Hillsboro.

The show, directed by Scott Palmer, is the first of three shows in the production company’s – Bag&Baggage Productions of Hillsboro – season in the newly opened venue. The play runs Wednesday through Sunday through Sept. 28.

“‘Steel Magnolias’ is the perfect show to start our season at The Venetian,” said Palmer, a Hillsboro native and founding member of the three-year-old company. “It is one of the most popular plays in American theater history and allows Bag&Baggage a chance to showcase both our dramatic and comic talents.”

The production stars Maggie Chapin as the irrepressible Truvy, who owns a small-town Louisiana beauty shop where the women in the town gather to gossip, laugh, cry and support each other through thick and thin. Chapin, a native Oregonian and also a Bag&Baggage founding member, said, “This production of Steel Magnolias will be very different from other versions audiences may have seen. We have worked very hard to make sure we stay true to the script Robert Harling wrote and not duplicate the hugely successful film.”

Directing a theater show that was also an enormously successful Hollywood film is an enormous challenge, according to the director. “The movie was amazing, and wonderfully acted by some of America’s greatest actresses,” Palmer said. “But the original play is a really different story. The film focused attention on the relationship between Julia Robert’s character and Sally Field’s character, but the play is more of an ensemble piece. All of these women all have their own individual tragedies, their own struggles, and we are working hard to bring those stories to light, too.”

“This production of ‘Steel Magnolias’ is going to be truly different from other productions I have seen,” said Audra Petrie-Veber, the company’s Hillsboro-born production manager said. “The actors are spending a lot of time understanding the social and economic realities of 1980s Louisiana and the political and social pressures on women in the south. It feels a lot smarter and more realistic to me.”

Other members of the cast include Maria Aparo, a recent transplant to Portland from Georgia and a recent graduate of the Portland Actors Conservatory, in the role of Shelby. Ruthanne Kendrick Noll, a Portland-based actress originally from Alabama, plays Shelby’s mother, M’Lynn.

1 | 2 Next Page >>