Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT: David Mong (801)363-0526
Email: mong@saltlakeactingcompany.org
Salt Lake Acting Company presents the regional premiere of MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS by Ron Hutchinson.
Recommended for mature audiences.
Salt Lake Acting Company is pleased to present the regional premiere of MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS by Ron Hutchinson. MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS will have preview performances September 12th and 13th with the Press Opening on Friday, September 14th at 8:00 PM at The Salt Lake Acting Company (SLAC). MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS is scheduled to play Wednesdays through Sundays through October 7, 2007.
Keven Myhre, SLAC’s Producing Director and Resident Designer, will direct and design the set. The rest of the design team includes Z- Lights; K. L. Alberts- Costume Design and Cynthia L. Kehr Rees- Sound. The cast features SLAC veterans Paul Kiernan (SEXSTING, THE WATER PROJECT, SEEING THE ELEPHANT, SATURDAY’S VOYEUR, among others), Morgan Lund (SATURDAY’S VOYEUR,WATER PROJECT, POLISH JOKE, BOY, among others), David Spencer (I AM MY OWN WIFE, SATURDAY’S VOYEUR, BIG LOVE, BAT BOY, THE BEARD OF AVON, among others) and Annette Wright (six SATURDAY’S VOYEURS and Julie Jensen’s WAIT!). Sarah Mohr will be the Production Stage Manager.
MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS by Ron Hutchinson had its world premiere production at The Goodman Theatre in Chicago in 2004. It had its New York premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2005. It has gone on to have productions at regional theatres throughout the country.
MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS is playwright and screenwriter Ron Hutchinson’s vision of what happened in 1939 when legendary Hollywood producer David O. Selznick shut down the filming of Gone with the Wind in its third week of work because the script was untenable and director George Cukor was floundering. Selznick fired his good friend Cukor, and summoned crack writer Ben Hecht to the studio. With the film stoppage costing him $50,000 a day, he hired Hecht to quickly rewrite the ailing screenplay. He also relieved director Victor Fleming from the final days of filming The Wizard of Oz and thrust the job of Gone with the Wind director on him, with the proviso that he would work with Selznick and Hecht on the script. The historic fact is that the three men did go into retreat in Selznick’s office, and when they emerged almost a week later they had an essentially finished script!
Hutchinson gives us his highly theatricalized version of what happened in that room, bringing to bear his many years of experience in similar situations as a “script doctor” in Hollywood. The characters, as delineated byHutchinson, have wonderful volatility. Selznick (David Spencer) is the practical visionary, driving his dream onto celluloid at any cost. Hecht (Paul Kiernan) is a social crusader, arguing for reflections of reality, rather than pandering to inert fantasy, a “conscience” for Selznick. Fleming (Morgan Lund) is a “man’s man” who “taught Gable to be Gable”, and will provide an instant cure for the “pansified” direction Cukor was taking the epic. As the play begins Selznick is stunned that Hecht has not even read the novel. “I read the first page. Feh.” Hecht proclaims, followed by a dismissive “Moonlight and magnolias?” Not the ringing endorsement Selznick had hoped for. Never the less, Selznick and Fleming will “act out” the story for him, as Hecht types up the script on the fly. They will be fueled only on peanuts and bananas--- brain food--- supplied by the fourth and final character, Miss Poppenghul (Annette Wright), Selznick’s long-suffering secretary. MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS is a dizzying, darting meditation on the art and craft of movie making, a reverberating, prescient moving picture of Hollywood and American between the great depression and looming world war, churning on high boil with the pressure of a ticking clock, reputations and fortunes at stake and the magnificent obsession for telling stories in “little specks of light stuck to a strip of celluloid” firing the action.
Ron Hutchinson (Playwright) is the author of Rat in the Skull, premiere at Royal Court Theatre 1984, Chicago's Wisdom Bridge Theatre, The Public Theatre, Mark Taper Forum and revival, Duke of York's Theatre 1995; an adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's Flight at the National Theatre 1997; Burning Issues, Hampstead Theatre Club 1999; Beau!, Theatre Royal, Bath, national tour and Haymarket, Leicester Square 2001; Lags, national tours 2002-03; Believers, for Playbox Young People's Theatre, 2003;Head/Case, Royal Shakespeare Company 2004; Moonlight and Magnolias, Goodman Theatre, Chicago 2004 and Manhattan Theatre Club 2005. Mr. Hutchinson lives in Los Angeles where he is a writer/producer for features and television. Winner of an Emmy for Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story, starring Ben Kingsley, his other projects include The Josephine Baker Story, The Burning Season,Fatherland, The Tuskegee Airmen, Traffic (nominated for three Emmys in 2004) and The Ten Commandments.
KEVEN MYHRE (Director and Set Design) is beginning his 14th season as SLAC’s Producing Director and Resident Designer. Keven most recently directed SLAC’S critically acclaimed productions of RABBIT HOLE and I AM MY OWN WIFE. Other directing credits for SLAC include: BAD DATES; GOING TO ST. IVES; WATER LILIES in CABBIES, COWBOYS AND THE TREE OF THE WEEPING VIRGIN; THE MEMORY OF WATER; WHITE PEOPLE; TWO-HEADED; THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE; GROSS INDECENCY: THE THREE TRIAL OF OSCAR WILDE; C’EST MOI in MERE MORTALS and THREE DAYS OF RAIN. Keven has designed all of SLAC’s sets and many of the costumes for the last thirteen years.
SLAC Notes:
FIRST SUNDAY MATINEE POST-PLAY DISCUSSION: Sunday, September 16th, 2007 following the matinee performance, hosted by SLAC Dramaturg Mike Dorrell in the Upstairs theatre.
2nd Wednesday Preshow presentation: Wednesday, September 19th at 7:00pm, an introduction to the play by SLAC Literary Department and guests.
NEW PLAY SOUNDING SERIES: Monday, October 1, 2007 at 7:00 pm
New plays, new voices. Theatre unplugged.
Play to be announced
Free Staged Readings and Talk Backs. Be a part of theatre in the making.
Sponsored by American Express and the Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts, and Parks Program
SATURDAY MATINEE POSTPLAY DISCUSSION: Saturday, October 6th following the Matinee performance, hosted by SLAC Dramaturg Mike Dorrell.
Salt Lake Acting Company
168 West 500 North, Salt Lake City, Utah 84103
Fact Sheet
SLAC PRODUCTION
MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS
PLAYWRIGHT Ron Hutchinson
DIRECTOR Keven Myhre
CAST Paul Kiernan, Morgan Lund, David Spencer, Annette Wright
SET DESIGN Keven Myhre
LIGHT DESIGN Z
COSTUME DESIGN K. L. Alberts
SOUND DESIGN Cynthia L. Kehr Rees
PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER Sarah Mohr
DATES Previews: September 12th & 13th, 2007
Opening: September 14, 2007
Closing: October 7, 2007
TIMES Previews: Wed & Thurs- 7:30PM
Regular: Wed & Thurs- 7:30PM
Fri & Sat- 8:00PM
Sun- 2:00PM & 7:00PM
Sat. Matinee: Sat. October 6, 2007 - 2:00pm
TICKETS $13 - $34, students/30 & under/senior discounts available.
BOX OFFICE (801) 363-SLAC (7522) (Mon-Fri- 10:00AM to 6:00PM) or www.saltlakeactingcompany.org to buy online.