'Steel Magnolias' comes to Brown County Playhouse

A staple of southern Indiana cultural life for more than half a century, professional summer theater returns to Nashville, Ind., tonight as the Brown County Playhouse opens its doors for its 56th season with a production of Robert Harling's comic tragedy "Steel Magnolias." \nThe Playhouse opened in 1949 as a collaborative effort of former drama professor Lee Norvell and Nashville businessman A. Jack Rogers. The company they established has thrived as the longest-running professional summer theater program in Indiana and continues to provide IU students greater opportunities for professional performance.\nIn the 1980s Louisiana town where this drama is set, the lives of six thoroughly Southern women unfold in the local beauty parlor, where hair and nails are styled while joys are celebrated and crises endured.\nHarling, himself a native Southerner, penned the play while starting an acting career in New York City. It was first performed off-Broadway and was quickly adapted for the screen -- the form in which it arguably has become most popular. He has since found great success in film both as a director of "The Evening Star" in 1996 and as a screenwriter for both "The First Wives' Club" in 1996 and "Laws of Attractions," a new summer release this year. \nTonight's stage production of "Steel Magnolias" is directed by IU faculty member Dale McFadden and features several IU students on stage -- among them Allison Batty and Carmen Rae Meyers, both graduate students who appeared in the IU theater department's recent production of "Betty's Summer Vacation."\nThe show will run Wednesday through Sunday nights until July 4. The Playhouse will continue its season with productions of Larry Shue's "The Foreigner," Ray Cooney's "Caught in the Net" and Neil Simon's comic classic "The Odd Couple." Tickets may be purchased in Bloomington at the IU Auditorium Box Office or at the Playhouse Box Office in Nashville.