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Can you spot a bottle job at 20 paces?

Posted on March 25th, 2025 By: Carolyn Bick

“Steel Magnolias” is perhaps one of the most iconic and quotable movies of the late 1980s. Decades after the film’s 1989 release, it’s still the subject of deep-dive reflections, quote roundups, and anniversary articles (Author’s Note: Spoilers lie within those links — be warned!).

But did you know it was a play first?

Written in 1987, the play takes place in a single room — Truvy’s beauty shop — and memorializes through dialogue and pointed action in a purposefully small space what outwardly appears to be the “pretty” lives of six Southern women over the in-play course of a little more than a year-and-a-half.

Ghostlight Performing Arts will put on the play in May. Directed by Jeffrey Bassett, a Kitsap Superior Court judge and longtime stage director, the local company’s production of “Steel Magnolias” at the Nichols Center on Fox Island will both remain faithful to the stage production and pay homage to the 1989 film via small “winks” in its set design.

But just how different could a stage play be from a movie?

Well, very, it turns out.

On stage from left to right, Bella Cummings, Bobbi Weatherholt, Elizabeth Booth and Robyn McGilvrey — the stage manager and costumes designer, standing in for Elly Edwards, who was unable to attend the day’s rehearsal — rehearse “Steel Magnolias” at the Nichols Center on Fox Island on March 23, 2025. Director Jeffrey Bassett, front left, and Ghostlight founder Rex Davison, front right, look on. Photo by Carolyn Bick. © Carolyn Bick.

Gig Harbor Now caught up with Ghostlight Productions’ very busy founder and co-production manager, Rex Davison, to dive into Ghostlight’s upcoming production of “Steel Magnolias” — and, of course, talk (beauty) shop.

Gig Harbor Now: So, why “Steel Magnolias?” Does it have a special significance for you?

Rex Davison: I saw the movie in the theater in 1989. And since then, I think I’ve seen that movie at least 50 times. I watch it over and over again. It’s very quotable, you know — every line is a one-liner. But I saw the stage play maybe 15 years ago.

GHN: For readers who aren’t familiar, what is “Steel Magnolias” about? It’s kind of hard to pin down, if you think about it, but what would you say it’s about?

Davison: I think it’s about the camaraderie with women. It’s a group of women that — how do I say it? It shows you how women are there for each other, and they help each other out through hard times, and they celebrate with each other in good times.

This wouldn’t work with a group of men. I think it works well with women because women are more — there’s just a lot of emotion that goes along [with it], and this goes around in this play, just like the movie. And so women, they’re strong, but yet they’re sensitive and they can relate to each other.

It’s about six women who are just there for each other all the time.They talk through things and there’s a humor written into it, because they’re Southern women with one-liners. Even though the subject matter is kind of sad, it’s funny. They make it funny, so you’re not dragged down during the whole thing.

For me, the whole thing is in the name of the play, “Steel Magnolias.” The reason why it’s called that is because a magnolia is delicate. It’s Southern. It’s delicate. It’s pretty.

And that’s what these women are. They represent magnolias.They’re pretty and they’re delicate and they’re sensitive — but they’re like steel, when it comes to family, each other. It’s like you have a steel magnolia — that it’s delicate, but it’s really not.

So, the characters — it’s funny, I relate them to boy bands. In a boy band, each singer has a different personality and they’re marketed that way.

So every girl in the country has one favorite in the whole band. And these women all have different personalities.

Weezer is really mean and gruff. Clairee is very sophisticated and fashionable. Annelle is the frumpy little nerdy girl who goes through different stages throughout the play. Shelby’s the popular one. And M’Lynn is the motherly one.

The age differences are from [Annelle, who is] 19 all the way up to, I’m assuming, Clairee, who is in her late 60s, probably. So you’ve got six different women with six different age ranges.

GHN: There was something that you were circling around, but didn’t directly say, which is that no men appear in this play. I think that really underscores the “steel magnolia” thing, where women are strong enough to take care of themselves. And they do. And they have their own special meeting places. Men have boxed them in in different ways, but then they also get to therefore exclude men from certain areas, just as they’ve been excluded and also uphold their own societies.

Davison: I know [Harling] did that on purpose with the play. I think he wanted to emphasize the female perspective on things, and how Southern women anyway are. This is the way they are. This is the way they talk. This is the way they think about things.

I think having men in there would throw everything off because this is a — so, [the beauty shop] is a place where men don’t go. That’s another reason why there are no men in the play, because men [usually] don’t go to beauty shops. And this takes place in the ‘80s. So it was even worse back then.

I think he just wants to emphasize how, when he was growing up, women are really there for each other.

GHN: So, I wanted to bring up the elephant in the room: A man wrote this. Is there some way he manages to capture the Southern female experience in a better way than other male writers who try to write women do?

Davison: This movie is iconic to gay men, so I always wonder if [the playwright is] gay.* Gay men love “Steel Magnolias,” because [gay men] like strong women characters with good writing.

But sometimes I wonder, because his lines are so diva — so one-liner diva stuff that drag queens would say.

[For example, Dolly Parton’s character says,] “There’s so much static electricity here. Everything sticks to me but boys and money,” or something like that.**

I’ve seen this done by drag queens the whole play.

GHN: Really? Where? That’s so cool.

Davison: Oh, in Seattle. It was a long time ago. And they called it — I don’t remember the name they called it. I always said if I did it, I would want to call it “Steel Dragnolias.”

GHN: I was going to say that!

Davison: [laughs] There’s just something about the gay culture that revolves around designing women and those kinds of shows, where they’re really strong female characters.

GHN: I would love to get into the nitty-gritty of how putting on a stage play differs from putting together a movie. Even though “Steel Magnolias” was a stage play first, it still differs from the film, beyond the fact that there are no male characters in the stage play. From my understanding, most people don’t think about the fact that rehearsing and blocking and so forth for a movie is fundamentally different from a stage play.

Davison: I’ve been in that situation, because I lived in L.A. and did all that acting stuff.

I think filming is easier because they don’t film it in order. So, they might film [a particular] scene first and then go back. And so the thing about that is you learn your lines the night before and then shoot it the next day.

You do it in little tiny chunks and it usually takes three months to film a movie. The play — you’ve got to rehearse two to three months to do the play because the whole thing takes place in an hour.

So you have to memorize a whole script for two hours worth of play. Whereas in Hollywood, you learn just like, “OK, what’s my scene tomorrow? OK, I’ll learn that tonight.” And then they go shoot it, do a couple of takes and you’re done.

On the play, you mess up. Like last night, we were rehearsing and a picture fell down off the wall. And you either ad lib and work it in like, “Oh, no, your picture fell down, Truvy,” or you just ignore it.

And in a movie you get to go up, cut, go back, action. I think it’s harder for a stage play because of all the stuff that has to be done in a short amount of time.

You’re doing a whole production in two hours, whereas your two-hour film actually took three months to film.

And you have to add stuff to the play to make the film. Like, if you were to do this play on film, it would be done so quickly. So they had to add so many scenes and whatever you like.

When people read a book, [they’re like], “Oh, the book was so good. And then you see the movie and they’re like, “Well, how come they didn’t put this in and this in and this in and this in?” It’s because they didn’t have time.

And then “Steel Magnolias,” they had to add scenes in to make it make sense to make it. Otherwise, it wouldn’t relate.

There’s very few movies where they don’t ever leave the room.

What’s challenging about a play is that when you’re blocking a play — blocking means you’re telling the actors what they’re doing while they’re acting — it’s funny, because when you first start on the first day, everyone’s just kind of sitting around and standing around delivering lines. And you have to go, “OK, I want to walk over here and grab a hairdryer. And at the same time, I want Clairee to do this.”

It takes a long time, because each time you rehearse, you’re adding more things and adding more things. And so, to me, that’s harder because when you’re in a play, when you’re on a stage for two hours, you have to keep the action going or else people are going to be bored.

If I just had them sitting in beauty chairs for two hours and not moving, that wouldn’t work. So you have to go, “OK, where do you want her to go?”

And the whole thing is blocked down to the movement. So everything you’re going to see on stage, it’s been blocked.

We had to bring a beautician in to teach [the actors] how to do hair, because in the scene where Shelby’s getting ready for the wedding, they’re doing her hair.

From left to right, Bobbi Weatherholt, Elizabeth Booth, and Robyn McGilvrey rehearse “Steel Magnolias,” as Bella Cummings, bottom left, and a friend who came to help with set decoration look on. Photo by Carolyn Bick. © Carolyn Bick.

GHN: That is so cool! Whom did you bring in, if I may ask?

Davison: It’s our stage manager’s mother-in-law, who is a beautician. She came in one day after rehearsal and literally did the stage manager’s hair while the [actors playing Truvy and Annelle] watched.

GHN: Oh, wow. So, basically, what you are saying is that the actors have to both memorize their lines and actually look like they know what they are doing with hair?

Davison: Yeah, but she didn’t — she’s never cut hair before, the actress, so we had to teach her how to roll, use rollers and use hairspray and use all this stuff. The poor [actor] — I go, “You realize that you are doing hair during your lines and she goes, “Oh, crap. I never thought about that.”

And so she sometimes loses lines, because she’s so [focused]. … And then sometimes she’ll be delivering her lines and forget that she’s supposed to be doing hair. She’s trying to merge those two things together. That’s a challenge of any acting.

GHN: So, how are your actors feeling with all that? Are they feeling confident?

Davison: Oh, so here’s the deal: This is the best cast I’ve ever worked with, because number one, the lady who plays Ouiser Boudreaux, she’s done this three times already. She’s already played this part three times. And when she came in to audition, it’s the only part she wanted. She’s very good at it.

Another of my actresses, she did one of M’Lynn’s monologues for a contest or something, and she won.

And then all the women that came in to this audition wanted it, wanted to do this play. They weren’t doing it just because, “Oh, I need to do a play. I’m bored.” They were like, “Steel Magnolias” — I want it. I want to be in it.”

The girl who plays Shelby is only 17. She graduated early from high school, and she’s done a lot of theater growing up. She is just so good.

Normally, people are not off-book, until sometimes a week, week-and-a-half before opening. And I’m like, “Why are you not off book? You need to memorize your lines!”

These women were doing it last night without their books. And I’m like, “You’re kidding me. You guys are already off book. This is amazing.”

GHN: That’s awesome! You sound so excited about this.

Davison: Yeah. It’s going to be good. I’m really happy with the casting.

We haven’t done costumes yet, either. So we’re finding wigs that — we need ’80s hair wigs and stuff like that.

GHN: I was going to ask how the hair is going to look. Because you have to. It’s “Steel Magnolias.”

Davison: Yeah. So a few of them are going to wear wigs, because their hair changes so much over the [course of the play]. But a couple of them are not wearing wigs. And we’re just going to do their hair normal.

And there’s a lot of washing and drying. I bought a dryer, one of those old dryers with the hood.

GHN: Yes, yes, the one that looks kind of like an alien hat.

Davison: I bought one and I made it look old. And we have a shampoo sink that I got from OfferUp. It’s not connected to water. But we’re going to pretend it is. And I got two beauty chairs from OfferUp.

And the whole thing takes place in a converted carport. So I made the stage look like a converted carport.

GHN: I was actually going to ask: Are there any nods to the movie in the production?

Davison: This is not in the movie, but do you remember Nagel’s paintings from the ‘80s?

GHN: I am afraid I was born in ’88, so no.

Davison: OK. [He was] a famous painter, and they are close-ups of a woman’s face. So what I did was, I went and downloaded pictures of the actresses from the movie from the ’80s. They’re all modeling shots and stuff that I got, not from any movies, but just themselves in the ’80s.

In the ’80s — I don’t know if they still do it now — beauticians used to hang up hair pictures. So I have six of them — six pictures framed. And, of course, they are brass, because that’s what everything was back then.

They’re far enough away where you may be able [to tell who they are], which is fine.

I don’t want people to go, “Oh, there’s Dolly Parton on the wall!” I want them to go, “Is that Dolly Parton?” You know what I mean?

Gig Harbor Now: Yes.

Davison: And it was hard to find a picture of her that didn’t look like Dolly Parton.

Gig Harbor Now: I mean, Dolly Parton is Dolly Parton. She will never be anyone else.

Davison: Yeah. But I found one of Sally Field with flyaway hair, and she’s modeling something. So, they’re going to be on the walls in the background. It should be far enough away where it’s questionable.

Gig Harbor Now: A very important question I forgot to ask: Can you spot a bottle job at 20 paces?

Davison: “There’s no such thing as natural beauty.”

Steel Magnolias

“Steel Magnolias” opens at Fox Island’s Nichols Community Center on Friday, May 2, and will play throughout the month of May. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. on Sundays. General admission tickets are $20. Tickets for those 65 and older or in the military are $15, and tickets for children ages 10 and under are $10.

On Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 11, theatre-goers are invited to attend a special Mother’s Day tea at 1 p.m. The theatre will have special dinner-style seating for patrons to enjoy a Southern tea, complete with sweet tea, finger sandwiches, and pastries.*** Tickets for that day’s performance are $35, which includes the cost of the tea.

More information on ticketing and showtime can be found here.

Some more author’s notes

* This reporter looked it up, and yes! The playwright, Robert Harling, is an openly gay man.

** The quote is a true gem: “Honey, there’s so much static electricity in here, I pick up everything except boys and money.”

*** Alas, there will be no bleeding armadilla’ cake.