Beatniks on Conkey will stage ‘Steel Magnolias’

“Steel Magnolias” was a hit film starring Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis and Julia Roberts.

It was a success at the box office and later home video that inspired a Lifetime remake and a television series.

But before that it was a play by Robert Harling, which he wrote to cope when his sister died of complications from type 1 diabetes.

Hammond Community Theatre will stage the comedy-drama set in the south at Beatniks on Conkey at 420 Conkey St. in Hammond.Dean Johanson will direct the play, which will star Jennifer Sweet, Laila London, Maggie Reister, Allison Pater, Diana Smoot and Laura Toops.

“The action is set in Truvy’s beauty salon in Chinquapin, Louisiana, where all the ladies who are ‘anybody’ come to have their hair done,” Beatniks on Conkey said in a press release. “Helped by her eager new assistant, Annelle, the outspoken, wise-cracking Truvy dispenses shampoos and free advice to the town’s rich curmudgeon, Ouiser; an eccentric millionaire, Miss Clairee, who has a raging sweet tooth; and the local social leader, M’Lynn, whose daughter, Shelby, is about to marry a ‘good ole boy.’ Filled with hilarious repartee and not a few acerbic but humorously revealing verbal collisions, the play moves toward tragedy when, in the second act, the spunky Shelby (who is a diabetic) risks pregnancy.”