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General News: Steel Magnolias Debuts Friday
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| Steel Magnolia cast members (l to r): Gahlia Greene-Kaufman, Sarah Fulton, Anne Fulton, Cynthia Topps, Ilene Osinski and Pamela Hawks. |
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| Shelby (Sarah Fulton) gets her nails done and talks with the widow Claree (Ilene Osinski) and beautician Truvy (Cynthia Topps). |
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| Shelby's mother (Anne Fulton) doles out advise while Annelle (Gahlia Greene-Kaufman) fixes her hair. |
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| Ouiser (Pamela Hawks) arrives in a sour mood. |
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| The sign echoes the beauty parlor's motto. Widow Claree Baxter (Ilene Osinksi) waits her turn in the chair. |
February 26, 2009
A group of local actresses is bringing to the stage an emotion-packed comedy/drama that reveals the strength that women draw from friendships that last a lifetime. Steel Magnolias was written by a man, Robert Harling, but as performed by an all-female cast of the Canterbury Theatre Ensemble at Storm King School, it plumbs the depths of a woman’s soul.
The setting is a beauty parlor in small-town Louisiana, where owner Truvy Jones dishes out plenty of advice along with her hair-dos. Her clients sit in their chairs trading recipes, gossip, dreams and disappointments in their lives.
Shelby Eatenton, played by Storm King School senior Sarah Fulton, is the focus of the ladies in the first scene as she gets her hair done for her wedding day. Her mother, played by Sarah’s real-life mother, Anne Fulton, frets about the wedding plans and worries about the health of her diabetic daughter.
The ensemble cast includes Ilene Osinski, who plays the widowed wife of the town’s mayor and Pamela Hawks, who plays the crochety Ouiser Boudreaux, whose sour personality still has not alienated her friends at the beauty parlor. Both Osinski and Hawks are well-known to theater-goers in Cornwall for their work in numerous productions of the Canterbury Theatre Ensemble and Stormy Weather Players.
Cindy Topps sparkles as the spirit behind the beauty parlor, where she quips that “there is no such thing as natural beauty” to keep her customers coming back. Topps, who was the president of the Cornwall Community Theatre back in the early 1990s, is now the artistic director of the Muddy Waters Players in Warwick and just one point away from becoming an Equity actor.
The youngest cast member is Gahlia Greene-Kaufman, a Storm King School junior who also is the captain of the school’s girl’s basketball team. She is sweet and tender as Annelle, the newly-hired assistant at the beauty parlor who appears to be hiding secrets from her past.
Wynn Klosky directs Steel Magnolias and she says that she was drawn to the play because it epitomizes the enduring power of friendships through good times and bad. She visited a beauty school in Newburgh to get a flavor for the beauty parlor atmosphere and says that Cindy Topps spent an entire day at a beauty school, washing clients’ hair to find inspiration for her role as Truvy.
New Windsor native and community theater lover Melissa A. Cardinal is the stage manager of this fine production. Harold Heno, who is the chair of Storm King School’s performing and visual arts department, serves as the lighting designer, and Rob Ward, of Scenic Technologies, built the set.
The women in the ensemble cast, who will be staging the performances on February 27 and 28 and March 1, 6, 7, at the Storm King School’s Walter Reade Theatre, say they jumped at the opportunity to play the tough, sweet characters that inhabit the world of this small Louisiana town. Anne Fulton, who normally works behind-the-scenes producing plays, says she wanted to play opposite her daughter, Sarah, who graduates this year.
The warmth and cooperation of all the players make this a special production of Steel Magnolias that you won’t want to miss. Click here for more details about the show times.
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