Robert Harling originally wrote Steel Magnolias as a short story to help cope with the death of his sister in 1985. She had given birth to a son but died from diabetes complications shortly after.

Rather than emphasizing a sad situation, Harling balanced the tale with humor. The short story became a play, a hit movie, and most importantly, a tribute to his sister and the comfort and support of a group of women in a small Louisiana town.

The Ann Arbor Civic Theatre is staging Steel Magnolias May 8-11 at the Arthur Miller Theatre on the North Campus of the University of Michigan.

Lindsey Brown is directing her first play for Civic.

“I was really drawn to the Magnolias because there is really something extraordinary about the communal aspect of the show,” she said. “Why this play now? I really think it’s very poignant in 2025 because there was something we missed from that timeline. At the risk of sounding regressive, not cool, not young, it’s a fact that we have our phones in our faces all the time. I think there is something I really miss about being in a room with people and being in touch with people who care about each other.”

Brown is a 2021 graduate of Eastern Michigan. Since earning her degree in theater arts, she’s been a stage manager for the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, worked with Theatre Nova’s young artists summer camp, directed a play for the Burns Park Players, and dived into an experimental theater group in Ypsilanti.

Steel Magnolias was a different kind of challenge.

“This is my first job at the Ann Arbor Civic Theater, and I took a risk when they asked, ‘What’s your concept of Steel Magnolias,' and I said I didn’t have one,” she said. “I wanted to meet the women I’m going to be doing this show with, and we’re going to build that concept together. I was not alive in the '80s, but I was really excited to see what the cast members remembered and what the world was like then. I really wanted to build a full experience that felt real and not the cheap or costume version of what that time was like.”

The play version of Steel Magnolias is very different from the movie version. The play is confined to one set, Truvy Jones’ beauty parlor, where a group of women gather to gossip, needle each other, laugh and argue with each other, and, most importantly, console each other. The men of the town are never seen but often talked about. As the women in the play bond with each other, so have the actors rehearsing the play.

“What we are seeing is a stage where it is 100 percent safe to be really vulnerable with each other,” Brown said. “The cast spent lots of time talking about the script, about what things mean. My cast last night played out a lot of heavy conversation about this script. They talked about religion, they talked about sexuality, they talked about grief and loss, and they do it all in a way that is really vulnerable. They can talk about the way the men in their lives show up for them and the men in their lives who fail to show up for them.”

In addition to learning to relate to the women in the beauty parlor, they have also learned to speak with a Southern accent while also trying to bring their characters to life. Each character has a story of their own.

Ellen Finch plays Clairee, the widow of the town's former mayor. Denyse Clayton plays Ouiser, the town complainer and Clairee’s friend despite it all. Kara Williams plays the amiable Truvy, whose beauty parlor creates a home away from home for the women of the town. Sierra Chapin-Keller plays Annelle, a hair stylist hired by Truvy who keeps to herself at the beginning of the play, burdened by secrets. Kathleen Beardmore plays M’Lynn, a mental health counselor who, with her professional experience, is worried about her daughter Shelby, who has Type 1 diabetes. The first act of the play begins on Shelby’s wedding day.

Kori Bielaniec plays Shelby, the role that made Julia Roberts a movie star.

“I play Shelby, yes, the Julia Roberts role,” Bielaniec said, getting it out of the way. “I love Shelby as she is pretty much the soft heart of the show. Every character by the end is affected by something that Shelby did or set in motion, even when she’s no longer there. So I love being that role in the show.”

Still, dealing with an audience's memories of  Roberts’ performance in the movie can be a challenge for any actress.

“I don’t want to be Julia Roberts, and that’s the difficult thing about this show,” Bielaniec said. “They are such specific characters from the movie that people remember, but one of the things to also remember is that it is based on Robert Harling’s sister, and that is the real and true way his sister died, and you’re playing this role that is based on a real person.”

Sierra Chapin-Keller plays Annelle, who was played by Daryl Hannah in the movie.

“Annelle is new to town, and she comes into this community is a very tumultuous point in her life,” Chapin-Keller said. “She’s not sure if she’s married or not, and is on the verge of leaving her husband, and she really needs some nurturing and finds it in the salon.”

The role has been a challenge.

“She’s very different from me, so it’s nice to challenge yourself in that regard,” Chapin-Keller said.  “I also think one of the things I like is that it’s a story of women who come from completely different backgrounds and completely different places in life, and there’s not a hint of competition, and they are as they are and love each other and support each other.”

A challenge for Brown and set designer Leo Babcock is creating a beauty parlor for the Arthur Miller Theatre's thrust stage, which allows viewers to see the action from three sides.

“We have an awesome development team and I cannot be more grateful for them,” Brown said. “We’re at the Arthur Miller, which means we’re on a thrust stage and have this huge apron. It’s a scary thing. It’s a beautiful stage. There are big pieces and hair dryers and salon chairs, and we need all of these pieces and have all these things without messing up the sight lines for our audience. It’s really an honor to work in the space. Leo Babcock is our set designer and has a great understanding of the script, so he wants to embrace the script where it says it was a carport that Truvie’s husband enclosed to create the beauty parlor.”

Brown hopes the audience takes something from the experiences of the women in the beauty parlor.

“I want the audience to remember that they can show up for people they love, but also they can ask people to show up for them,” she said. “That’s one of the things we have in this life, the family we’re born with and the family we find, caring for them when they struggle in their life, and also knowing you can let someone care for you. Sometimes it’s as simple as listening, and sometimes it’s heavy, major grief and helping someone through that.”

Hugh Gallagher has written theater and film reviews over a 40-year newspaper career and was most recently the managing editor of the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers in suburban Detroit. 

The Ann Arbor Civic Theatre production of Robert Harling’s "Steel Magnolias" will be presented at 7:30 pm on May 8-10 and at 2 pm on May 11 at the Arthur Miller Theatre, 1226 Murfin Avenue, on the North Campus of the University of Michigan. For information and tickets, go to a2ct.org.