Making the Most of Moonlight Memorabilia

Posted by John Steils

Moonlight and Magnolias was the original working title of the novel that you and I know and love as Gone with the Wind. Moonlight and Magnolias is also the title of a hilarious new comedy by Ron Hutchinson that is making the rounds of lots of regional theatres nationwide and will be opening in its Virginia premiere at Barksdale Willow Lawn tomorrow night.

This very funny new play is about an extraordinary rescue mission devised by film producer David O. Selznick, portrayed by Joe Pabst in the photo above and to the right with Joy Williams as his secretary Miss Popenghul. The making of Gone with the Wind was not going well, history tells us, so Selznick fired his original director, George Cukor and, playwright Hutchinson imagines, escaped for five days to his locked office with new director Victor Fleming (portrayed by David Bridgewater in the foreground of the photo above and to the left), and dramatist Ben Hecht to rewrite the screenplay and rescue the film.

Comic madness ensues.

We’re really excited about Moonlight and Magnolias, and we want Richmond to be excited too. We want coming to see Moonlight and Magnolias to be an EVENT, just like going to see Gone with the Wind was an EVENT in the early 40s.

So our marketing department contacted John Wiley, Jr., a great guy and Richmond resident who also happens to be one of the nation’s foremost collectors of Gone with the Wind memorabilia. John’s museum-quality collection has not been shown publicly in Richmond since 1989. But for the last week, John and Judi Crenshaw, our publicist extraordinaire, have been assembling the fascinating memorabilia in our lobby gallery.

Now there are two reasons to visit Barksdale Willow Lawn during the next six weeks—a great play AND a great exhibit. My camera doesn't do justice at all to the artifacts, so please imagine them in much better light.

The gallery display includes copies of nearly every book and biography ever written about David O. Selznick, Victor Fleming and Ben Hecht, the three major characters in the show. There are life-size color cutouts of Vivien Leigh as Scarlett and Clark Gable as Rhett, created originally as lobby displays for the film. There’s an autographed first edition of the novel, with dust jacket—signed by Margaret Mitchell herself.

There are actual front pages from The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution on the days that Ms Mitchell was injured and died. Among a wealth of other Mitchell memorabilia, there are signed Christmas cards and the shiny green book band that was added to all copies of Gone with the Wind after it won the Pulitzer Prize.

Two Richmond women also figure in the collection. The first is Marcella Rabwin, a Richmond-native who wrote Yes, Mr. Selznick after serving as his executive assistant for 15 years. Ms Rabwin’s character is portrayed in the play by Joy Williams. And then there’s Em Bowles Locker Alsop, a Richmond native who was one of only 31 women to be brought to Hollywood for a screen test for the role of Scarlett. Photos and other mementos from both women are featured prominently in the display.

There are also original posters, an original film reel (complete with the film itself), a press badge from the opening of the film in Atlanta, and endless magazine covers, paper dolls and sheet music, many in different languages. Among my favorite items are a series of signed costume sketches.

So, if you enjoy comedy, if you enjoy history, if you enjoy having a great night on the town, don’t miss Moonlight and Magnolias, starring Dave Bridgewater, Joe Pabst and Scotty Wichmann (pictured to the left), and directed by Steve Perigard. And join us in thanking John Wiley, Jr. for sharing his remarkable and fascinating collection with all of Richmond.

--John Steils

Why Do These People Look So Tired?

Posted by Bruce Miller

Well, all right. Scotty, Debra and Joe don’t look so tired. It’s just me.

In the old days, the Barksdale tradition for tech Sundays was for Muriel to make a huge pot of her spaghetti (with green olives, of course) to serve to the cast and crew between the afternoon and evening rehearsals.

Even though we finally arrived at a respectable recreation of Muriel’s beloved meat sauce (minus the cigarette ash that she always claimed to be the secret ingredient), we gave up trying to make the sauce itself in 2002. After two years of cooking at home and hauling the spaghetti fixins to the theatre in giant tubs, we decided enough was enough. If you want to re-experience Muriel’s magnificent abbondanza, you will find the recipe in Erin Thomas’s upcoming theatre cookbook.

Since 2002, we have made our lives easier. We now walk across the Willow Lawn parking lot and enjoy our delicious and moderately priced tech dinner at The Crazy Greek, where the flaming saganaki has become as legendary as Muriel’s spaghetti—well, almost. Our kindly restaurateur friends push several tables together and we all have a grand old time.

The photo shown above and to the right was taken just before the tech dinner for Moonlight and Magnolias. We are standing in front of The Crazy Greek and across the street from El Toro Loco at the Intersection of Insane Eateries. Debra and I are the interlopers. We heard “free meal” and we were there, rushing over from the Tavern after our Sunday matinee of Swingtime Canteen, which opened last week.

To confess, the rushing and the late hours have finally gotten the best of me. After several 100+ hour work weeks in a row, I’ve finally lost it.

Yesterday, I started the day with staff meeting at 9:15, then planned some improvements to the Swingtime sound system, then went to the JCC to seek their guidance on the proper Hanukkah display for the Barksdale lobby, and then sought out and purchased the appropriate electric Menorah (we can’t have lit candles) and other Judaica that we had decided upon. Do you know how hard it is to find a blue tablecloth in Richmond?

I met with Jackie Gann about how to best credit Gino’s Italian Restaurant as our “Doughnut Sponsor” for Swingtime. I checked in on Judi Crenshaw and John Wiley as they set up the amazing Gone with the Wind gallery exhibit in the Barksdale lobby. I received a fund development update from Phil, who had just completed a very successful day raising money. I planned my next moves on two major fee-for-service grant programs that we have in development.

At 4:30, we began a Theatre IV Board meeting (with record attendance, I’m proud to say) and I left the theatre at 6:30 feeling like I’d put in a full day’s work. I made it home by 6:45, and immediately left with Terrie to go to my son’s orchestra concert—he had a solo on the double bass.

Just as we were sitting down at 7 and the curtain was rising, Terrie’s cell phone rang. Mine was on the fritz. It was Ginnie Willard, reminding me that I was supposed to be, at that very moment, directing auditions for The Little Dog Laughed from 7 until 10. So out of the middle school auditorium I ran, and made it back to the Empire by 7:30, where I apologized profusely to the waiting auditionees.

Thankfully, Corey Davis and Jason Campbell had filled in ably in my stead.

How can you really explain being brain dead because you’ve just come out of four weeks of working 15/7 directing Swingtime Canteen while trying to juggle a hundred other responsibilities. You can't. It comes off as whining. Shoot, I’m whining now.

So, why do I look so tired in the photo? And why did I forget about my own auditions—which is about as stupid as you can get? Who knows? To quote my least favorite thing that is said to me with regularity when folks find out I’m employed by a theatre: “It must be nice not to have to work for a living.”

--Bruce Miller