A Good Hair Day

River Valley and Northwest Arkansas audiences will have a chance to see theater performed by an internationally known company when the Alma Performing Arts Center hosts the L.A. Theatre Works production of Robert Harling's "Steel Magnolias" for one night only Feb. 21.

The California-based theater company has recorded more than 500 live performances of stage plays, which are then edited to produce a weekly two-hour broadcast that is heard on radio and in podcast format throughout the United States and internationally. Since 1974, the mission of the company has been "to record and preserve great performances of important stage plays, using new technology to make world-class theater accessible to the widest possible audience and to expand the use of theater as a teaching tool."

"We're not a conventional theater company," says Susan Albert Loewenberg, founder and producing director of the company. "When we're on tour, people are working with microphones, and we use lighting and costumes and very interesting projections instead of a conventional set. We do live sound effects on stage, so you're seeing something done a little differently than we do in any ordinary theater production. But you forget about that, because you're so immersed in the characters and the story. That's really what carries the audience along and brings them into the world of the play."

This marks the 30th year since Robert Harling's play was made into the 1989 hit movie starring Dolly Parton, Sally Field and Shirley MacLaine. Loewenberg says the play still resonates as strongly today as it did when it premiered on stage in 1987.

"It's a beautiful piece about friendship," she says. "It's about how people support each other in good times and bad. It's a charming and funny and touching example of that, the way in which this group of women utilize the bonds of friendships to enrich each of their lives."

NAN What's Up on 02/17/2019