NTC Presents Its Season Opener MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS

Newnan Theatre Company kicks off its 39th season with the comedy Moonlight and Magnolias by Ron Hutchinson. Directed by Jeff Allen, this show is a very funny look at the real-life events surrounding the writing of the screenplay to the film classic Gone With the Wind. It opens Sept. 1 and runs through Sept. 11. It will be presented on the Mainstage.

Legendary Hollywood producer David O. Selznick has a problem. He has just fired the director of Gone with the Wind and the script is on its umpteenth version. He desperately needs a new director and writer-immediately. However, the writer he wants, Ben Hecht, has never read the novel. Selznick gives him a brief synopsis of the story and offers him $15,000 to write a revised screenplay by the end of the week. Selznick also calls in director Victor Fleming, pulling him from finishing The Wizard of Oz to be the new director of Gone With the Wind. Hecht is still not sold on the success of the storyline, but Selznick believes in this movie, so much so that he locks the three of them in his office for five days, with bananas and peanuts as their only food, to pull together a new script.

Work begins. Selznick and Fleming attempt to act out all the characters in the novel while Hecht types. Early in the week, Hecht and Fleming constantly clash. By day three, fatigue, hunger and sarcasm prevail. Tempers flare. There's even an attempt to escape from the office-if only for just a shower and a meal. By the end of the week, Selznick asks, "Is there anything wrong with getting the job done, no matter what it takes?" Completing this job may take everything these men have to give.

Director Jeff Allen jumped at the chance to direct this show. "Gone With the Wind is such a part of my life, as it is most everyone born in the South," he says. "The old saying of truth being stranger than fiction always seems to be true. Selznick basically kidnapped a director and a screenwriter, and held them for ransom - the ransom being the finished script to Gone With the Wind. And nobody thought anything of it! It was almost normal for Selznick to do something like this!"

Playing the role of the bombastic studio producer David Selznick is Robert Stowe. His weary hostages, Ben Hecht and Victor Fleming, are played by Corey Hendrick and Ralph Myers. Selznick's beautiful secretary, Miss Poppenghul, is played by Michelle Mason. While all of the performers are not new to the Newnan Theatre Company stage, this is the first time any of them have played a real person. "It is a challenge," Stowe says, "studying the legendary character of David. O. Selznick. His whole world revolved around what movie he was putting together next. He never slowed down. Life was business, and business was film."

Moonlight and Magnolias starts September 1 and runs through September 11. Tickets are available by going to the NTC website, www.newnantheatre.org , or by calling 770.683.6282. Shows begin at 8 PM for the Thursday - Saturday shows, and at 3 PM for Sunday matinees. If there are any questions about the show, please call Tony Daniel, the artistic director of Newnan Theatre Company, at 770.683.6282, or you can contact him at artistic-director@newnantheatre.org.

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