Penfold Theatre Company opens its 2013-13 season with Moonlight and Magnolias,which plays at City Theatre from tonight, October 4th to 21st.
The script is based on actual events. In 1939, after just three weeks of shooting an adaptation of Margaret Mitchell's best-selling bodice-ripper Gone with the Wind, legendary producer David O. Selznick halts production, fires the director and trashes the screenplay.
With his career and a small fortune on the line, Selznick turns to famed director Victor Fleming and reporter-turned-script doctor Ben Hecht. Held hostage in Selznick's office for five straight days, the men re-write the entire film with nothing but bananas, peanuts and passion to keep them going!
Ron Hutchinson's hilarious telling proves that truth is stranger than fiction. Moonlight and Magnolias, commissioned by the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in 2004, is a side-splitting, behind-the-scenes peek at the precarious birth of one of the most famous and adored movies of all time.
Penfold's production is directed by Austin Chronicle arts editor Robert Faires, who has made use of Austin's own Harry Ransom Center - home of the David O. Selznick collection - to add further detail and texture to the story. The show is the first in Penfold's fifth anniversary season.
City Theatre (3823 Airport Blvd #D, Austin TX 78722)
Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm. Sundays at 5:00pm.
Opening night party following the show on Thursday, October 6th
$25 Opening night, $20 regular, $18 students / seniors
More information available at www.penfoldtheatre.org
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