feature article - august 2007

“Moonlight and Magnolias” opens theater season

MILWAUKEE CHAMBER Theatre gets the season started early this month with  “Moonlight and Magnolias,” a hilarious comedy a bout the making of historic movie, Gone with the Wind.

Written by Emmy Award-winning writer/producer Ron Hutchinson, the comedy will run from Aug. 9-26 in the Cabot Theatre of the Broadway Theatre Center, 158 N. Broadway in Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward. 

Based on actual events of 1939 Hollywood, the play is both a celebration of film and a scathing critique of the movie-making business. Disappointed with the progress of his latest project, producer David O. Selznick is determined to overhaul the working screenplay of Gone with the Wind. He drags screenwriter Ben Hecht to his office to rework the script, despite Hecht’s protest that he hasn’t even read Margaret Mitchell’s popular novel.

Locked in Selznick’s office for five says, Selznick, Hecht and director Victor Fleming survive on a diet of Selznick’s “brain food” (bananas and peanuts). The battle over details of the new script from Rhett Butler’s final words to Scarlett O’Hara to the shape of the plantation’s pillars.

To remedy Hecht’s lack of knowledge about the novel, Selznick and Fleming unashamedly and hysterically act out key scenes in the book for him. Opposite personalities collide, genuine emotions and beliefs emerge and the three men overcome their own doubts and those of Hollywood to create one of the most famous films of all time.

Margaret Mitchell’s novel was published in 1936 and soon became the fastest-selling book of all time. The movie adaptation premiered in Atlanta in 1939 and won a record-setting ten Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actress (Vivien Leigh) best Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel) Best Director (Fleming) and Best Screenplay.

For ticket information call 414-291-7800 or visit www.chamber-theatre.com.