Cheap Seats Moonlight & Magnolias locks you in with Gone With The Wind

Welcome to Cheap Seats, where every Thursday we’ll talk to folks behind the scenes of the stage events opening around town in order to give you a flavor of the productions that won’t be found in any of the promo materials.

Moonlight & Magnolias, Overture Center, April 28-May 15

Promo pull quote: “It’s 1939 and Hollywood is abuzz. Legendary producer David O. Selznick has shut down production of his new epic, Gone With The Wind, dissatisfied with the adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s 800-page book. In desperation he locks himself in his office with screenwriter Ben Hecht and director Victor Fleming, determined to fix the script.”

What it’s really about: With a title plucked from one of Clark Gable’s quips from the film, Moonlight & Magnolias is a screwball comedy about the making of Gone With The Wind. The film was one of Hollywood’s first popular book adaptations, and producer David O. Selznick had a lot riding on it being a success. So when the film started shooting and he realized he hated the script, he took drastic measures to turn the film into his vision. “What we know for sure is that in 1939, Selznick shut down the production, fired the director, and locked himself in a room with a new director and a screenwriter, and for five days they came up with a rewrite,” says Jennifer Uphoff Gray, director of the play and Forward Theater Artistic Director. “So the play imagines what hilarity might have ensued during those five days.” Think of Moonlight & Magnolias as a theater-based, fan-fiction production.

Fun fact: Really though, Moonlight & Magnolias treats Gone With The Wind with less reverence than you would imagine. It doesn’t sugarcoat the fact that the film and the book have some, uh, problematic elements (hello, casual racism), and it doesn’t act like Gone With The Wind is some unimpeachable classic. It’s overall less about the film than it is about the struggles that led to it. “What makes the play, really, is the craziness of this incident from Hollywood history, where you have these three people who have locked themselves in a room for five days; they never went home to shower, and they kept eating peanuts and bananas because Selznick thought it was brain food,” Uphoff Gray says. “The fact that it’s a well-known movie being worked on certainly helps, though. But it’s not a play that exists because the playwright wants to critique Gone With The Wind. It’s a play that exists because the playwright read a biography that mentioned this situation, and thought this has the makings of a comedy.”

Why you should try it: Because it’s a play that allows you the opportunity to pretend like you’ve seen Gone With The Wind (or at least read the book, which you’d probably prefer) while also appreciating the stuff about cutting out some of Scarlett O’Hara’s kids. But it’s also a look into the creative process, with fewer struggles than the writers of Gone With The Wind had to face. “I let the actors eat anything they want, and the doors to our studio remain unlocked throughout,” Uphoff Gray says.