THEATRE + COMEDY

Theatre Southwest presents Moonlight and Magnolias.  Directed by Kathy Drum. New Years Gala Dec 31!  Running December 31 through January 21. 

Can three men turn the epic novel Gone With the Wind into a screenplay in 5 days while eating nothing but peanuts and bananas? This is the hilarious story of how it might have happened!

Legendary film producer David O. Selznick is five weeks into shooting Gone With the Wind when he realizes the script is awful and the director doesn't have a clue. He has five days to replace them and restart the shoot or the production shuts down. Selznick calls Victor Fleming from the set of The Wizard to Oz to direct, and he taps legendary playwright, screenwriter and "script doctor" Ben Hecht to rewrite the script.

There's only one problem: Hecht hasn't read the book.

Over the course of five madcap days, the three men, assisted by Selznick's assistant, Miss Poppenghul, frantically craft one of the most beloved screenplays of all time, as Selznick and Fleming act out the book for Hecht and the phone rings off the hook with calls from the likes of Vivien Leigh, Louis B. Mayer and Ed Sullivan.

The play is written as farce, but the characters also deal with serious questions about race and the tenuous power of Jewish executives in Hollywood.

See Moonlight and Magnolias at Theatre Southwest from Dec. 31, 2011 to Jan 21, 2012.