Karen Levin of the North Riverside Players said directing the group’s spring production of Steel Magnolias was the top item on her community theater bucket list.
“I love this show because it embodies the spirit of friendship and the strong bonds that these women have with each other. That, to me, is sacred in my world because I have a very close group of friends, and we’ve known each other for over 30 years,” she said. “It resonated with me so much that I was like, I really want to do this production. I find it so fascinating listening to the dialogue that these women have with each other, the bantering and the true caring these women have for each other.”
The 1987 play, which follows the relationships between six small-town Louisiana women who come together each week at a home hair salon, is set to take the stage at the North Riverside Village Commons, 2401 S. Des Plaines Ave., April 25-27 and May 2-4. The North Riverside Players performed another show with ’80s flair, The Wedding Singer, in the fall.
Levin, an elementary school teacher in Cicero, described the show as her first foray into directing a full-length adult production. Since 2020, she has run the theater program at her school and has also taken the director’s seat for some smaller productions.
“I first started directing with the Westchester Civic Theatre, and they had these 10-minute plays,” she said. “That was a good way for me to put my little toe into the water and see if I liked it, and I did. I really did. I enjoyed working with a really small group of people.”
After having joined the Players as an assistant director and doing other “behind-the-stage” work, she first felt nervous when Cheryl Pold, now her assistant director for Steel Magnolias, approached her about directing the spring production.
“Getting into doing this for adults, I was like, ‘Can I do this?’ And ‘You know what, Karen? It’s on your bucket list. You need to do this show.’”
She said the cast and crew have eased her fears.
“I couldn’t do this without the people I’m working with,” she said. “Not only the six actresses, who are fantastic — you can really see the connection these women have, and some of them are strangers. Also, my assistant director, Cheryl, has led me through this journey. She has helped me so much in how to run a production.”
The biggest hurdle for the group, she added, has been sourcing all the props needed to turn an empty stage into a home hair salon, complete with salon chairs, hair dryers and even a nail station — without breaking the bank. The actors who play Truvy and Annette, the resident hair stylists in the show, have also had to learn how to style hair to bring the environment to life, with the help of a hair coach.
As the director, Levin said she prefers a “mellow” approach in giving direction, and she and Pold are receptive to the cast’s suggestions about their own characters. She also draws on her own life to push the performances further.
“I think about, ‘How would I say this in a conversation that I’m having with my girlfriends?’ And that’s how we direct these six women. ‘How is that conversation you’re having that I know I’ve had with my friends?’ We’ve all gone through divorces, and we’ve gone through parents dying, and all the stuff over the years,” she said. “These conversations are real to me because I’ve had them.”
Levin and the troupe cast the six roles from more than 30 women who auditioned and feels they made the right choices.
“The connection these women are having with each other, I’m loving it. That is such a good thing because if you don’t have that connection with your cast mates, it’s going to be difficult because it is such an intimate group of people,” she said. “You start forging more bonds as you start doing more social things together. We can definitely see that Cheryl and I are getting closer with our cast. … As we grow closer and get closer to the date of this production and start tech week, and we see each other every day, and then opening night, and we’re with each other, it’s going to be like, ‘All right, girls, time for the group hug.’”
