Southern belles turn out for 'Steel Magnolias' auditions

SUFFOLK

At auditions for “Steel Magnolias” on Saturday morning, Coryn LaVeist and Betty Ann Campbell both said they’d been performing “forever.” 

LaVeist is 17 years old, and Campbell is 88.

The two represented the females of all ages, shapes and performance backgrounds who turned out to audition for the Suffolk Community Theatre production. Director Steve Earle held tryouts at the Suffolk Center and another round of auditions, and then callbacks, is slated for 7 p.m. Monday.

“Steel Magnolias” is the quintessentially Southern play about the lives of six women who assemble at Truvy’s beauty parlor. The entire cast is composed of those six female characters, whose suggested character ages range from 17 to 70. Earle said he’s searching for a talented and multicultural cast for his production, which premieres Oct. 15.

“It’s really just a lovely story about hope and love and faith,” Earle said. “We see them sort of at each other’s throats. We also see the eye rolls, and the having to put up with the eccentricities of their neighbors.”

The range of actors Earle wanted certainly showed up Saturday. The women who auditioned performed heartbreaking monologues and backward fairytales. One had been planning her audition for weeks, while another heard about it the day before.

LaVeist, a senior at the Governor’s School for the Arts in Norfolk, has studied acting in Illinois and had prepared a monologue. Dee Reynolds of Suffolk rolled up to the auditions on a bright blue motorcycle. She sings at church, but her acting career consists of an Easter show in which she played a lady who cried the whole time.

“I just thought it would be fun to try,” Reynolds said. “I refuse to not do something for lack of trying.”

And then there’s Betty Ann Campbell. The Suffolk octogenarian has performed since she was nine – starting with piano and the organ. She’s grabbed lead roles in at least 10 plays and a couple musicals in the past 30 years, she said. Now she serves as director and accompanist of the senior chorus at the Lake Prince Woods retirement community, where she lives. She’s inspired by performers like Betty White and Helen Hayes, she said.

For Saturday, she prepared a monologue from the movie “The Whales of August.” After performing it, she received an instant callback.

“I think it’s an opportunity to show a very eccentric character, regardless of age,” she said. “I like to see the seniors given an opportunity.

“So often, people think we’re too old. But we’re not.”