Interview: Melissa Gilbert Talks STEEL MAGNOLIAS at Totem Pole Playhouse

Red hair shines in the sunlight as Melissa Gilbert crosses the lawn at Totem Pole Playhouse to sit under the gazebo. Although she's best known to many, if not most, people as the young star of television's "Little House on the Prairie," and to others as the latter-day queen of made-for television movies (having inherited that title from Karen Black), she's certainly paid her dues in theatre as well, first having trod the boards at 14 in THE MIRACLE WORKER, which was also filmed with her as Helen Keller and Patty Duke as Annie Sullivan.

She's in Franklin County now, rehearsing for her part as M'Lynn in Totem Pole's production of Robert Harling's hardy perennial, STEEL MAGNOLIAS. Once considered for the film version as Shelby, but not taken on, she's now playing Shelby's mother on stage, and she feels the part fits her perfectly (as does her own mother, whom she reveals is flying out to see her in the production). She's being directed by Skip Greer, Artist in Residence at Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, NY, also a director at Repertory Theatre of Saint Louis and the Falcon Theatre in Los Angeles, who joins her under the gazebo.

Gilbert is being introduced to the Central Pennsylvania late spring/early summer weather treat of cool mornings rapidly turning hot and muggy, even in a state park, and she's dressed for the heat, in a black, gray, and white cotton sundress and black sandals with rhinestones; she looks ready to rehearse, and with the show beginning on May 30, that's clearly where she's heading as soon as she and Greer leave the gazebo. "I didn't study theatre," she admits. "I didn't go to college for this." She frequently meets theatre reporters who know far more about theatre from a technical or historical perspective than she does. But she started acting as a child, and she knows how to do that. Although she was on "Little House" first, at fourteen she was asked to play Helen Keller. She rehearsed that show for six weeks before she went on stage for several weeks, only to see the production extended. Putting a show together as quickly as a summer theatre does is new to her.

"My connection to STEEL MAGNOLIAS is substantial. I grew up with the movie - it's my go-to 'chick flick'. I was one of the women to audition for Shelby for the film way back when - I don't know that I even got close. I may have been in the top twenty or top ten. But now I get to play the most extraordinary woman."

She confesses that "I had to get the film out of my head. The rhythms of the words are jammed into my brain. But the film is so different from the play." It's also a uniquely Southern story, and accents are needed. "It's so southern." But it's specifically set in Louisiana, and "Louisiana is hard - we've had to work on a hybrid accent."

Gilbert has had a long and varied career, but she's almost entirely identified in many minds with just one thing, her early television series. She's had moments when being identified with Laura Ingalls is a curse, but usually "it's a blessing to be part of something that's so beloved... it brought nothing but happiness to people." She has a Little House cookbook coming out in the fall, which she says will contain traditional, "homey" recipes. "And if all that brings people here [to Totem Pole Playhouse] and keeps that going, all the better."

She's enjoying working in and living around Caledonia State Park. "It's beautiful here. I live in Michigan now so I'm finally living in green, but it's even more so here." She's staying in a house alongside a creek and loves hearing the running water every morning.

What brought her to Totem Pole? "They asked. My agent called me and I said yes. It was the right part at the right time." She acknowledges that the entertainment industry's dynamics have hurt her professionally. "I've been away from film and television lately... My bread and butter, the movie of the week, is dead except for Lifetime and Hallmark. I did an independent film in Minnesota recently." And yes, she's at a perilous age and appearance in an industry that over-values younger actors, even though she looks youthful - "I'm told I'm too young to play the mother of twenty-year olds. I have a thirty year old."

Gilbert is delighted that Totem Pole has, after over sixty years, finally introduced student discount rush seating. She's passionate about arts education. And while she wasn't originally familiar with the specific problems that have affected Totem Pole Playhouse, she had no trouble understanding what to her is an all-too-familiar story. "All theatres, especially smaller ones, are always skating on the edge of disaster. Schools always cut arts budgets. And people don't buy theatre tickets when money's tight." She believes that school arts programs are essential. "My husband [actor Timothy Busfield] told me that you have to get children into theatre when they're young. You don't teach a twenty-seven-year-old to love theatre." She discovered when she was on the national tour of the musical LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE that "there were adults there who had never been to theatre before" and were talking as if they were watching television; "they really didn't get that they were going to be seeing live people on stage."

Director Greer and Totem Pole's Artistic Director Rowan Joseph are excited about Gilbert's performance. According to Joseph, "coming from theatre, I know the play inside-out and backwards. Watching Melissa made me see something fresh. I really got the sense that M'Lynn is a mental health worker. It was really organic to the play. And she doesn't play the tragedy in it; she plays the life in it."

Gilbert can be seen breathing that life into STEEL MAGNOLIAS at Totem Pole Playhouse in Caledonia State Park, Fayetteville (Franklin County), just off of US-30. For tickets, which are still available (prices for shows at Totem Pole have been reduced from last year's prices), and for information, visit www.totempoleplayhouse.org, or call 717-352-2164.

Photo Credit: The Public Opinion/Markell DeLoatch