The curtain has closed on Brick Street Players' production of Steel Magnolias. Mississippi College was proudly represented by three generations of alumni, all of whom starred in the show’s all-female cast.
The most recent of these graduates was Gracie Lee. Lee graduated as a journalism major and a former staff member of Blue and Gold Media. She played the role of Annelle and says that the plays she starred in on campus prepared her for this show.
“Doing this show is kind of like exercising a muscle,” Lee said. “Getting direction, learning your lines, and knowing theatre etiquette all feels like something I’ve always been doing.”
Amy Wolagamott Freeze earned her bachelor’s degree from MC in 1996 and her master’s degree in 2002. She has also worked on campus. Freeze took on the role of M’Lynn, a character she is revisiting from earlier in her theater career.
“I played this role when I was in high school,” Freeze said. “To revisit the role as an older student – older person now, I guess – later in life, it’s been fun to revisit it. In high school, you’re playing somebody that you think is so old, but now I’m playing her according to the age she is supposed to be.”
Kim Pigott graduated in 1986 and is the mother-in-law of MC music professor Sarah Pigott. She has a long resume on the stage during her school years, but is making her return with the role of Ouiser in this play. This is a role she considers to be a dream to play.
“I get to sort of channel me,” Pigott said. “The me I try not to be with my husband and friends I get to be on stage as Ouiser.”
Pigott also loved working with the other actresses in the cast. When they met for the first time, she discovered how MC connected them together.
“The interesting thing for me is that the character who plays Annelle, Gracie, has been at MC while my daughter-in-law has been here both as a student and professor,” Pigott said. “So, she knows that person, and the character who plays M’Lynn, Amy, went to MC with my baby brother. They were very good friends at MC, but I did not know this until the first night we read through the play.”
With this production wrapped, the Brick Street Players will shift to their last play of the season, Don’t Dress For Dinner, which is set for April 24-27.
