The story behind ‘Gone with the Wind’

SCRANTON — It was the late 1930s and three weeks into filming the movie “Gone with the Wind” when producer David O. Selznick threw out the script and fired the director.

In comes new director Victor Fleming and script writer named Ben Hecht, whom Selznick locks both in his office for five days until they get the screenplay right. That is the story line to Ron Hutchinson’s play “Moonlight and Magnolias,” which Actors Circle will perform at the Providence Playhouse at the end of April.

The play, which consists of the three men as well as Selznick’s secretary, Miss Poppenguhl, played by Marnie Azzarelli, portrays the real-life events at how the book by Margaret Mitchell became adapted into the epic film, which became the 1939 Academy Award winner for Best Picture.

Paul J. Gallo plays the difficult-to-please Selznick, who was under a lot of pressure to make sure every detail in the movie was perfect. As Hollywood legend has it, he supposedly kept the overly zealous Fleming, played by Seth Golden, and the cynical Hecht, played by David Hunisch, inside his office with a typewriter and a little bit of food sent by Poppenghul.

Clarks Summit resident Hunisch plays the politically-correct Hecht, who started out as a newspaper reporter in Chicago before coming to Hollywood to become a screen writer. Unlike Selznick and Fleming, Hunisch’s character Hecht has more of a moral compass and has more sympathy toward minorities. Although he wrote successful screenplays, he favors his work in journalism and short stories. Hunisch portrays Hecht’s code of ethics throughout the play. He has been acting with Actors Circle since 2008.

“It’s a nice, collaborative atmosphere,” he said.

Hunisch also directed plays with Actors Circle. Brink Powell has acted under his direction. She is the director of the production. She submitted the play “Moonlight and Magnolias” to Actors Circle during the fall of 2019. It was originally meant to be produced for the 2020-21 season, but the pandemic postponed it. She once directed this play in 2011 when she and her friend had their own production company. They didn’t have money or space to perform. But the Ramada Inn on Northern Boulevard willingly donated their stage for one weekend so they can perform the play four times.

“It’s been fun to do this in an actual theater,” she said. “You can do a lot more. With a different cast, it’s a totally different show. Not better, not worse. It’s a completely new, different experience.”

Powell read the book “Gone with the Wind,” so she knows the story spans into a long period of time between the beginning of the Civil War and the end of Reconstruction. She realized that if everything in the book was added, this four-hour film would be about six hours.

“When you read the book and see the movie, you understand why (the characters in ‘Moonlight and Magnolias’) ended up making the choices that they did and to make it cohesive and easy for the audience to follow,” she said.

This is Powell’s first time directing with Actors Circle. She was previously the dramatics director of Lackawanna Trail Jr. Sr. High School but stepped down due to pandemic-related reasons. Before that, she stage-managed when she was an alum at Keystone College with then-freshman Courtney McCreary, of Clarks Summit. McCreary is currently the stage manager of Actors Circle. Each scene of this production, she throws more and more garbage, such as banana peels and crumpled paper, on the office’s floor to portray the mess the three men made throughout the five consecutive days. She also gets to clean the stage at the end of each show. She enjoys the fact that she can still participate in theater even after finishing school.

“It’s nice to be able to have community theater and to still be involved with it,” she said.

The showtimes for Moonlight and Magnolias are: April 20, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29, 30. Thursday, Friday and Saturday performances are at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.