[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts 2026 Hollywood Fringe Festival review of Miss Magnolia Beaumont Goes to Provincetown, Joe Hutcheson’s hilarious, heartfelt solo show about an unlikely friendship between a Southern ghost and a gay New Yorker.
Writer, actor Joe Hutchinson brings us the delightful character of Miss Magnolia Beaumont, a long-deceased southern belle, debutante and daughter of a secretly gay plantation owner with a hidden passion for his ‘farm hand.’ She chokes to death on a piece of barbecued pork rib. Is that karma I hear calling? When she wakes up, so to speak, many years later, she finds herself somehow in the brain of a middle-aged gay New Yorker, Master Joseph, as she quaintly calls him, who has some complications of his own.
At first she is frighteningly confined to gazing with various levels of alarm and curiosity through Joseph’s eyes. But as she realizes that she may be dead and he may be the only way for her to see the world and perhaps move on, she adapts, like all good southern debutants.
One weekend, Joseph heads to the train station and out of town, excited to spend the gay pride weekend in Provincetown. Miss Magnolia looks on with wonder at the world 150 years further along than when she thrilled at a haystack ride or puzzled at why her father was spending so much time in the barn with a certain hand. This is comically mentioned several times during the show, which is why I keep mentioning it if you are wondering.
Once they arrive in Provincetown, its age makes her feel a little more at home, although the rainbow colors everywhere are a little garish for her taste. But it was Master Joseph’s kitschy guest house bedroom that shook her to her core, and then, finally, gazing at what she thought was a large painting of the Civil War she suddenly popped into his world and his hearing, to the shock of them both.
Eventually, after a lot of hilarity, denial and a very reasonable assumption by Joseph that he was having a stroke, they find some middle ground. And they even begin to like each other. Miss Magnolia encourages Joseph to be himself and make friends…even sexy ones!
You can imagine how incredibly funny and full of wonderfully ridiculous situations and banter this beautifully written show is.
Joe Hutcheson is extraordinary in the role. How he keeps it together as he flits seemingly effortlessly from character to character is utterly beyond me. I can tell you the audience had no trouble at all in falling around in hysterics at every delicious turn of phrase.
Truly, Miss Magnolia was the star of Hollywood Fringe for me, closely followed by Master Joseph, of course. These two sides of the same coin brought out the very best in each other. If Miss Magnolia’s time with Joseph meant anything at all, it was to reassure him what a wonderful and caring man he could be and how adorable and worthy of another’s love, once she dragged him out of his shell.
Miss Magnolia Beaumont Goes to Provincetown is an absolute delight of a show – heartfelt, endearing, moving and funny funny funny. No wonder it has won so many awards over the years! I am certain it will win more at this year’s Hollywood Fringe, Festival or I will eat my bonnet! And won’t Miss Magnolia be so very proud!!
Learn more about this wonderful show and where you might see it next at MissMagnoliaBeaumont.com