Steel Magnolias (play)

Steel Magnolias is a 1987 stage play by American writer Robert Harling, based on his experience with his sister's death. The play is a tragicomedy about the bond among a group of Southern women in northwest Louisiana.

The title suggests the "female characters are as delicate as magnolias but as tough as steel". The magnolia specifically references a magnolia tree they are arguing about at the beginning.