Horton Foote's The Carpetbagger's Children has begun to retrace its steps. After a successful run at Lincoln Center Theater, the hit play will return to Hartford Stage, where it played prior to reaching New York.
Children will stay for a limited two-week engagement, July 10-21, at the Connecticut theatre. The drama opened March 25 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse, after previews from March 7. It was to have lasted through June 2, but extended to June 30 in the wake of a heap of good reviews.
The cast in Hartford will remain the same: Jean Stapleton, Hallie Foote and Roberta Maxwell. Michael Wilson directs.
The drama premiered at Houston's Alley Theater, June 1-July 1, 2001. It then kicked off the season at the Guthrie Theatre's Lab space, Aug. 3-Sept. 2. Finally, the show traveled to Hartford Stage in CT, where Wilson is artistic director, for a Sept. 6-23 run.
In all the mountings, the cast has been the same. Hallie Foote is, of course, the actress-daughter of the playwright, and Horton Foote's most frequent interpreter. In the past couple of years alone, she appeared in The Last of the Thorntons at NYC's Signature Theatre Company and in her sister Daisy Foote's When They Speak of Rita, which was directed by Papa Foote at Primary Stages. Stapleton has spent much of the last few years touring with Rhoda Lerman's solo play about Eleanor Roosevelt, Eleanor: Her Secret Journey. Actress Maxwell starred in the national tour of Lettice and Lovage opposite Julie Harris and won Obies for Ashes and Whistle in the Dark.
The play, set in the fictional town of Harrison, TX, involves the life of a former Union soldier who settles in the south, as told by his daughters in a series of monologues.
Designing the production are Jeff Cowie (set), David Woolard (costumes), Rui Rita (lighting) and John Gromada (sound).
Author Horton Foote won the Pulitzer Prize for The Young Man from Atlanta and two Oscars, for "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Tender Mercies." He was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1996.
—By Robert Simonson
