Horton Foote's The Carpetbagger's Children, which just ended its extended stay at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre in Manhattan on June 30, will reopen at Hartford Stage in Connecticut on July 10. It will stay until July 21.
In all of the play's many mountings—including a previous Hartford engagement—the cast has remained the same: Hallie Foote, Jean Stapleton and Roberta Maxwell.
Hallie Foote is, of course, the actress daughter of the playwright, and Horton'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 spend 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. Michael Wilson directs.
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).
Children opened quietly in Manhattan on March 25 after previews from March 7 and won some of the best notices of last season. The production has proven an unexpected late career triumph for Foote, whose New York stage career has had many hills and valleys.
Foote's own carpetbag has gotten a lot of wear lately, as he's followed the play around the nation. 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.
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
