Dividing the Estate, a Play About a House, Finds a Broadway House
By Kenneth Jones
23 Jun 2008
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Gerald McRaney in the Off-Broadway run of Dividing the Estate.
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| photo by James Leynse | Horton Foote's Dividing the Estate will play Broadway's Booth Theatre. As previously announced, Lincoln Center Theater will produce, by arrangement with Primary Stages, which had an Off-Broadway hit with the play in 2007-08.
The family comedy-drama will begin previews Oct. 23 toward a Nov. 20 opening. Michael Wilson will again direct the family play about a fight over an inheritance. The title says it all.
Variety first reported the destination of the Booth late June 23. The fall 2007 Off-Broadway cast will be reunited for the new run. Audiences can expect the Texas drawls of Elizabeth Ashley, Arthur French, Hallie Foote, Penny Fuller and Gerald McRaney as well as Devon Abner, James DeMarse, Pat Bowie, Virginia Kull, Maggie Lacey, Nicole Lowrance, Jenny Dare Paulin and Keiana Richard.
The intimate Booth is currently home to Thurgood starring Laurence Fishburne. That limited run ends Aug. 17.
Dividing the Estate, according to earlier press notes, is described as "a human comedy about a family that must confront its past as it prepares for its future."
The work debuted at Princeton, New Jersey's McCarter Theatre in 1989, but was significantly rewritten for the 2007 Primary Stages run — so much so that the theatre pushed for it to be considered a "new play" in the 2008 awards season.
When the Lucille Lortel Awards deemed it a "revival" earlier this spring, Foote withdrew his play from consideration.
"A mistake has been made in the nomination process," the 92-year-old Foote wrote in a letter to the Lortel committee. "I could not honestly accept a nomination for the play as a Revival."
Foote earned the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play The Young Man from Atlanta. His other works include The Trip to Bountiful, The Traveling Lady, The Chase, The Last of the Thortons and Talking Pictures, among others. Actress Hallie Foote, who appeared in Estate, is the playwright's daughter.
Director Wilson previously staged Foote's The Day Emily Married for Primary Stages in 2004. On Broadway, he recently staged the revival of Old Acquaintance. Other credits include Broadway's Enchanted April and Off-Broadway's What Didn't Happen and Foote's The Carpetbagger's Children. Wilson serves as artistic director for Hartford Stage in Connecticut.
The earlier Primary Stages production of Dividing the Estate ran Sept. 18-Oct. 28, 2007, at 59E59 Theaters.
The Broadway production will feature sets by Jeff Cowie, costumes by David C. Woolard, lighting by Rui Rita and original music and sound by John Gromada.
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