"Lost" Inge Play Off the Main Road, Featuring Annalee Jefferies and Nicole Lowrance, Staged in KS April 18

By Adam Hetrick
18 Apr 2012

Annalee Jefferies
Annalee Jefferies

Annalee Jefferies and Nicole Lowrance co-star in William Inge's Off the Main Road, presented April 18 at the Inge Theatre Festival in Kansas. Michael Wilson (Broadway's The Best Man) directs.

The April 18 staging is presented in special arrangement with Manhattan Theatre Club. Wilson (Dividing the Estate, The Best Man) directs the 7:30 PM performance.

The play about a woman who goes into hiding with her daughter was adapted into a 1964 television broadcast during "Bob Hope's Chrysler Theater." The play was titled Out on the Outskirts of Town and starred Anne Bancroft and Jack Warden. The unproduced stage version was discovered after Inge's passing.

Jefferies (A Streetcar Named Desire, Hedda Gabler) portrays Mrs. Faye Garrit, with Lowrance (Dividing the Estate) as her daughter. The cast also includes Robert Clohessy (12 Angry Men, Pal Joey), Barbara Dana (Where's Daddy?), Cynthia Hyer, Joseph Gomez, Asa Walker, Dean Hayse and Jonathan Clothier.

Here's how the play is billed: "The setting is the early 1960s in Missouri. The elegant Faye Garrit checks into a run-down resort to hide from her abusive husband, Manny, a washed-up former professional baseball player. Faye's mother is among those urging her to sever the marriage; meanwhile, Faye's daughter is exploring her spiritual and emotional needs as well."

William Inge's plays also include Picnic, Bus Stop, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs and Come Back Little Sheba. Read more about the Broadway career of Pulitzer Prize winner Inge in the Playbill Vault, the internet's most comprehensive database of Broadway information.

Held in Independence, KS, at Inge's alma mater, Independence Community College, the Inge Theatre Festival annually honors a writer, or writing team, with the Inge Festival Distinguished Achievement in the American Theatre Award. The Inge festival, which runs April 18-21, will also honor Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang.

Visit IngeCenter.