The production begin on March 1 and opened March 3 to admiring reviews, giving Off-Broadway two critical Foote hits at once. The Signature Theatre Company opened a hit presentation of The Trip to Bountiful last fall. It closed on March 11.
For a time, the two shows shared an actor. Frank Girardeau played a judge in the first scene of Lady, then hopped a cab to play a bus station manager in a late scene in Bountiful.
Foote fashioned a new version of Lady, in which "a young mother's journey to begin a new life in a small Texas town becomes a desperate journey of survival when she is deserted by her husband after he is released from prison. She is taken in by locals, and when her husband returns, she is drawn into a chaos of lost love, heartbreak and violence.”
Marion Castleberry directs a cast consisting of Lynn Cohen, Stan Denman, Girardeau, Margot White, Carol Goodheart, Rochelle Oliver, Alice McLane, Jamie Bennett, Matthew Conlon and Quincy Confoy.
Traveling Lady premiered on Broadway in 1954, just one year after Bountiful. It starred Helen Carew, Lonny Chapman, Jack Lord, and Kim Stanley. The production played only 30 performances at the Playhouse Theatre. Foote's many plays include The Day Emily Married, The Last of the Thorntons, The Carpetbagger's Children, The Young Man From Atlanta, The Chase, Lily Dale, The Widow Claire and Laura Dennis.