Smith, who snagged awards for playing the aged mother taking a bus ride to her Texas ghost-town roots, will again be directed by Harris Yulin, who staged the 2005-06 Signature Theatre Company revival of the Foote favorite. The Chicago Goodman staging is part of a 2008 Horton Foote Festival by the Tony Award-honored Goodman. More Foote fest events will be announced.
The Trip to Bountiful will play Goodman's Albert Theatre March 8-April 13, 2008.
In a recent interview in New York, Smith told Playbill's Harry Haun, "We rehearse in February — two weeks in New York, and then take it there. We'll play in March-April, and happily we'll be using the same cast that we had here."
According to Goodman, "Horton Foote's tender, heartfelt study focuses on Carrie Watts, who dreams of returning to her childhood home in the small town of Bountiful, Texas, which she left three decades ago. She sets out to fulfill her dream, with results that are both heartbreaking and brilliantly life-affirming."
Smith received five awards for The Trip to Bountiful at Signature Theatre: an Obie Award, a Lucille Lortel Award, a Drama Desk Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award and the Kingsley-Evans Award. Talk of a move to Broadway didn't lead to a commercial run for the revival. Smith made her Broadway debut in 1952 in Time Out for Ginger, and her other Broadway credits include The Grapes of Wrath (Tony nomination), Buried Child (Tony nomination), The Young and Beautiful, The Iceman Cometh and Orpheus Descending (original production). She has a long history with Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, where she first worked in 1988 and became a Steppenwolf Ensemble Member in 1993. She is a longtime member of The Actors Studio and has appeared in many plays both Off-Broadway and regionally. Her many films include her debut in "East of Eden" with James Dean and "Five Easy Pieces" (National Society of Film Critics Award).
Her television work spans live television plays ("Miss Julie," "The Master Builder"), series guest appearances ("Grey's Anatomy," "Frasier," "Law & Order") and HBO films ("Truman," "The Laramie Project").
The actress will star in Kate Fodor's 100 Saints You Should Know for Playwrights Horizons starting Aug. 24.
Harris Yulin appeared in Goodman's Finishing the Picture and Frank's Home. For more information about Goodman's season, visit www.goodmantheatre.org.
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To read Playbill.com's January 2006 interview with Lois Smith, who talks about The Trip to Bountiful, click here.
