Full Cast, Creative Team Set for The Trip to Bountiful

Lois Smith and Hallie Foote will head the cast of the Signature Theatre Company’s production of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful, November 15-January 8. The production, to be directed by Harris Yulin, will officially open on December 4.

The cast also includes Devon Abner, Meghan Andrews, Frank Girardeau, Gene Jones, and Sam Kitchin. The creative team will consist of E. David Cosier (sets), Martin Pakledinaz (costumes), John McKernon (lights), and Fitz Patton (sound).

The Trip to Bountiful tells the story of Carrie Watts (Smith), an elderly woman who longs to return to her childhood home of Bountiful, Texas, where she hasn’t been in 30 years. Despite her failing health, she grows more determined to escape from the tiny Houston apartment she shares with her soft-spoken son and watchful daughter-in-law. When she finally she gets her chance to head homeward, it is the journey of a lifetime.

Bountiful was first written as a teleplay in 1953, starring Lillian Gish and Eileen Heckart; it was also seen on Broadway that year with Gish, Jo Van Fleet and Eva Marie Saint. A film version in 1985, directed by Peter Masterson and co-starring his wife, Carlin Glynn, earned Geraldine Page the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Smith received Tony Award nominations for her work in Buried Child and The Grapes of Wrath. Foote has appeared in many of her father’s plays and films including Laura Dennis, The Carpetbagger’s Children, and The Widow Claire. Yulin’s directorial credits include This Lime Tree Bower and Don Juan in Hell; as an actor, he has been seen in New York in Fran’s Bed, The Price, and Hedda Gabler.

Foote was previously Signature’s playwright-in-residence during the 1994-1995 season. His first play, Texas Town, was produced off-Broadway in 1941. He earned the Pulitzer Prize for The Young Man From Atlanta, which opened on Broadway in 1997, and has won two Academy Awards for the screenplays of To Kill a Mockingbird and Tender Mercies.