Dramaturg's Diary: Running the Orphans' Marathon

Saturday, October 17th, marks the world premiere marathon of Horton Foote’s The Orphans’ Home Cycle at Hartford Stage. I have actually never participated in a theatre marathon of this magnitude and intensity before, though I do know the basics of marathon-watching. Eat protein. Hydrate. Stretch at the intermissions. And, according to Will Cantler, our Casting Director and an experienced marathon-watcher, “Don’t over-caffeinate.” Caffeine aside, there is a definite buzz of anticipation in the lobby of Hartford Stage, as HS staffers hand out marathon badges, pins, water bottles, peanuts, and other accoutrements to aide us on our epic Orphans’ journey.

At 11AM we take our seats for Part One of the cycle, The Story of a Childhood, which consists of the acts Roots in a Parched Ground, Convicts, and Lily Dale. Having seen this section performed a little over a month ago, it is exciting to see how it has progressed. Even though I have been reading, eating, breathing, sleeping these plays (as has everyone else involved in this project, both on and offstage) I still see new resonances every time I watch them. At one point in Roots in a Parched Ground, I catch my breath when one character says a – seemingly innocuous – line and the impact of what will happen to him five plays later hits me with full force.

After a boxed-lunch arranged by Hartford Stage at the Hilton Hotel, we resume with Part Two: The Story of a Marriage (consisting of The Widow Claire, Courtship, and Valentine’s Day) at 3PM. At this point in our journey, we firmly plant ourselves in Harrison, Texas and get to know a new generation of residents, as well as follow up with some already familiar from previous acts. Although Horace remains the central character, we meet some very strong, complicated women who drive the action, in the form of his two love interests, Claire Ratliff and Elizabeth Vaughn. I find this section unabashedly romantic and yet the more I see it, the more I recognize how Horton has woven bittersweet truths about family, adulthood, and sacrifice, amidst the joy and exhilaration of finding one’s soul mate.

We return to the Hilton for dinner after the close of Part Two and sit down to Elizabeth’s Crowd-Drawing Mac and Cheese, Miss Ruth’s Pecan-Crusted Tilapia, and Ed’s Ganado Barbequed Beef Brisket (all of the menu items for both lunch and dinner are named for characters in The Orphans’ Home Cycle). Everyone is dying to talk about Orphans’ with the first person they see. They have become quite attached to and invested in all of the characters, whom they have come to think of as friends or even family. After dessert, as we ready to return for Part Three: The Story of a Family (1918, Cousins, and The Death of Papa), someone says, “I hope no more bad things happen to Horace!” I just take a final gulp of my Admiration Coffee (“A cup of Southern Hospitality!”), knowing that Part Three is actually a particularly turbulent time for Horace and his family, as they face war, disease, and a harsh economy.

The breadth of this journey, both Horace’s and ours’, really hits home for me in this part. My head spins a bit when I see the matriarchal Corella Davenport and Inez Kirby (Annalee Jefferies and Pamela Payton-Wright) in their twilight years, sitting together on Horace’s porch in the final act, The Death of Papa. I recall them in Roots in a Parched Ground, which suddenly feels like a lifetime ago, when they were Corella Robedaux and Inez Thornton (Virgina Kull and Maggie Lacey) sitting on the Thornton porch, playing guitar and singing “Beautiful Dreamer,” with little idea of what the next twenty-six years would have in store for them.

Part Three also heralds the arrival of Horace, Jr., (Dylan Riley Snyder) the character Horton Foote modeled after himself. He appears only in The Death of Papa, but his birth is announced in 1918. When Mrs. Boone asks Mr. Vaughn, “Was it a boy or a girl?” and he replies, simply, “A boy,” I get chills, as even though we are nearly at the end of the cycle, one feels the beginning of something else. It is a boy, and he is going to tell all of your stories, I think.

And then it’s over. The giddy excitement of the occasion has transitioned into a sense of awe and profundity. I can’t help remembering the first reading of Parts One and Two at Lincoln Center Theater in January 2009, when Horton was still with us. I have been told that at that reading he knew for the first time that he had something, and that these nine adapted plays would work. Now we have proven him right. Yet although we feel this immense sense of accomplishment, we still have a long road ahead of us, as in two weeks the company arrives at Signature for their five month residency with us. But if Horton and The Orphans’ Home Cycle marathon have taught us anything, it’s that the journey can be as rewarding as the destination.

Orphans' Home Cycle in the News

With performances starting last week, the buzz is growing on The Orphans' Home Cycle! Check out these press features:

Variety Review of The Orphans' Home Cycle, by Frank Rizzo:
“A tranformative work! A stunning achievement! The Orphans’ Home Cycle is an intimate American epic that’s at once personal and panoramic. In his final gift to the theater Foote has created a work of gentle existentialism…as quietly profound as a zen master’s prayer. Michael Wilson helms the staggering project with loving care and a sense of rich theatricality, humor and
history. The suberb design team also echoes the Foote ethic with grace and care.”

Read full review here

"Orphans' Home Cycle Actors Visit Foote's Home Turf of Wharton, Texas"
Photos of Orphans' actors Bill Heck, Maggie Lacey and Bryce Pinkham visitng Horton Foote's hometown of Wharton, Texas

Click here for article

"Horton Foote, An Appreciation: A Playwright for the Common Man," by Gregory M. Lamb
"As a playwright, Horton Foote grappled with the great themes of human existence: love, despair, home, family, identity, redemption. And he often found them all in the lives of people in the little town of Harrison, Texas, the fictional setting for many of his works..."

Click here for full article

Also check out John Lahr's critic-at-large piece on Horton Foote in the October 26 issue of The New Yorker.

Video Interviews with Bill Heck, Maggie Lacey and Hallie Foote

Portraying characters in The Orphans' Home Cycle based on playwright Horton Foote's parents is no easy feat -- just ask actors Bill Heck and Maggie Lacey! Lacey is playing a part originated on stage and film by Hallie Foote, Horton's daughter, who herself is playing a character inspired by her own grandmother. What a complicated family tree!

Check out actors Bill Heck, Maggie Lacey and Hallie Foote talking about Horton and the mammoth Orphans' Home Cycle.

Bill Heck:



Maggie Lacey:

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Hallie Foote:

Behind the Scenes Video -- Welcome to Tech...

As if Bryce Pinkham isn't busy enough acting onstage in the three-part The Orphans' Home Cycle, as well as writing the Actor's Diary for the Signature blog, he's also been capturing and editing backstage footage of the show. (If you haven't done so already, be sure to check out his first video in the series, One Week Until Tech.)

Below is Bryce's latest video in the series, documenting the always exciting (and sometimes chaotic) tech week experience. Watching this video you'll get a good idea of the sheer magnitude of the production -- there's a whole lot of people working on bringing this thing to life!

Enjoy the video!

Actor's Diary: Family Business

Bryce Pinkham will be playing the roles of Brother Vaughn, Pete Davenport and Felix Barclay in The Orphans' Home Cycle

I’ve been thinking a lot about families lately. I guess it should come as no surprise considering our playwright and the content of these plays. I find a delightful irony in our situation here: twenty-two actors who, for the most part, have left their permanent homes and in many cases their own loved ones to bring to life this incredible story about family and the journey to find a home. Furthermore, the entire experience, onstage and off, is having the effect of bringing us all together as a theatrical family. This is not unique to our production of course, it’s part of what we get to do in the theater- form little families for a few months at a time. We eat and drink together, take trips to the movies, play poker, celebrate birthdays, talk politics, grocery shop, bake cookies, ride bikes, take yoga, and sometimes even talk about the plays. Our dressing areas become living rooms where we share stories of our own families, seek professional and personal advice, and build the companionship and camaraderie that we otherwise lack being away from home. For many of us, even pursuing a career in this profession has meant some amount of personal sacrifice to our own families. During one of the many hours of technical rehearsals, I listen as two of the men in our group discuss missing their sons’ recent tours of prospective colleges. I figure it must be hard being absent from family trips such as these and I ask what it’s like having to be away from home so much. “It’s hard,” one concedes, “especially when the kids are young. You want to be able to pull your weight and send money home, but it also hurts to miss things like family summer vacations.” Father number two chimes in “One thing working on these plays makes you realize is that family is the most important thing.” “Did you ever consider doing something else professionally once you had kids?” I inquire. “Yeah, I tried for a year, but I realized acting was the best chance I had to make money for my family.” Father number two is surprised when I tell him I hope to have a family some day. He says he doesn’t run into too many actors my age who are looking forward to that already. He surprises me by asking how many children I want. “It’s important to think about,” he rejoins in response to what must have been a wide-eyed expression of terror on my face, “especially if you are going to be an actor and do this.” His gentle interrogation strikes at the heart of what I find most terrifying about starting a professional stage career.

Considering the difference in earning potential, I find it no wonder that the theater loses many of its finest talents to its younger, more popular artistic siblings, film and television. To be sure, the financial allure of those media is hard to ignore, especially for the domestically inclined actors among us. However, it seems to me as well that what the process of doing a stage play may lack in fiscal incentives it makes up for in espirit de corps. It seems to me that there has always been something inherently familial about the theater. I am reminded of the Italian Commedia families who not only made their living traveling the countryside in search of their next stage, but who literally passed down the portrayal of certain characters to their children. Likewise, it surely must have felt like joining a family to be admitted into Shakespeare’s The Lord Chamberlain’s Men or Moliere’s Troupe du Roi. Be it literal or fostered, the bond forged between actors on the stage often has the strength one associates with family; out there under the lights, we depend entirely on one another, and I find this dependence usually makes its way offstage as well.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on your take,) theater and the process that brings it about mirror life in many ways. Change, both expected and otherwise, is simply always part of the equation. Our families, both biological and artistic, are inevitably affected and transformed by that unapologetic plodder, time. Having recently been caught unawares by this unalterable truth, I have found comfort in the words of none other than our playwright. In the penultimate play of his cycle Horton writes, “A family is a remarkable thing, isn’t it? You belong. And then you don’t. It passes you by.” I believe Horton’s words certainly speak to the families we all come from, but also the ones we form in and around the theater. The transient nature of rehearsing and performing a play (or 9), each night a little different than the next, each moment passed in due time, is part of what appeals to me about the theater. It is this impermanence that television and film will never be able to offer. It is this mortality that calls for us to enjoy every fleeting moment with the plays and with those around us that in turn forms such lasting kinship among us. I am truly beginning to cherish our ad hoc family here and am constantly reminded why I have chosen to be a part of this crazy caste (pun intended). And yet, as Horton reminds me, like an actor’s work in a theater, this family will not always be. That’s just the way it goes. You belong. And then you don’t. I think there’s something beautiful in that.

Behind the Scenes Video -- One Week Until Tech

In addition to our Actor's Diary with Bryce Pinkham, Dramaturg's Diary with Literary Associate Kirsten Bowen, and photos from the rehearsal room, we'd like to give you even more of a glimpse of what goes into putting together a mammoth production like The Orphans' Home Cycle! We gave actor Bryce Pinkham a flipcam, and the result is the video you see below, shot the week before tech rehearsals began at Hartford Stage. Enjoy!

Keep checking back for more ways to find out what's happening with The Orphans' Home Cycle!

Dramaturg's Diary: Catching Up With Orphans'

Kirsten Bowen is Signature Theatre Company's Literary Associate, and the Signature dramaturg for The Orphans' Home Cycle

Well, when I last posted a “diary entry,” the crack dramaturgy teams of Signature and Hartford were hard at work researching the world of The Orphans’ Home Cycle. Since then, we table-worked and work-shopped all nine plays over the course of three weeks, leading up to a “marathon” reading of all nine plays that brought the entire staffs of Hartford and Signature together (a day which Orphans’ actor Bryce Pinkham reported on in his diary and which was also photographed). Following the marathon reading, which marked the official start date of rehearsals, director Michael Wilson began the complicated process of staging the plays, working sequentially from the first play, Roots in a Parched to Ground, to the last, The Death of Papa.

Meanwhile, back at Signature we’ve been supporting the process by researching questions from the rehearsal room (if Claire is sending a wire at four o’clock in the morning, would she send it from home or would she have to leave the house?) as well as preparing for when we take over hosting the cycle. For me, this includes assembling material for Signature’s elaborate dramaturgical lobby displays, writing and editing our quarterly newsletter, Signature Edition, and for the interns, crafting the three-part video that will honor Horton Foote and run on the television in the Peter Norton Space’s lobby throughout the season.

Periodically throughout the summer various members of the Signature staff and I have been leaving New York very early in the morning, either via train or ZipCar, to attend rehearsals in Hartford. I was most often in rehearsal during the first three weeks when the company was still reading the plays around the table and making initial investigations into the world and their characters. In addition to asking practical questions such as which neighborhood of Houston do Horace’s mother and sister live in, and how were lawyers educated in the late nineteenth century, Michael impressed into the actors the key themes Horton explored in all of his work, and which re-surface throughout The Orphans’ Home Cycle: the search for home and identity, how some people actively choose to remember while others choose to forget, and what makes some of us survivors and thrivers and others doomed to failure and disappointment?

Many of these characters are based on Horton Foote’s family – not only do his father and mother have alter-egos, but so do his grandparents, great-grandparents, and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins, some of whom have morphed into a character representing a combination of several people (for example, Brother Vaughn, one of Bryce Pinkham’s characters, is a composite of three of Horton’s uncles). Although many events within the cycle did not happen in real life, and these characters were created to stand on their own, separate from their real-life counterparts, we do a lot of digging into Horton’s family history in order to find a model for these people’s histories. His memoir, Farewell, is an invaluable resource, but even more helpful is Horton’s daughter, actor Hallie Foote. Hallie has appeared in the majority of her father’s plays over the past thirty years and is known as the premiere interpreter of his work. Of everyone in the room Hallie’s involvement in The Orphans’ Home Cycle goes back the furthest – not only did she witness her father write them when she was a teenager (and help type the scripts), she created the key role of Elizabeth Vaughn when the plays were first produced on stage at New York’s HB Playwrights’ Foundation in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and in their film adaptations in the 1980s. Now Hallie will play Elizabeth’s mother, Mary Vaughn, among other roles. In addition, since Horton’s passing Hallie has taken on the stewardship of his work and continues to collaborate closely with Michael on bringing the cycle to life.

Another challenge we faced during those early weeks was working on the plays out of sequence. We began with Lily Dale, the third play of the cycle, and for the most part jumped around, working our way towards the larger cast plays as more actors joined us throughout the three-week workshop period. While it was incredibly beneficial to be able to focus in-depth on one play at a time, it was tricky exploring these characters whose journeys had begun several plays ago. We couldn’t help but reference plays that we had not discussed yet, with characters (and actors) whom we hadn’t met.

What’s interesting however, is that although Horton wrote the basis for the first play, Roots in a Parched Ground, in the early 1960s, a decade later when he set out to write The Orphans’ Home Cycle as a whole he also wrote them out of sequence, beginning with 1918 (which is the seventh play and will begin Part Three of our cycle) and ending with The Widow Claire, the fourth play in the sequence (which is the first play of our Part Two: The Story of a Marriage). But despite the fact that Horton didn’t write them in order, all nine plays still follow a very lucid and consistent journey as events and themes of one play reverberate in another, sometimes three plays later. Recently, on a trip to Hartford to watch a run-through of Parts One and Two, I interviewed Michael for Signature Edition, and he commented on the cycle’s seemingly seamless ebb and flow, “Now that we’re at the point in the process when we’re beginning to put the plays together, we’re seeing characters an hour later in another act referring to an event that happened a couple of years ago. Those echoes, both thematically and emotionally, are very, very moving. It’s mind boggling how he created that, especially the way he wrote them out of order. It’s almost like he was a vessel, like he was channeling some kind of divine epic story that was coming though him onto the page.”