First Nighter's Take "The Trip to Bountiful"

Powerful performances by the cast of The Trip to Bountiful propelled the First Night audience onto its feet for a much-deserved standing ovation.

The congratulations continued at the cast party at The Center Club, where partygoers sipped bottles of Coca-Cola and mingled with actors Lynn Milgrim, Dan Reichert, Jennifer Lyon and the rest of the cast. Also on hand were the play’s director, SCR Co-Founder Martin Benson, and his longtime friend and the show's Honorary Producer, Mary Beth Adderley. Joining Mary Beth in her support of The Trip to Bountiful was Corporate Honorary Producer Haskell and White, LLP, represented at the party by Rick and Cheri Smetanka.

Guests declared themselves moved by Horton Foote’s poignant tale of an aging widow desperate to see her old homeplace one last time, and critics agreed: The Los Angeles Times called it “a sure-fire crowd pleaser” and the O.C. Register described it as “a quiet but moving masterwork.”



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Playwright Allison Gregory on Junie B.

JUNIE B. is BACK… with Jingle Bells On!

The holidays are just around the corner—and Santa is watching first-grader Junie B. Jones like a hawk. It doesn’t help that her classroom nemesis May can’t stop tattling and is threatening to ruin her holiday glee.

Junie B. is thrilled when her class is chosen to lead the first grade holiday sing-along by singing “Jingle Bells,” wearing green elf costumes and jingle hats. But Junie B. and May just can’t get along—and their teacher Mr. Scary threatens to cancel the sing-along for everyone if they get into one more fight.

To make matters worse, Junie B. draws May’s name for their Secret Santa gift exchange—and struggles to decide (with the help of her trusty stuffed elephant Philip Johnny Bob) if May deserves more than a lump of coal. You see, Junie B. really, really wants to buy a Squeeze-a-Burp—the most awesome toy in their holiday gift shop—for herself. But if she does, she’ll have no money left to buy a gift for May.

When Junie B. makes her last-minute gift decision, will she find it in her heart to be a “giver?”  Or will she prove to be a “shellfish” (as May says)? Will Junie B. find a way to share peace and goodwill? Or will May get exactly what she deserves?

Junie B. in Jingle Bells, Batman Smells! is a funny, fast-paced holiday comedy inspired by Barbara Park’s popular Junie B. Jones children’s book series. Park has written more than 25 titles since 1992 featuring the antics of Junie B. and her pint-sized entourage.  The books have become favorites of girls and boys, moms and dads, teachers and librarians alike.

Playwright Allison Gregory was commissioned to adapt Park’s book Junie B., First Grader: Jingle Bells, Batman Smells! (P.S. So Does May.) for the stage by Arizona theatre company Childsplay, Inc., which premiered the play in 2009. Allison worked closely with author Barbara Park on the adaptation, and drew from two other books in the Junie B., First Grader series: Shipwrecked and Dumb Bunny.

Award-winning director Casey Stangl returns to SCR to direct her second Junie B. production for our Theatre for Young Audiences series. Casey directed the popular musical adaptation of Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business during our 2009-10 season. Stangl has worked in renowned theaters throughout Southern California and the country, including the Pasadena Playhouse, Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Guthrie Theatre, Denver Center Theatre Company and Woolly Mammoth. Her production of Noel Coward’s Peace in Our Time—a collaboration with The Antaeus Company in Los Angeles—runs through December 13.

South Coast Repertory is thrilled to welcome Junie B. Jones back to our stage—alongside playwright Allison Gregory and director Casey Stangl. We hope you’ll join us for this fun, frolicking story of holiday cheer, goodwill and the power of giving—Junie B.-style.

More Info/Tickets

WELCOME HOME

A Writer Returns to Where It All Began

Playwright Allison Gregory’s adaptation of Junie B. in Jingle Bells, Batman Smells! has been seen all over the country, but South Coast Repertory’s production is extra special for her: The Orange County native took her first playwriting class right here at SCR. We asked Allison a few questions about her art and adventures, growing up as an actor and playwright in the OC.

Q:  I know you were born and raised in Orange County. Where did you grow up, and how often do you come home?
A: I was born in Anaheim, and moved to Orange Park Acres when I was 8. Back then it was "country," and everyone had horses and chickens and goats and—well, you can imagine the smell. My sisters and I were in 4-H; in sixth grade my pig won grand champion of the Orange County Fair! His name was Pink Floyd.

Most of my family still lives in OC (there was no "the" when I lived there), and I try to come home at least once a year.

Q: Do you remember the first play you ever saw at South Coast Repertory?
A: The first play I saw at SCR was Playboy of the Western World by John Millington Synge, because a friend of mine was playing Christy. This would have been in the early ́80s when I was...an infant. It was a lovely, exciting production, and it put SCR on my map.

Q: Do you think growing up here influenced your work or artistic sensibility?
A: I think you bring your past to everything you do, intentionally or not. My first play was blatantly based on my own family. They have since forgiven me and have been very supportive. I find myself now, 10 or 12 plays later, writing a new play with the lead character a thinly veiled version of another family member. (I won't say who; they'll just have to come see the play to find out.) My sense of humor, my fears, my interests, my voice—certainly all of it was shaped by growing up here. You don't escape it, for better or for worse, no matter how much you forget. You pull from it and, ideally, put it to work. That, to me, is a useful life.

Q:  When did you first fall in love with the theatre? And start acting?
A: I saw my first full-blown musical, Brigadoon, when I was in 5th or 6th grade. It was a college production at Stanford. I don't know that I fell in love with theatre so much as with the actor playing Charlie Dalrymple, but it left a lasting impression. Flash forward many years: I'm a ballet dancer just out of school and looking for work, and I get cast at a summer theatre in central California (Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts/PCPA) in, you got it, Brigadoon. I play Jeanie, who's getting married to...Charlie Dalrymple! After that I stayed on to do parts in straight plays, and got onstage training from some of the best actors in the country: Mark Harelik, Dakin Matthews, Byron Jennings, Deborah May. It was a thrilling place to be.

Q:  When did you discover that you wanted to write plays?
A: I thought most playwrights were dead until I started performing new plays at the Denver Center Theatre. This was my first clue that people were still writing these things.

At some point I signed up for an acting class at SCR with the delightful Karen Hensel, but it was full, so, since I was here anyway, I joined the playwriting class taught by the wonderful John Glore, SCR's Associate Artistic Director. I had no intention of writing a play; I was just waiting for someone in the acting class to bail. Several hard-fought months later I found myself with my first play—which went on to win an honorable mention in SCR's Pacific Playwrights competition, and which earned me my first commission, from SCR. So, there were many firsts here, all of which makes this current production so meaningful to me. As John Glore recently said, the circle is complete.

Q:  You've written so many great plays for young audiences, including adaptations of Go, Dog. Go!, Peter and the Wolf and Junie B.  What inspired you to start writing for kids?
A: My husband (playwright Steven Dietz) dared me. I love the different writing muscle it takes. Kids are so quick and smart—they get what you're saying right off. You can't belabor things with that meaningful monologue or clever but repetitive scene; kids are story taskmasters; they will let you know (painfully) when you've gone off task. Good children's theatre is honest writing.

Q: What inspired you to adapt this particular Junie B. story?
A: I used to read the Junie B. series over and over to my daughter Ruby. No other books could make her laugh as hard. We all walked around the house reciting quotes, like Junie B. clones, cracking each other up. She really got that the language was incorrect, but it had a kind of accuracy when it came to describing Junie B.'s thoughts and feelings. I got to work really closely with the series author, Barbara Park, on this play, which was a big thrill. It was like meeting Junie B. herself!

Q: Junie B. is such a great character—a quirky, funny troublemaker. Did you get into trouble when you were a kid?
A:  Talk to my mom. On second thought, don't talk to my mom. I was a perfect a child, I never did anything wrong. Really.

Director Martin Benson Leads 'The Trip to Bountiful'

Horton Foote: His Legacy

“I believe very deeply in the human spirit, and I have a sense of awe about it. I look around and ask, ‘What makes the difference? What is it?’ I’ve known people the world has thrown everything at to discourage them, to kill them, to break their spirit. And yet something about them retains a dignity.”

–Horton Foote

Horton Foote was born in 1916 in the small Texas gulf town of Wharton. Foote made his Broadway debut in 1944 with his play Only the Heart. He continued to write for the stage as he expanded his pen into Hollywood, writing teleplays and films. Foote won the 1962 Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Foote wrote more than 60 plays and films, most set in the fictional town of Harrison, Texas.

A few of Horton Foote’s many other plays include:

Wharton Dance (1940)

Texas Town (1941)

The Trip to Bountiful (1962, based on his 1953 screenplay)

Roots in a Parched Ground (1962)

Tomorrow (1968)

Night Seasons (1977)

Courtship (1987)

In a Coffin in Egypt (1980)

Cousins (1983)

One Armed Man (1985)

The Widow Claire (1986)

Lily Dale (1986)

Dividing the Estate (1989)

The Young Man From Atlanta (1995)

The Day Emily Married (1996)

Vernon Early (1998)

The Death of Papa (1999)

The Carpetbagger's Children (2001)

For more information about Horton Foote’s life, read his New York Times obituary.

The Trip to Bountiful, by the late Horton Foote, is a play that resonates for director Martin Benson: “As the season was shaping up, and I was looking for a project,” he said, “I was drawn to this play with its enduring themes. As life nears its end, the desire to return home is strong. It’s a universal story that could be happening in any country in the world."

He talked about the importance of home, and the pull that landscape has: “That’s why people struggle so hard against being put in nursing homes—they don’t want to give up their home.”

The play is set in 1953 and follows Carrie Watts, who has been living with her son, Ludie, and his wife, Jessie Mae, in Houston for the last 20 years. They’re in a cramped two-room apartment, and Ludie has only recently recovered from a lengthy illness and returned to work. Jessie Mae is more interested in movie magazines and trips to the drugstore soda fountain than she is in spending time with Mother Watts. There’s no love lost on Mother Watts’ side, either: She is constantly longing to return to the small Gulf Coast town where she grew up—Bountiful, Texas—but Jessie Mae won’t hear of it.

Carrie has made attempts to escape before, but Ludie and Jessie Mae have always managed to find her and stop her before she got very far. Her longing to get out of the pressure-cooker of the city and her living situation is palpable, if unspoken.

Horton and Benson on the set of
Getting Frankie Married—and Afterwards

Benson described Carrie as “immensely appealing. She’s had a hard life—not marrying the man she truly loved, but still seeing him every day; her babies that didn’t survive; and now she’s stuck in a tiny apartment in Houston with her son and daughter-in-law. All she wants is to see Bountiful one more time, so she can make her peace and accept her life.”

The Trip to Bountiful is adapted from a 1953 script that Foote wrote for television. Over the years, the play has been produced countless times. In 1985, it was revived as a film; Geraldine Page won the Academy Award for best actress, and Foote was nominated for the screenplay (see box for more about Foote’s work).

Benson noted, “Horton rewrote The Trip to Bountiful for the 2005 production at Signature Theatre. He cut about 15 pages from the script, so now the play is considerably condensed. It was originally a three-act play, but having two intermissions just isn’t palatable any longer to a modern audience.”

Benson has a long history with Foote, having directed the world premiere of Getting Frankie Married—and Afterwards and the West Coast premiere of The Carpetbagger’s Children at SCR.

Foote once said in an interview, “The people in my plays are always people I know, but they don’t end up in the play as I knew them. It’s like a collage. You take a little bit from here and a little bit from there. You start out, at least I do, with a very definite impression and a feeling [about the people]. As you work on it, the play finds its life.”

Horton's Home in Wharton

Before starting work on Getting Frankie Married, Benson visited Foote at his Texas home for a few days. Benson speaks fondly of the trip, describing his excitement at being able to meet the people from whom Foote drew his characters. Benson and Foote traveled to many of the small towns in the Gulf region of Texas that figure so prominently in Foote’s work, including Foote’s hometown of Wharton.

The production of The Trip to Bountiful sets up some unique challenges for a designer. The set must transform completely from the apartment in Houston to a bus station and more, and Benson worked with set designer Tom Buderwitz to make all locations shift seamlessly in front of the audience.

Benson said, “The Segerstrom is a big, wide stage, and we were challenged to make it feel small and intimate.”

Benson and Buderwitz have tackled many productions together, and the creative team includes other longtime SCR collaborators, including Angela Balogh Calin, who has designed costumes for more than a dozen shows at SCR, and Tom and Donna Ruzika, who have designed lights at SCR for more than 35 years. They’re joined by relative newcomer Cricket S. Myers, who designed sound for Lucky Duck and Three Days of Rain last season.

Arts OC Reception

On Thursday, Oct. 6, Arts Orange County held a reception on Ela’s Terrace at SCR to welcome new Artistic Director Marc Masterson. Representatives of arts groups and university programs from across the county came out for an enjoyable evening of cocktails and conversation.



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Open House

On Monday, Oct. 3, we threw open our doors for an Open House to welcome new Artistic Director Marc Masterson. More than 250 folks turned out for a fun evening that included backstage tours, an insider’s look at the 2011-2012 season, and a chance to mingle with the artistic staff and other theatre lovers.  One lucky couple—Joanne and Terence O’Heany of Corona del Mar—won lunch with Marc and our Managing Director, Paula Tomei.

Looking for more opportunities to go behind the scenes? Try our free SCR Seminars, which take place on certain Thursday evenings, or our Saturday morning Inside the Season discussions.  Go to www.scr.org for more information on these exciting and informative events.



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