Courtship

Playwright: Horton Foote

Director: Horton Foote

Cast: B. Hallie Foote, Gypsi DeYoung, Douglass Watson, Carolyn Coates, Richard Cottrell, Jean Francis, Shirley Bodtke, Timothy Farmer, Suzanne Epstein, Deborah MacHale, Valerie Ritter, Thomas Laskaris, Ricardo Velez and Raymond Wolf

Setting Designed: Lester Polakov Costumes: Patricia Adshead Lighting: Ralph Dressler Choreography: Valerie Bettis Music Arranged: Deborah MacHale Production Manager: Marlene Mancini Technical Director: Timothy Farmer Stage Manager: Robert Armin (formerly Charles Luxenberg) Assistant Stage Manager: Harlan Marks Lighting Technician: Julia McLaughlin Sound Technician: Patricia Smouse Assistant to Mr. Polakov: Evelyn Sakash Production Assistant: Hope Albrecht Poster: Dennis Hear

This play was performed the year of July 5th – 16th of the year 1978.

Synopsis:

As gentle and warm as the spring night in which it takes place, the play is a mosaic of conversations and encounters that occur during a party at the home of a well-to-do family in Harrison, Texas in 1914.

The Vaughns are substantial, God-fearing folk who expect their children to accept their standards, which sometimes seem unreasonable and oppressive to their lovely, romantically inclined daughter, Elizabeth.

Secretly engaged to the rather rakish Horace Robedaux, Elizabeth announces her determination to break free, despite her parents’ objections, and as she and her sister gossip about the others present, it is soon apparent that their elders are not always their betters and that the previous generation is often guilty of the very sins against which they warn their offspring.

But, as the play ends, Elizabeth, while still restless, is not yet quite bold enough to really defy her parents – and to challenge the powerful but reassuring restraints that the times and a way of life have bequeathed to her and her contemporaries.