Hartford Stage Finalizes 2009-2010 Season

Hartford Stage has finalized its 2009-2010 season.

As previously announced, the centerpiece will be Horton Foote’s The Orphan’s Home Cycle, to be co-presented with New York’s Signature Theater. Michael Wilson will direct this series of nine independent yet interlocking plays that traces the transformation of an American orphan, Horace Robedaux, into a husband, father, and patriarch. The production is presented as three separate programs. Part I, spanning the plays Roots in a Parched Ground, Convicts and Lily Dale, shows his formative years. Part II, depicting Horace’s courtship and marriage, includes The Widow Claire, Courtship, and Valentine’s Day. Part III, including 1918, Cousins and The Death of Papa, shows the impact of World War I, ending with Horace facing the future of his family and land. Foote’s daughter, Hallie Foote, will be part of the cast.

Hartford Stage will also present Craig Wright’s comedy Mistakes Were Made; Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder’s Gee’s Bend, about the women of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, who sing hauntingly beautiful gospel melodies as they create magnificent handmade quilts; Laura Eason’s new stage adaptation of Mark Twain’s classic The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; and the new comedy Motherhood, directed by Lisa Peterson, and featuring writing by Jane Anderson, Leslie Ayvazian, Bridget Carpenter, Jessica Goldberg, Beth Henley, Deborah Zoe Laufer, Lisa Loomer, Michelle Lowe, Theresa Rebeck, and Annie Weisman, as well as its annual family holiday production, A Christmas Carol–A Ghost Story of Christmas, adapted and directed by Michael Wilson from the book by Charles Dickens.

The company’s SummerStage series will feature singer Betty Buckley, the comedy duo The Umbilical Brothers in Thwak! and Yesterdays — An Evening with Billie Holiday, featuring Vanessa Rubin.

For more information, call 860-527-5151 or visit hartfordstage.org.