Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean had its premiere in 1976 in Columbus, Ohio, and was produced Off Broadway in 1980 and on Broadway in 1982. Though not an initial success, the play’s theme of how time covers memories too painful to accept has resonated strongly with audiences ever since. The Broadway cast – directed by Robert Altman – of Cher, Sandy Dennis, Kathy Bates and Karen Black reprised their stage roles in Altman’s 1982 movie. Graczyk found the inspiration for the play while working with a community theatre in Midland, Texas when he visited the nearby location where Giant was filmed. The flamboyant personalities and the crumbling film set stirred him to capture the humor and bleakness of lives in a small Texas town where the past altered lives and remains a vivid presence. Graczyk wrote that "…Jimmy Dean can only be described as the result of my own observations and frustrations with progress that ignores a past; the lack of personalization and pride and the recurring need of people to build facades to conceal the truths of their lives. It is the facade that makes abnormal people seem normal and the sad people seem happy. A personal observation which I feel makes the people I write about, colorful, theatrical, but most of all, honest." We are all shaped by our pasts and those memories give us the strength to lead our lives. Audiences will find their own inspiration in the comedy and surprise of Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean