Productions[edit]

Most of the individual plays had been produced previously, either on stage, in film, or for television. Hartford Stage and the Signature Theatre Company co-produced the cycle. Foote said "It's incredibly moving to see all of these plays from my years of writing come together into the theatrical cycle that I've always envisioned."[2]


The cycle was produced at the Hartford Stage, Hartford, Connecticut, in September 2009 through October 2009.[3] The cycle ran in repertory off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre Company from November 19, 2009 (Part 1), December 17, (Part 2), and January 26, (Part 3) through May 8, 2010. They (collectively) won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play.[4]


The director was Michael Wilson, sets by Jeff Cowie and David M. Barber, and costumes by David C. Woolard. An original score was composed by John Gromada. The cast included Bill Heck, Maggie Lacey, Annalee Jefferies, Emily Robinson, Hallie Foote, Pamela Payton-Wright, and Dylan Riley Snyder.[5]


In April 2016, Baylor University's Theatre Department put on the first ever consecutive reading of all nine plays in the cycle, bookending its full-fledged production of Story of a Marriage. Horton Foote had a long relationship with Baylor's Department of Theatre Arts and was a good friend of Dr. Marion Castleberry, a graduate professor at the University and Foote's biographer as well as director of the Cycle.

Roots in a Parched Ground was first presented on the television show "", in 1962 under the title The Night of the Storm. The cast featured Julie Harris as Julia, E. G. Marshall as Jim Howard, and Mildred Dunnock as Grandma Robedaux.[6]

DuPont Show of the Month

Convicts was made into a film and released in 1991, with as Soll Gautier and Lukas Haas as Horace Robedaux.[7]

Robert Duvall

Lily Dale ran off-Broadway at the Samuel Beckett Theatre from November 20, 1986 to February 15, 1987. The cast featured as Lily, later replaced by Mary Stuart Masterson.[8][9] It was also televised in the "Hallmark Hall of Fame" series in 1996, with Masterson as Lily.[10]

Molly Ringwald

Act 1: Roots in a Parched Ground, 1902-1903; Act 2: Convicts, 1904; Act 3 Lily Dale, 1911.


Act 1: The Widow Claire; Act 2: Courtship; Act 3: Valentine's Day


Act 1: 1918; Act 2: Cousins; Act 3: The Death of Papa.

Critical response[edit]

Ben Brantley in The New York Times wrote of The Story of a Marriage that they "are both the starkest and most sentimental of this lovingly painted life-and-times portrait."[18]


John Simon called the cycle "absorbing and uplifting", and noted that it was "suffused with Foote’s almost uncanny humanity in portraying besetting hardships and hard-won victories, disheartening letdowns and dogged loyalties. Foote has a smiling empathy with all people."[19]

Special Award, To the cast, creative team and producers of Horton Foote’s epic The Orphans' Home Cycle (winner)

Outstanding Actor in a Play, Bill Heck (nominee)

American Theatre Wing Henry Hewes Award for Design "Notable Effects- for outstanding Production Design", David M. Barber, Jeff Cowie, David Woolard, Rui Rita, John Gromada, Jan Hartley (winners)

Internet Off-Broadway Database listing, Part 1

Internet Off-Broadway Database listing, Part 2

Internet Off-Broadway Database listing, Part 3

Signature Theatre listing

Curtain Up Review, Part 2, December 12, 2009

Original Score at iTunes