Signature Season to Feature Bountiful, Body & Numerous Celebrations

Signature Theatre Company, the company that has traditionally focused on only one playwright per season, has announced expanded programming for its coming seasons. In honor of its 15th anniversary, Signature will honor past playwrights it has featured before beginning its August Wilson season.

The Signature festivities will begin in September with free outdoor screenings of two films by past Signature Playwrights-in-Residence: To Kill a Mockingbird, to be introduced by Horton Foote, and Atlantic City, to be introduced by John Guare at Rockefeller Park in Battery Park City as part of the downtown River to River Festival.

Next up will be Foote's The Trip to Bountiful, directed by Harris Yulin, running from November to January 2006. The plot centers on 60-year old Carrie Watts is a woman with a weak heart but a strong spirit. Trapped in a tiny Houston apartment under the care of her soft-spoken son and watchful daughter-in-law, Carrie is determined to escape and return to her girlhood home of Bountiful, Texas, where she hasn't been in 30 years. Seizing her chance--and her meager Social Security check--Carrie sets out on an unforgettable journey to make peace with her past.

Guare's Landscape of the Body, directed by Michael Greif, is scheduled to run from February through April. Set in 1970s Greenwich Village, the play centers on Betty Yearn, who is on the lam, connected to the mysterious murder of her teenaged son. Greif previously directed a mounting of the play at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Broadway.com has learned many cast members from that mounting, including Lili Taylor, are expected to reprise their roles off-Broadway.

In the spring, Signature will present a staged reading of Madame Bovery. This version will be adapted by Adrienne Kennedy from the novel by Gustave Flaubert.

Signature will then start its Wilson season. Two Trains Running will play from September to October, from November to January 2007 will be the New York premiere of How I Learned What I Learned, Wilson's one-man show about his life, in February there will be a 10 play in 10 days Wilson marathon, then, later that month, Signature will end it season with an as-yet-untitled world premiere Wilson comedy about coffin makers on strike.