Lois Smith to Exit Chicago Tempest for Dividing the Estate

Lois Smith will leave the role of Gonzalo in Tina Landau’s production of The Tempest at Steppenwolf Theater Company on May 10 to play matriarch Stella Gordon in Horton Foote’s Dividing the Estate at Hartford Stage. She will be replaced by Mike Nussbaum in a role usually played by a man, beginning May 12. Dividing the Estate will run May 28-July 5 at Hartford, directed by Michael Wilson, artistic director at Hartford. Landau's Tempest will continue its run in Chicago through May 31.

Smith won raves for her performance as Carrie Watts in Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful at off-Broadway’s Signature Theatre in 2006. The role of Stella was played on Broadway last fall by Elizabeth Ashley, who is currently appearing as Mattie Fae in the Broadway production of August: Osage County. The rest of the Broadway cast of Dividing the Estate, including the late playwright’s daughter Hallie Foote, Gerald McRaney, Penny Fuller, Arthur French and Devon Abner, will appear in the Hartford production.