Horse Eats Hat
| Horse Eats Hat | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Written by | Orson Welles Edwin Denby Based on the play An Italian Straw Hat by Eugene Labiche and Marc-Michel |
| Date premiered | September 26, 1936 |
| Place premiered | Maxine Elliott Theatre, New York City |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Farce |
Horse Eats Hat is a 1936 farce play co-written and directed by the 21-year-old Orson Welles, and presented under the auspices of the Federal Theatre Project. It was Welles's second WPA production, after his highly successful Voodoo Macbeth.
The script by Welles and Edwin Denby was an adaptation of the classic French farce An Italian Straw Hat by Eugène Marin Labiche and Marc-Michel.
Starring Joseph Cotten, a mainstay of what would become known as the Mercury Theatre, the play premiered at the Maxine Elliott Theatre, New York City, on September 26, 1936, running until December 5, 1936.
Welles spoke to filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich about the production:
The farce Horse Eats Hat was the best of the Mercury shows — and, though successful, it divided the town. The press was mixed, yet it was always packed, and had an enormous following. Some people went to it every week as long as it ran."[1]
Cast
Orson Welles's theatre work between 1931 to 1940 is the subject of The Theatre of Orson Welles (1977) by Richard France.[2]
- Joseph Cotten as Freddy
- Edgerton Paul (alternating with Orson Welles) as Mugglethorp
- George Duthie as Entwhistle
- Donald MacMillan as Uncle Adolphe
- Dana Stevens as Queeper
- Hiram Sherman as Bobbin
- Sidney Smith as Grimshot, Lieut. of Cavalry
- Harry McKee as Joseph
- France Bendtsen as Gustav, Viscount
- Bil Baird as Augustus
- Virginia Welles as Myrtle Mugglethorp
- Paula Laurence as Agatha Entwhistle
- Arlene Francis as Tillie
- Sarah Burton as The Countess
- Henriette Kaye as Daisy
References
- ^ Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich, This is Orson Welles. New York: HarperCollins Publishers 1992 ISBN 0-06-016616-9 page 334
- ^ France, Richard, The Theatre of Orson Welles. Cranbury, New Jersey: Associated University Presses, Inc. 1977 ISBN 0-8387-1972-4 pp. 182–83
External links
- Horse Eats Hat at the Internet Broadway Database
- Horse Eats Hat — Library of Congress exhibition Coast to Coast: The Federal Theatre Project, 1935–1939 (February 17–July 16, 2011)