Date premiered September 26, 1936 Place premiered Maxine Elliott Theatre | Original language English First performance 26 September 1936 | |
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Written by Edwin DenbyOrson WellesBased on the playThe Italian Straw Hatby Eugene Labiche and Marc-Michel Similar Native Son, The Green Goddess, The Cradle Will Rock, Around the World, The Italian Straw Hat (play) | ||
Survivalist horse eats hat
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 both Edwin Denby and Welles, was an adaptation of the classic French farce The Italian Straw Hat, by Eugène Marin Labiche and Marc-Michel.
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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."
Horse eats hat pt 1 the stage bar 11 27 11
Cast
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Tillie's Girls — Peggy Hartley, Terry Carlson, Lee Molnar, Gloria Sheldon, Teresa Alvarez, Opal Essant, June Thorne, Mildred Cold, Geraldine Law
Countess's Guests — Georgia Empry, Solomon Goldstein, May Angela, Lawrence Hawley, Margaret Maley, Jack Smith, Mary Kukavski, Elizabeth Malone, Ann Morton, Helena Rapport, Helen Korsun, Nina Salama, Julie Fassett, Jane Hale, Jane Johnson, Michael Callaghan, Don Harward, Walter LeRoy, Harry Merchant, Warren Goddard<
Citizens Night Patrol — Arthur Wood, James Perry, Victor Wright, Robert Hopkins, Craig Gordon, Harry Singer, Frank Kelly, Bernard Lewis, Henry Russelle, Charles Uday, George Smithfield, Henry Laird, Edwin Hemmer, George Armstrong, Jerry Hitchcock, Tod Brown