The Carpet Bagger’s Children [] Players Workshop San Miguel

Every movie and theater lover should know the name of Horton Foote, Pulitzer-winning playwright and Academy Award-winning screenwriter. It is a generally acknowledged that, with rare exceptions, great books make poor films. One notable exception is the 1963 movie version of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and a principle reason for the film’s high quality is the screenplay by Foote, which won him his first Oscar. He took home another Oscar twenty years later for his original screenplay for Tender Mercies.

Despite his success in screenwriting, Foote’s great love was the theater, and his gripping play The Carpetbagger’s Children will be presented by Players Workshop at the Santa Ana Theater in three performances, at 6pm on Friday, January 24, and at 2pm and 6pm on Saturday, January 25, 2025. Three of San Miguel’s finest actresses — Antonia Banewicz, Christie Cook and Clara Dunham — make up the cast, and the director is Richard Hochberg.

The Carpetbagger’s Children dramatizes one of Foote’s favorite subjects — the resistance of the Old South to adapt to change and modern life. It tells the story of three daughters who grew up rich in a one of the finest homes in Harrison, Texas, all haunted by the memory of their departed, despotic father, a Northerner who found himself in Texas as part of the Union Army during the Civil War. Hence, they can never shake the disparaging label of carpetbagger and the taint of Yankee blood.

In his glowing review of the play in the New York Times, Ben Brantley wrote, “Few dramatists can replicate this kind of storytelling with the gentle mastery that Mr. Foote provides in his 90-minute portrait of the decline of one fractious Texas family.”

To purchase advance tickets, select the day and time of your choice and click one of the links. Tickets are 280 pesos online. Boleto City is not the ticketing agent for this production, and on some devices the Santa Ana links may not work. You can always purchase tickets at the door an hour before each performance, and there is a ten percent discount if you pay in cash. To request help in purchasing online, write to antonia@brighterbetterdays.com.