Randy Quaid Hits the Boards
Randy Quaid's taking that holiday road to the Great White Way.
The Oscar-nominated actor, better known to legions of moviegoers as Clark Griswold's country bumpkin cousin Eddie in the Vacation movies, will make his Broadway debut this season in Lone Star Love, a new Wild West-themed musical comedy inspired by Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Quaid, 57, will play the lead, Colonel John Fastaff, a Confederate who's transplanted out west after the Civil War and "works his charms on the wives of two wealthy cattle ranchers with an eye on their husbands' land and money," according to the show's producers.
Joining the thespian on stage will be The Red Clay Ramblers, a North Carolina-based string band made up of assorted instrumentalists and singers, whose repertoire features everything from bluegrass, country twang and New Orleans roots to classical folk and gospel sounds.
The group won a special Tony Award in 1999 for the musical Food Moon, and has numerous Broadway and off-Broadway credits to its name, including writing and performing the music for playwright Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind. They've also toured the globe and collaborated with artists such as Michelle Shocked.
After an initial engagement at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre, a reworked version of the tuner will ride into the Belasco Theater in New York's Times Square, with previews beginning Nov. 1 before curtains officially go up on Dec. 3.
Lone Star Love will be directed and choreographed by Randy Skinner from a book by John L. Haber and Robert Horn and a score written by Red Clay Rambler Jack Herrick.
Costarring with Quaid will be Robert Cuccioli, who earned a Tony nod a few years back for his performance in Jekyll & Hyde, and Dee Hoty, a three-time Tony nominee famed for her work in The Will Rogers Follies, The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public and 1999's Broadway adaptation of the feature film, Footloose.
While Quaid is new to the Broadway scene, he has plenty of experience on the boards having headlined Shakespeare in the Park's The Golem and Sam Shepard's True West and God of Hell. On the tube, he earned an Emmy nod for portraying President Lyndon Johnson in 1987's LBJ: The Early Years and another for a supporting role in 2005's miniseries, Elvis.
The older brother of Dennis first won critical acclaim by scoring an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in 1973's The Last Detail, costarring Jack Nicholson. Other notable film credits include The Last Picture Show, What's Up, Doc?, Midnight Express, Days of Thunder, Quick Change, The Paper, Independence Day, Kingpin, Not Another Teen Movie, and Brokeback Mountain.
Quaid can currently be seen on the big screen as Spain's King Carlos IV in Milos Forman's Goya's Ghosts, a drama about legendary painter Francisco Goya which opened Friday in limited release. He also has two more projects in the pipeline, the comedy Gary the Tennis Coach and the comedy-drama, Real Time.
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