The Star-Wagon

The Star-Wagon
First edition 1937
Written by	Maxwell Anderson
Date premiered	September 29, 1937
Place premiered	Empire Theatre New York City, New York
Original language	English
Genre	Drama
Setting	eastern Ohio 1902-1930's.

The Star-Wagon was a 1937 Broadway drama written by Maxwell Anderson, produced and staged by Guthrie McClintic, with scenic design by Jo Mielziner and musical direction by Albert Pearl. The general manager was Stanley Gilkey.^[1] It ran for 223 performances from September 29, 1937, to April 1938 at the Empire Theatre.

Plot

A fantasy of time-travel. The setting is manufacturing town in Eastern Ohio at what was the present time for the audience in the premiere, 1937. The setting then changes to thirty-five years back in time, 1905, and to a few years before that. Stephen Minch is an inventor and Martha Minch is his wife. A time travel machine is developed, the star-wagon. 1905 is the subsequent time for when the time travelers arrive in the same location, at the dawn of the automobile. The end result of the time traveling the world consist of what is to be, and that is just what happens.^[2]

Cast

Burgess Meredith as Stephen Minch
Lillian Gish as Martha Minch
Whitner Bissell as Park
J. Arthur Young as Mr. Arlington
Jane Buchanan as Hallie Arlington
Howard Freeman as Apfel
Mildred Natwick as Mrs. Rutledge
Edmund O'Brien as Paul Reiger
John Philliber as Misty
Kent Smith as Duffy
William Garner as Oglethorpe
Russell Collins as Hanus Wicks
Edith Smith as Della
Muriel Starr as Angela and as herb woman
Barry Kelley as first thug
Charles Forrester as second thug
Evelyn Abbott as Christabel
Alan Anderson as Ripple

Adaptations

The New York Times, January 7, 1938: "The purchase of Maxwell Anderson's The Star Wagon was made today by Selznick International as a vehicle for Janet Gaynor. The play, which is being given on Broadway, will go before the cameras in the Autumn." Gaynor retired from her film career with The Young in Heart, released November 1938, and the motion picture was never made.

The play was videotaped for television as a 1966 installment of NET Playhouse, directed by Karl Genus and starring Orson Bean, Eileen Brennan and Dustin Hoffman.