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Carpenter Square Theatre opened its 21st Season with HAROLD & MAUDE, the stage version of the 1970s cult classic film by the same name. HAROLD & MAUDE is one of the most unconventional love stories ever penned - both moving and filled with humor. Harold is a 19-year-old rich kid who is fascinated with demolitions, funerals and mock suicides staged to shock his mother. At a funeral, he meets Maude, a vivacious 79-year-old widow with eccentric hobbies of her own. They quickly form a bond, to the horror of Harold’s mother. With Maude’s "reach out - take a chance" encouragement, Harold learns to truly live and love.
Film buffs will remember Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort starring in the title roles of director Hal Ashby’s 1971 movie. Cat Stevens provided the musical score. The film developed a cult following throughout the 1970s, with numerous midnight showings on college campuses across the country. Over the years, such terms as “Harolding” and “Maudianism” were created (Harolding referring to the habit of visiting cemeteries and Maudianism naming a philosophy of living each day to the fullest).
The story originated as a 20-minute graduate thesis project when Higgins was a student at UCLA. When he showed it to his landlady, the wife of a film producer, the two formed a production company to make the full-length film. Later, Higgins developed the story into a novel, and his stage play opened in New York in 1980.
Higgins went on to write, direct, and produce such films as FOUL PLAY, NINE TO FIVE and THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS. He died in 1988 from complications due to AIDS.
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