Director, stars reunite for new version of ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ at Roxy’s

Reuniting after 7½ years, the two leads and director of “Driving Miss Daisy” have found a world of changes.

“The real interesting thing is that we’re directing it in different times,” director Deb Campbell said. “We really are in a different era now than even three years ago, with all the awareness of issues about race.”

Campbell has the same performers – Huron Breaux as driver Hoke and Gina Austin in the title role – as she did when she directed “Daisy” for Forum Theatre in early 2014. The three are together again this time at Roxy’s Downtown, which opens the Pulitzer Prize-winning play on Thursday.

The play, which takes place from 1948 through 1973, remains the same, Campbell said, but the theatergoers are much better informed than it was in the previous edition.

“Even though it is a period piece, we are performing it for audiences in this time,” she said.

Austin said she, Breaux and Campbell had the chance to look at the play in the context of its setting and time periods.

“It is interesting all these years later to come back and look at it again,” she said. “There’s much more serious examination into the backstory of all the characters and all the other people who are mentioned in the script.”

Aided by Ed Baker, an associate theater professor and technical director at Wichita State, who plays Daisy’s son Boolie, they have discovered that real people and real events were depicted in playwright Alfred Uhry’s script, making new revelations to each other nearly daily during the rehearsal process.

“We’re actually representing factual material that happened,” Breaux said.

Of all the roles he’s played, the Wichita theater veteran said, “this has probably been the most moving for me personally.”

He’s especially struck by one of the show’s iconic lines, late in the play, where Daisy tells Hoke that he is her best friend.

“There’s a moment of reckoning when we all grow to the place of observing humanity with the other,” Breaux said.

All collected, the three have worked on dozens of shows since they did “Driving Miss Daisy” together in 2014 – Campbell is even directing “1776” concurrently for Wichita Signature Theatre this weekend – but said they felt like they were starting over with the Roxy’s version.

“There were residual thoughts about the play, but I approach it from a clean slate,” Breaux said.

The play had already gained acclaim by the time it was turned into a 1989 movie, which won four Oscars – best picture, best actress for Jessica Tandy, best adapted screenplay for Uhry and best makeup – and put “Driving Miss Daisy” into the public lexicon.

“It is such an iconic show,” said Campbell, who has distant relatives coming from Texas to see the play. “ It’s a lot of peoples’ favorite show.”

“Driving Miss Daisy”

When: July 8-25; 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays

Where: Roxy’s Downtown, 412 ½ E. Douglas

Tickets: $30, from 265-4400 or roxysdowntown.com