Principal Role – Play. In May 2004 Michael Buffong directed a production at the Royal Exchange, Manchester with Lisa Eichhorn as Ouissa Kittredge, Phillip Bretherton as Flanders Kittredge and O-T Fagbenle as Paul. O-T Fabenle won a MEN Award for his performance. The play was revived on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in a limited engagement opening on April 5, 2017, starring Allison Janney, John Benjamin Hickey and Corey Hawkins, with direction by Trip Cullman. Background The play was inspired by the real-life story of David Hampton, a con man and robber who managed to convince a number of people in the 1980s that he was the son of actor Sidney Poitier. The writer John Guare was a friend of Inger McCabe Elliott and her husband Osborn Elliott. In October 1983 Hampton came to the Elliotts' New York apartment and they allowed him to spend the night. The next morning Inger Elliott found Hampton in bed with another man and later called the police. The Elliotts told Guare about the story and it inspired him to write the play years later. After the play became a dramatic and financial success, Hampton was tried and acquitted for harassment of Guare; he felt he was due a share of the profits that he ultimately never received. A strong influence on the play is the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. There are some very overt references to it, as when the protagonist explains the thesis paper he has just written on The Catcher in The Rye to the family who takes him in for the night. There are also more subtle allusions made both in the script and in the cinematography of the film version, such as when various characters begin to take on Holden Caulfield-esque characteristics and attitudes. Film adaptation Guare adapted the play for a film released in 1993 directed by Fred Schepisi. Channing was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film. Awards and nominations Original Broadway production Original London production 2017 Broadway revival See also Small world phenomenon Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (game) Erdős number References Further reading Wolfe, Graham. (2012). “Doorways and Blank Spaces: Intertextual Connection in John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation.” Intertextual Exchanges in American Drama. Eds. Drew Eisenhauer and Brenda Murphy. Jefferson: McFarland. 217–231. External links Article on Six Degrees of Separation