The success of the "Trip To Bountiful" telecast led its writer Horton Foote to expand his original script for a Broadway production headlined by Lillian Gish. Will Hare, Frank Overton and Eva Marie Saint also reprised their telecast roles onstage. Eileen Heckart already playing Broadway in William Inge's '''Picnic'', Jessie Mae was played onstage by Jo Van Fleet (whose performance would earn a Tony Award). Also Gene Lyons played Ludie onstage replacing the telecast's John Beal (after Beal and director Fred Coe disputed whether Ludi should be toupeed). Opening at Henry Miller's Theater on November 1953 the staged version was a high profile flop with a one month run comprising 39 performances. Foote would attribute his play's Broadway failure to 20,000,000 people having already seen ''Trip to Bountiful'' on television.
Jo Van Fleet won the 1954 Tony Award (New York City) for Supporting or Features Actress in a Drama for "The Trip to Bountiful" for her portrayal of Jessie Mae Watts.
Lillian Gish asked Horton Foote if as Carrie Watts she could instead of the 91st Psalm recite the iconic 23rd Psalm. Foote could not approve the switch as the plot demanded Carrie's reciting a Psalm which pleads for protection.
Following the March 1 1953 NBC-TV broadcast of ''Trip to Bountiful'' the network switchboard was flooded with laudatory calls from viewers, including a message to Lillian Gish stating that television had "come of age" that night. The message was from William Paley, president of CBS-TV.
Focal character Carrie Watts speaks the lines: "My time approaches. I've made one promise to myself, to see my home again before I die." Lillian Gish would in fact live almost 40 years to the day after originating the role of Carrie Watts on the March 1 1953 ''Trip to Bountiful" telecast: Gish would pass away February 27 1993 which year she would have turned 100 years old.