Horton Foote
Horton Foote had his first play, Texas Town, produced Off-Broadway in 1941. Since then, in a career spanning over 68 years, he has had plays produced on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, and at many regional theatres around the country. Plays include The Last of the Thorntons, The Young Man From Atlanta, The Trip to Bountiful, Night Seasons, Laura Dennis, Vernon Early, The Roads to Home, The Carpetbagger’s Children, The Day Emily Married, The Chase, Tomorrow, The Habitation of Dragons, The Traveling Lady, and Dividing the Estate. He received Academy Awards for his screenplay adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird and his original screenplay Tender Mercies. During the Golden Age of television, he authored numerous notable live television dramas. For his 1997 television adaptation of William Faulkner's "Old Man,” he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing of a Miniseries. He received the Pulitzer Prize and his first Tony nomination for his play, The Young Man From Atlanta. In 1995, he was given the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway and the Outer Critics Circle Special Achievement Award for the 1994-95 Signature Season of his plays. In 1996, he was elected to the Theatre Hall of Fame. In 1998, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and received from the Academy its Gold Medal of Drama for his body of work. In 2000, he received the PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award for Drama, New York State Governor’s Arts Award, and in December of that year he was given the National Medal of Arts Award by President Clinton. In 2006, his play, The Trip to Bountiful, won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival and Foote was given the Drama Desk Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2008, his play, Dividing the Estate, won the Obie Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for its Off-Broadway production by Primary Stages. In 2008, the play transferred to Broadway’s Booth Theater under the auspices of Lincoln Center Theater, earning Foote his second Tony nomination for Best Play. In the 2009 -10 season, his three part nine hour masterwork The Orphans’ Home Cycle was co-produced by Hartford Stage and Signature Theatre and won the 2010 New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, was a Drama Desk Special Award winner for “The Theatrical Event of the 2009 – 2010 Season,” and won the Outer Critics Circle Award for the Best Off-Broadway production. His collection of three one-acts, Harrison, TX, played off-Broadway at Primary Stages, and in 2013 the Broadway revival of his play The Trip to Bountiful earned Tony Award, Drama Desk, Drama League and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Outstanding Revival of a Play. Mr. Foote’s memoirs, Farewell and Beginnings, are published by Scribners. His biography, Horton Foote: America’s Storyteller, by Wilborn Hampton, was released in 2011 by Simon and Schuster.
Horton Foote photo by Susan Johann.