Photo Coverage: Primary Stages Celebrates Horton Foote's 100th Birthday!
By: Jennifer Broski Mar. 15, 2016
Primary Stages announced their upcoming 32nd Season on March 14 at a champagne reception celebrating the Centennial of the birth of late Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Primary Stages collaborator, Horton Foote.
"Our 2016/17 Season offers an array of writing talent intermingling in all the ways audiences expect from Primary Stages," says Primary Stages Founder & Executive Producer,Casey Childs, "The season is immensely literary, with productions by masters of the written word, like Horton Footeand poet Claudia Rankine. We're also delving into more topical realms with headline-confronting pieces dealing with touchstones from the American racial divide to gay marriage, to Mexican-American immigration and citizenship."
Below, check out photos from the special celebration!
HORTON FOOTE had his first play, Texas Town, produced Off-Broadway in 1941. Since then he has had plays produced on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, at many regional theatres and internationally. His plays, Harrison, TX; Dividing the Estate; and The Day Emily Married had their New York Premieres at Primary Stages. Other plays include, The Last of the Thorntons, The Young Man From Atlanta, The Chase, The Traveling Lady, The Trip to Bountiful, Night Seasons, Tomorrow, The Habitation of Dragons, The Orphan's Home Cycle, Roots in a Parched Ground, Convicts, Lily Dale, The Widow Claire, Courtship, Laura Dennis, Vernon Early, The Roads to Home, and The Carpetbagger's Children. He received Academy Awards for his screenplay adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird and his original screenplay, Tender Mercies. His screenplay of The Trip to Bountiful was nominated for an Academy Award. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his play, The Young Man From Atlanta, the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway and the Outer Critics Circle Special Achievement Award for the Signature Series 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 at the same time received from the Academy the Gold Medal of Drama for the entire body of his 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 he was given the Drama Desk Lifetime Achievement Award for his body of work. In 2009 - 2010, his epic masterwork, The Orphans' Home Cycle was co-produced by Hartford Stage Company and Signature Theatre Company and received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, Drama Desk Award, The Outer Critics Circle Award and the Lucille Lortel Award. His memoirs, Farewell and Beginnings, are published by Scribners.
PRIMARY STAGES is an Off-Broadway not-for-profit theater company dedicated to inspiring, supporting, and sharing the art of playwriting. We operate on the strongly held belief that the future of American theater relies on nurturing playwrights and giving them the artistic support needed to create new work. Since our founding in 1984, we have produced more than 125 new plays, including Donald Margulies'The Model Apartment (1995 premiere and 2013 revival); David Ives' Lives of the Saints and All in the Timing (original 1993 production and 2013 revival); Billy Porter's While I Yet Live; Kate Fodor's Rx; Charles Busch's The Tribute Artist and Olive and the Bitter Herbs; A.R. Gurney's Black Tie; Horton Foote's Harrison, TX and Dividing the Estate (Two 2009 Tony Award®nominations); Theresa Rebeck'sPoor Behavior;Deborah Zoe Laufer's Informed Consent; Terrence McNally's Dedication or the Stuff of Dreams and The Stendhal Syndrome; Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter's In the Continuum (which went on to tour the U.S., Africa, and Scotland); and Conor McPherson's St. Nicholas (which marked the playwright's U.S. debut). Our productions and artists have received critical acclaim, including Tony, Obie, Lortel, AUDELCO, Outer Critics' Circle, Drama League, and Drama Desk awards and nominations. Primary Stages supports playwrights and develops new works through commissions, workshops, readings, and our education and training programs: The Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group, the Marvin and Anne Einhorn School of Performing Arts (ESPA), the Fordham/Primary Stages MFA in Playwriting, and the newly launched Primary Stages Off-Broadway Oral History Project. Through these programs, Primary Stages advocates for our artists, helping them make important-and often transformative-connections within the theater community.
Photo Credit: Jennifer Broski
Horton Foote 100th Birthday Cake
Daisy Foote, Michael Wilson, Hallie Foote
Michael Wilson, Vanessa Williams, Hallie Foote
Annie Potts, Michael Wilson, Estelle Parsons, Vanessa Williams, Hallie Foote
Casey Childs, Michelle Bossy, Andrew Leynse
Friends gather to celebrate Horton Foote's 100th Birthday
Shane D. Hudson
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