Open Fist Presents GETTING FRANKIE MARRIED - AND AFTERWARDS, Opens 4/2

The Open Fist Theatre Company presents the third show in their 2010 season, the Los Angeles Premiere of GETTING FRANKIE MARRIED - AND AFTERWARDS, written by acclaimed playwright Horton Foote (The Orphans Home Cycle) and directed by Scott Paulin (The Roads to Home, Harrison, Texas). GETTING FRANKIE MARRIED - AND AFTERWARDS will open on Friday, April 2 at 8pm and run through Saturday, May 15 at The Open Fist Theatre, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood.

GETTING FRANKIE MARRIED -AND AFTERWARDS, the late masterpiece from award-winning playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote tells the star-crossed tale of longtime lovers Frankie and Fred , two apparently conventional denizens of the conventional little town of Harrison, standing in for the real life hometown of Mr. Foote, Wharton, Texas. In a style ranging from farce to tragedy GETTING FRANKIE MARRIED - AND AFTERWARDS wryly observes the chaos that results when a father's sexual transgression is repeated by his son. Horton Foote, who died a year ago, a week shy of his ninety-third birthday, is in the middle of a rebirth of popularity on the New York stage. The Broadway production of Dividing the Estate was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play in 2009, and ran to sold out houses at the Booth Theater. His nine-hour epic saga The Orpan's Home Cycle is in the seventh month of a sold out run at The Hartford Stage and The Signature Theater, and is rumored to be short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize. The New York Times recently announced The Orphan's Home Cycle will move to Broadway in September of 2010.

GETTING FRANKIE MARRIED---AND AFTERWARDS, completed in 2002, explores the great themes of Horton Foote's sixty year career: the longing for stability in the shifting moral universe of everyday life, the inevitability of change, and the power of love to ennoble everyday life and to disrupt it in equal measure.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM AND CAST

Horton Foote (Playwright) had his first play, Texas Town, produced Off-Broadway in 1941. Since then, in a career spanning 68 years, he has had plays produced on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway and at many regional theaters 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 Theater Season of his plays. In 1996 he was elected to the Theater 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 Stat Governor's Arts Award, and in December of that year he was given the National Medal of Arts Award by President Bill 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. Mr. Foote's memoirs, Farewell and Beginnings, are published by Scribner. His biography, Horton Foote: American's Storyteller by Wilborn Hampton, was released last fall by Simon and Shuster. Mr. Foote's final play, the epic nine hour saga of his father's life in the early twentieth century has been running to sold out houses and rave reviews at The Signature Theater in New York since last fall. The Wall Street Journal called The Orphan's Home Cycle "the most significant theatrical event of the season, the kind of show you tell your grandchildren you saw." The Signature Theater production is scheduled to transfer to Broadway in September.

SCOTT PAULIN (Director) Scott Paulin is a director and actor living and working in Los Angeles. He began performing in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970s appearing at The Magic Theater, The Berkeley Repertory Theater, The Berkeley Stage Company, and the Eureka Theater where he received the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Best Actor Award for his performance as Pavlo in the West Coast Premiere of David Rabe's The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel. He began directing at The Bay Area Playwrights Festival with Bill Talen's adaptation of Tolstoy's short story The Gambler. Since moving to Los Angeles in 1980 he has worked extensively in the theater, film and television. In the early 1980s he met Horton Foote at the Loft Theater and remained a friend of Mr. Foote and his family through the last twenty-five years of his life. He has directed a number of plays by Mr. Foote including The Roads to Home, The Midnight Caller, Blind Date, and The One-Armed Man (the last three one-acts performed together as Harrison, Texas) at The Second Story Theater. He directed the World Premiere of Nicolas Kazan's The Good Soldier at The Odyssey, John Patrick Shanley's Welcome to the Moon, and Four Dogs and A Bone, Tennessee Williams' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, Michel Tremblay's Johnny Mangano and his Astonishing Dogs (Trois Petit Tours), and The Woolgatherer by William Mastrosimone at The Second Story Theater. In the last year he has performed in Laura Richardson's comedy Come Back Little Horny and Shock Therapy by Tom Baum at The Lillian Theater. He has also directed thirty-five hours of television drama winning the Humanitas Prize for an episode of the NBC civil rights drama I'll Fly Away. As an actor he has guest starred in more than one hundred hours of television drama, mini-series, and MOWs and he has played leading roles in feature films including The Right Stuff, A Soldier's Story, Cat People, Pump Up the Volume, Turner and Hooch, The Accused, and I Am Sam. He is married to actress Wendy Phillips and is the father of Jenny Dare Paulin who is currently starring in the hit New York run of Horton Foote's epic nine hour saga The Orphan's Home Cycle playing to sold out houses at The Signature Theater.

The cast of GETTING FRANKIE MARRIED - AND AFTERWARDS will feature: Martha Demson, Stephanie Erb, Jim Haynie, Bjorn Johnson, John Lacy, Laetitia Leon, Algerita Lewis, Maia Madison, Laura Richardson, Judith Scarpone, Andrew Schlessinger and Teresa Willis.
GETTING FRANKIE MARRIED - AND AFTERWARDS will be produced by the Stephanie Terronez and features an award-winning design team. The Scenic Design is by James Spencer. The Costume Design is by Christina Wright. The Lighting Design is by Dan Reed. The Sound Design is by Peter Carlstedt. Props Design is by Ina Shumaker and Bruce Dickinson.

Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm Sundays at 2pm. Ticket prices are $25; tickets for the opening night gala are $35. Students and Seniors $20. Special group rates available for parties of 10 or more. For tickets, please call (323) 882-6912 for details or visit www.openfist.org to purchase tickets online or to view complete schedule. 

Run: Friday, April 2 - Saturday, May 15, 2010

Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm; Sundays at 2pm

The Open Fist Theatre

6209 Santa Monica Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90038

Opening Night Gala tickets: $35.00

All other tickets: $25.00; Student & Seniors; $20 Preview tickets: $15.00
Pay-What-You-Can on Sundays, April 4, 11 & 18

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