Photo Flash: The Old Globe Presents DIVIDING THE ESTATE

Nominated for a 2009 Tony Award for Best Play, Dividing the Estate is Pulitzer Prize winner Horton Foote's knowing comedy about family, money and greed. Living in Texas in the late 1980s, octogenarian matriarch Stella rules a family that must confront its past as it prepares for an uncertain future when the family fortune begins to diminish. Stella's children debate whether or not they should divide the estate while their mother is still alive in order to ensure themselves financial independence. Director Michael Wilson, considered the foremost interpreter of Foote's work, reunites with members of Dividing the Estate's Broadway cast and creative team to remount this modern classic.

Horton Foote Jr. joins Hallie Foote to make this production of their father's final play a family affair. Hallie Foote will appear as Mary Jo, for which she received a Tony Award nomination in the original Broadway production, and her brother, Horton Foote Jr., will return to the stage after an almost 20 year absence in the role of Lewis Gordon. Theater legend Elizabeth Ashley will appear as StElla Gordon, the domineering matriarch of a fading Southern dynasty, a role she originated on Broadway. Penny Fuller, a Tony Award nominee for Applause and The Dinner Party, will reprise the role of Lucille that she also created for the Broadway production. Dividing the Estate is a co-production with Alley Theatre.

The cast of Dividing the Estate also includes Devon Abner (Son), Pat Bowie (Mildred), James Demarse (Bob), Maggie Lacey (Pauline), Nicole Lowrance (Sissie), Jenny Dare Paulin (Emily), Keiana Richàrd (Cathleen), Roger Robinson (Doug) and Bree Welch (Irene Ratliff).

The creative team includes Jeff Cowie (Scenic Design), David C. Woolard (Costume Design), Rui Rita (Lighting Design), John Gromada (Original Music and Sound Design), Stephanie Klapper (New York Casting Director) and Marisa Levy (Stage Manager).

Playwright Horton Foote was an American playwright and screenwriter perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning screenplays for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1983 film Tender Mercies and his notable live television dramas during the Golden Age of Television. He had his first play, Texas Town, produced Off Broadway in 1941. His other plays include The Last of the Thorntons, The Chase, The Traveling Lady, The Trip to Bountiful, Night Seasons, Tomorrow, The Habitation of Dragons, The Orphans' Home Cycle, Roots in a Parched Ground, Convicts, Lily Dale, The Widow Claire, Courtship, Laura Dennis, Vernon Early, The Roads to Home, The Carpetbagger's Children and The Day Emily Married. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1995 for his play The Young Man From Atlanta. His final play, Dividing the Estate, was produced on Broadway in 2008 and received a Tony Award nomination for Best Play. Foote was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1998, was the inaugural recipient of the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2000. Foote died on March 4, 2009.

Director Michael Wilson was Associate Director at the Alley Theatre from 1990 to 1998 and has directed more than 20 productions, including Elizabeth Egloff's Ether Dome and Horton Foote's The Carpetbagger's Children and The Trip to Bountiful. For his premiere staging of Foote's three-part, nine-hour The Orphans' Home Cycle, he received a 2010 Drama Desk Award, as well as the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Direction of a Play. On Broadway, he has directed Foote's Dividing the Estate (Tony Award nomination, Best Play), Matthew Barber's Enchanted April (Tony Award nomination, Best Play) and John Van Druten's Old Acquaintance (Roundabout Theatre Company). His Off Broadway credits include the premieres of Jane Anderson's Defying Gravity, Eve Ensler's Necessary Targets, Foote's The Carpetbagger's Children (Lincoln Center Theater), Tina Howe's Chasing Manet (Primary Stages), Christopher Shinn's Picked (Vineyard Theatre) and What Didn't Happen (Playwrights Horizons), as well as revivals of Tennessee Williams' The Red Devil Battery Sign (WPA Theatre) and The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (Roundabout). His resident theatre credits also include American Repertory Theater, Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Long Wharf Theatre, among others; and Hartford Stage, where he served as Artistic Director from 1998 to 2011. Wilson graduated a Morehead scholar in 1987 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he trained with his long-time collaborator, Alley Artistic Director Gregory Boyd.

TICKETS to Dividing the Estate can be purchased online at www.TheOldGlobe.org, by phone at (619) 23-GLOBE or by visiting the Box Office at 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park. Tickets are currently available by subscription only. Performances at the Old Globe Theatre begin on Jan. 14 and continue through Feb. 12. Ticket prices start at $29. Performance times: Previews: Saturday, Jan. 14 at 8:00 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 15 at 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 17 at 7:00 p.m. and Wednesday, Jan. 18 at 7:00 p.m. Regular Performances: Tuesday and Wednesday evenings at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings at 8:00 p.m., Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:00 p.m. and Sunday evenings at 7:00 p.m. There is a 2:00 p.m. matinee on Wednesday, Feb. 8 and no matinee performance on Saturday, Feb. 11. Discounts are available for full-time students, patrons 29 years of age and under, seniors and groups of 10 or more.

Associated events taking place during the run of Dividing the Estate include:

INSIGHTS SEMINAR: Dividing the Estate
Tuesday, Jan. 17 at 6:00 p.m. FREE
Insight Seminars are informal presentations of ideas and insights to enhance the theater-going experience. The seminars feature a panel selected from the artistic company of each production and take place in the theater where the production is performed. Reception, 6:30 p.m. Seminar, 7:00 p.m. Admission is free and reservations are not required.

POST-SHOW FORUMS: Dividing the Estate
Tuesdays, Jan. 24 and 31 and Wednesday, Feb. 8. FREE
Discuss the play with members of the Dividing the Estate cast and crew at post-show discussions led by the Globe's creative staff after the performances.

OUT AT THE GLOBE: Thursday, Feb. 9 at 6:30 p.m. $20
An evening for gay and lesbian theater lovers and the whole LGBT community, Out at the Globe includes a hosted wine and martini bar, appetizers and door prizes. $20 per person. RSVP at (619) 23-GLOBE. (Tickets to Dividing the Estate are sold separately.)

THANK GLOBE IT'S FRIDAY: Fridays, Jan. 20 and 27 at 6:30 p.m. $20
Kick off the weekend with the Globe's Friday pre-show bash. TGIF includes a hosted wine and martini bar, appetizers and desserts. $20 per person. RSVP at (619) 23-GLOBE. (Tickets to Dividing the Estate are sold separately.)

LOCATION: The Old Globe is located in San Diego's Balboa Park at 1363 Old Globe Way. There are numerous free parking lots available throughout the park. Valet parking is also available ($10). For additional parking information visit www.BalboaPark.org.

The Tony Award-winning Old Globe is one of the country's leading professional regional theaters and has stood as San Diego's flagship arts institution for 75 years. Under the direction of Executive Producer Louis G. Spisto, The Old Globe produces a year-round season of 15 productions of classic, contemporary and new works on its three Balboa Park stages: the 600-seat Old Globe Theatre and the 250-seat Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, which are both part of The Old Globe's Conrad Prebys Theatre Center, and the 605-seat outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, home of its internationally renowned Shakespeare Festival. More than 250,000 people attend Globe productions annually and participate in the theater's education and community programs. Numerous world premieres such as The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, A Catered Affair, and the annual holiday musical, Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, have been developed at The Old Globe and have gone on to enjoy highly successful runs on Broadway and at regional theaters across the country.

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