The Horton Foote Review is the scholarly journal of the Horton Foote Society, which is dedicated to the study of the life and work of the great American dramatist. Having received two Academy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and the National Medal of Arts, Horton Foote is one of the most important living figures in the American Theater today. The six scholarly essays in this first volume of the journal are by scholars from diverse fields of learning and explore the importance of Mr. Foote's work (both stage and film) to the American literary tradition, with an eye for the importance of American drama during the twentieth century. The journal will appeal to anyone who believes in the power of drama as a sustaining influence in society. Contributors include: Richard A. Lusky, Robert Donahoo, Laurin Porter, Elizabeth Fifer, Meredith Sutton, and Gerald C. Wood.

Gathers seventeen short plays set in the small Texas town of Harrison.

THE STORY: As gentle and warm as the spring night in which it takes place, is a mosaic of conversations and encounters that occur during a party at the home of a well-to-do family in Harrison, Texas in 1914. The Vaughns are substantial, God-fearing

THE STORY: In her review of the play, Marian Burkhart explains the story: In THE YOUNG MAN FROM ATLANTA, a kind of elected ignorance has skewed the past and narrowed the future, for the Kidders, Lily Dale and Will. The two are attempting to cope w

Since 1939, Horton Foote, "the Chekhov of the small town," has chronicled with compassion and acuity the experience of American life both intimate and universal. His adaptation of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and his original screenplay Tender Mercies earned him Academy Awards. He has won a Pulitzer Prize, the Gold Medal for Drama from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award for Drama, and the President's National Medal of Arts. Beginnings is the story of Foote's discovery of his own vocation. He didn't always want to write. When he left Wharton, Texas, at the age of sixteen to study at the Pasadena Playhouse, Foote aspired to be an actor. He remembers the terror and excitement of leaving home during the Depression, his early exposure to the influences of German theater, and the speech lessons he took to "cure" him of his Southern drawl. He eventually arrives in New York to search for acting jobs and to study with some of the great Russian and American teachers of the 1930s. But after mixed results on the stage, he finally recognizes his true passion, writing. From Martha Graham to Tennessee Williams, from Agnes de Mille to Lillian Gish, Horton collaborates with great artists in both dance and theater. The world he describes of fierce commitment and passion regardless of financial rewards is both captivating and inspiring. Through it all Horton maintains his genuine Southern charm, and he often travels home to Wharton, the town that nurtured him as a storyteller and has inspired his writing for the past sixty years. From one of the most moving and distinctive voices of our time, Beginnings is a rare, personal look at a fascinating era in American life, and at the making of a writer.

THE STORY: The play takes place in Harrison, Texas, jumping back and forth between 1923 to 1963. Following the Weems family as it grows up, we watch its members find their places in society. Of the main characters: Mr. Weems is a banker with a hear