Author Spotlight: Horton Foote

Horton Foote (1916-2009) is the playwright who wrote "The Trip to Bountiful," which opens this week at the Vam York Theater. Originally from a small town in Texas, many of his themes involved the people and places near where he grew up.

In "Bountiful," Carrie Watts escapes living with her son and his wife to embark on a trip back to her own Texas hometown.

"My first memory was of stories about the past — a past that, according to the storytellers, was superior in every way to the life then being lived," Foote wrote in 1988. "It didn't take me long, however, to understand that the present was all we had, for the past was gone and nothing could be done about it."

"Bountiful" premiered on Broadway in 1953, starring screen icon Lillian Gish. The film version was released in 1985, with Geraldine Page winning an Academy Award as best actress.

Foote himself won two Academy Awards, one for best adapted screenplay in 1962 for "To Kill a Mockingbird" and one for best original screenplay in 1983 for "Tender Mercies." He received the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for his play "The Young Man From Atlanta." Foote also served as the voice of Jefferson Davis in Ken Burns's documentary "The Civil War."

The preview performance is tomorrow, so get your tickets when the box office opens at 7 p.m.! See you there!

xo xo GCP Girl