The Playgoer: Horton Foote, 1916-2009

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Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Horton Foote, 1916-2009

IHow bittersweet that Horton Foote dies just as he enjoys, at 92, his third(!) ever Broadway success and was anticipating a major Signature Theatre retrospective of his "Orphan's Home" saga.

Then again, he must have been glad to live just long enough to see it all. And, as is the way with the artistic temperament, it might be no accident that he expired just after the rush of all the work over the last year.

You can read my own thoughts on Dividing the Estate in the upcoming Best Plays 2007-2008 volume. One of the benefits of working on that was finally getting to know a writer who so many of us in NYC have ignored. So I'm very much looking forward to the Signature marathon next year, for which Foote was still toiling away adapting up to the last.

UPDATE: Full NYT obit here. And a Charles McNulty LA Times "appreciation" here.

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