According to the Hartford Courant Behind the Curtain blog, Connecticut Public Television will air "Horton Foote: At Home in Hartford" Sept. 6 at 10:30 PM. The documentary will shed light on Foote's collaboration with Hartford Stage artistic director Michael Wilson and the Connecticut theatre.
Don Stokes and Anne Rapp are also creating a feature documentary film entitled "Horton Foote: the Man from Wharton," which will include footage about the upcoming world premiere of The Orphans' Home Cycle at Hartford Stage. The documentary will conclude filming in spring 2010.
The 92-year-old Foote had been in Hartford, CT, where he was putting the finishing touches on Orphans' Home Cycle, when he died last March. Hartford Stage artistic director Michael Wilson (Dividing the Estate, The Carpetbagger's Children) directs the sprawling family drama that will play Hartford Stage Sept. 3-Oct. 24 and Off-Broadway's Signature Theatre Company Nov. 5-March 6, 2010.
Part I of the cycle consists of the plays Roots in a Parched Ground, Convicts and Lily Dale; Part II includes The Widow Claire, Courtship and Valentine's Day; and Part III concludes with 1918, Cousins and The Death of Papa.
According to press notes, The Orphans' Home Cycle "begins with a father's death in a small-Texas town at the turn of the century, a loss that sends his son, Horace Robedaux, on an odyssey through the darkest corners of the heart as he learns to become a husband, father, and patriarch. Set in Foote's fictitious town of Harrison, Texas and based partly on the childhood of Foote's father and the courtship and marriage of his parents, the cycle is a wide-ranging, intricate work." A Pulitzer Prize winner for The Young Man from Atlanta, Foote's plays also include Dividing the Estate (2009 Tony nomination for Best Play), The Carpetbagger's Children, The Trip to Bountiful, The Traveling Lady, The Chase, The Last of the Thorntons and Talking Pictures, among others. He is an Academy Award winner for the screenplays "Tender Mercies" and "To Kill a Mockingbird."
