The nine-play cycle presented as three separate evenings 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, TX, the work is based partly on the childhood of Foote's father and the courtship and marriage of his parents.

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Over at the Public Theater, the world premiere of Richard Foreman's Idiot Savant begins previews Oct. 27.

The playwright directs the production, billed as a "wild theatrical odyssey that could only have sprung from the fantastical mind of Richard Foreman, New York's legendary avant-garde genius. This new work is a philosophical comedy, in the great tradition of Ionesco and Preston Sturges.  From precise existential and metaphysical acrobatics, to a ridiculous game of inter-species golf with a Giant Duck, Idiot Savant is a fresh, bracing and hilarious exploration of the boundaries of the legitimate."

The limited engagement stars Academy Award winner Willem Dafoe and features Alenka Kraigher as Marie, Elina Löwensohn as Olga, with Joel Israel, Eric Magnus and Daniel Allen Nelson.