Friday, August 24, 2007

Horton Foote - The Oldest Working Screenwriter in Hollywood


In the New York Times Magazine, there's a warm profile of Horton Foote, a 91-year-old playwright and screenwriter still busy at work. In fact, his script, "The Great Debaters," is in production now, a film that stars Denzel Washington. I know of Foote because of his Oscar win in the 1960s for his screenplay adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. The magazine article touches on his career in Hollywood but its main focus is on his strong longevity as a writer for the stage.

Also to note, if you're in the Seattle area, Tony Award-winning Intiman Theatre is continuing its "American Cycle" series (they've thus far done productions of Richard Wright's Native Son, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Thornton Wilder's Our Town) with a Christopher Sergel adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, showing in September and October. I'm eager to see how it plays on stage.

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