Broadway & Beyond: Theater History from 1916-2016

A Legacy of Rural Voices: Remembering Horton Foote

March marks a poignant moment in American theatre history, celebrating both births and battles over artistic representation. This month, we remember playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote, born March 14, 1916, in Wharton, Texas, whose work profoundly shaped depictions of rural American life on stage and screen. Simultaneously, archival glimpses reveal the complex considerations—and occasional biases—that shaped the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in years past.

Foote is perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning screenplay adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), a landmark film that continues to resonate with audiences today. But his contributions extend far beyond that single, iconic work. Plays like The Trip to Bountiful, The Travelling Lady, and Baby, the Rain Must Fall offered nuanced portraits of everyday people grappling with universal themes of family, loss, and resilience. His 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, awarded for The Young Man From Atlanta, was lauded by Pulitzer chairman Richard Christianson for Foote’s “sure, almost invisible ability to deeply touch the viewer with the seemingly everyday conversations and actions of his ordinary people.” Foote himself described his creative process as one of “meditation,” allowing stories to “go in” him until they demanded to be written. You can learn more about his life and work at the Wikipedia entry dedicated to Horton Foote.

A Prize Shaped by National Identity

The early 1960s also saw a revealing debate surrounding the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Correspondence from March 1, 1961, reveals a clear preference among jurors for American playwrights. John M. Brown, a Pulitzer juror and critic, wrote to the advisory board recommending four plays for consideration: Jean Anouilh’s Becket, Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey, and Tad Mosel’s All the Way Home. However, Brown explicitly stated that all but Mosel’s play should be “rigidly excluded from consideration” due to the authors not being American. This highlights a prevailing nationalistic sentiment influencing the selection process at the time.

Mosel’s All the Way Home ultimately won the prize, despite some reservations stemming from its adaptation from James Agee’s Pulitzer-winning novel, A Death in the Family (1958). Brown himself acknowledged the play as a “deeply moving” experience, even whereas recognizing the complexities of awarding a prize for an adaptation. This incident offers a fascinating glimpse into the internal deliberations and biases that can shape prestigious awards in the arts.

Albee, Gielgud, and the Weight of Waiting

Fast forward to 1971, and the Broadway stage saw the preview of Edward Albee’s All Over on March 15. Directed by the legendary John Gielgud and starring Jessica Tandy and Colleen Dewhurst (who won a Tony and Drama Desk Award for her performance), the play explored the fraught dynamic between a wife and a mistress awaiting the death of their shared lover. Albee later noted that echoes of All Over could be found in his later work, Three Tall Women (1991), acknowledging them as products of the same creative mind.

Fornés and the Trial of Faith

In 1986, the singular production of María Irene Fornés’s The Trial of Joan of Arc in a Matter of Faith took place at Theatre for The New City in New York. Fornés, a pivotal figure in American theatre, based her play on transcripts from the 1431 trial of Joan of Arc, exploring themes of faith, heresy, and power. You can find more information about Fornés’s work and the Fornés Institute here. The Theatre for The New City continues to be a vital space for experimental and politically engaged theatre, as detailed on their website.

Legal Battles and Lennon’s Legacy

The late 1990s saw a legal snag surrounding the American premiere of a play about John Lennon. In 1996, San Diego Repertory cancelled the production of Lennon, which featured 40 songs from Lennon’s repertoire, due to concerns about copyright issues with Yoko Ono, who held rights to many of those songs. Despite attempts to secure permission, the theatre received no definitive response and deemed the legal risk too high. Interestingly, a different version of Lennon premiered nine years later at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, with full script approval from Ono, demonstrating the importance of securing rights and navigating complex legal landscapes in theatrical productions. The Orpheum Theatre’s current schedule and information can be found on their website.

Bolaño’s Epic on Stage

Ten years ago, in 2016, the Goodman Theatre in Chicago concluded a monumental undertaking: a stage adaptation of Roberto Bolaño’s sprawling novel, 2666. Directed by Robert Falls and Seth Bockley, the production clocked in at a staggering five-and-a-half hours, featuring an ensemble of 15 actors portraying 80 characters. The adaptation aimed to capture the novel’s “sense of scope, ambition, and audacity,” as described by Bockley in a promotional video. The play delved into the interconnected stories of academics searching for an elusive author and the unsolved murders of women in a Mexican border city. Remarkably, a recording of the production is still available for free streaming on the Goodman Theatre’s website, offering a unique opportunity to experience this ambitious theatrical event.

These snapshots from theatre history—from celebrating individual artistry to grappling with legal and artistic challenges—underscore the dynamic and ever-evolving nature of the American stage. The ongoing commitment to bringing complex stories to life, as evidenced by productions like 2666, ensures that theatre remains a vital space for reflection, dialogue, and artistic innovation.