Hallie Foote to Appear at Raven Theatre in January

Hallie Foote, an actress best known for playing some of her father's most memorable characters both on and off Broadway and in feature films, will visit Raven Theatre on Wednesday, January 14, 2015 for a public event entitled "A Conversation with Hallie Foote about Horton Foote." Horton Foote, who died in 2009, was the author of nearly 100 plays, teleplays and screenplays, including The Trip to Bountiful, Tender Mercies and To Kill a Mockingbird. Hallie Foote's roles in her father's plays have included award-winning turns in The Trip to Bountiful and The Roads to Home and a Tony Award nomination for Dividing the Estate. She was a producer of both the 2013 Broadway production of The Trip to Bountiful starring Cicely Tyson and the television version of the same. While in Chicago, Ms. Foote will attend a rehearsal and consult on Raven's upcoming production of Horton Foote's Dividing the Estate.

The conversation will be led by Chris Jones, the Chief Theatre Critic of the Chicago Tribune. The discussion will begin at 7:30 and is open to the public. The program will also include a reading by Raven ensemble members and other Chicago actors, directed by Producing Artistic Director Michael Menendian, of a short excerpt from Foote's play The Old Friends (seen in New York in fall 2013 in a production by the Signature Theatre featuring Betty Buckley and Hallie Foote). Admission price is $10.00 and tickets may be ordered online at www.raventheatre.com or by phone at 773-338-2177. Raven Theatre is located at 6157 N. Clark Street.

Raven to celebrate Horton Foote's career with a three-month exploration of his work

The public appearance by Ms. Foote will be the first in a series of events presenting and discussing Horton Foote's plays for stage, screen and television as well as his book-length memoirs.

Chicago Premiere of Dividing the Estate, January 27 - March 28, 2015

Foote's last new play to be presented on Broadway, Dividing the Estate will be presented in Chicago for the first time by Raven Theatre Company, in a production directed by Associate Artistic Director Cody Estle. One of Foote's few comedies, it's a sharply satiric look at the members of a once-wealthy family whose fortunes have declined and are debating dividing the family estate before the death of their octogenarian matriarch Stella. Though a comedy, it like many of Foote's dramas is an insightful look at the changes in American society over the course of the 20th Century. Preview performances are Tuesday, January 27 through Sunday, February 1. Opening night is Monday, February 2 and the production will run through Saturday, March 28.

Free Screening of The Trip to Bountiful, featuring the Tony and Emmy Award Winning performance of Cicely Tyson; with an introduction by Professor Anna Everett of the University of California at Santa Barbara. Sunday, February 15, 7 PM.

Foote's best-known play, about a woman in her sixties who longs to travel from Houston to her rural Texas hometown, initially premiered as a live television drama in March 1953. It was expanded into a full-length Broadway play later that year and was revived on Broadway in 2013 with Tyson and Vanessa Williams in the lead roles. A feature film version with Tyson and Williams reprising their roles was produced by Lifetime Television and aired in early 2014. Tyson's portrayal of Carrie Watts, for which she won a Tony Award as Leading Actress in a Play again brought gold to the actress when she was honored with an Emmy Award for her performance in the TV film version.

This screening of the film, shot on location in Georgia, will be introduced by Professor Anna Everett of the University of California at Santa Barbara. Professor Everett, who is a noted broadcast historian and theorist in African-American film studies will speak live via Skype.

Audience Talkback following the Sunday, February 22 matinee performance of Dividing the Estate, led by Raven Theatre Executive Director Kelli Strickland. Raven's regular audience talkback will give audiences a chance to offer feedback and ask questions of some of the artists involved in the production.

Free reading of Foote's Courtship and Valentine's Day, directed by Raven Associate Artistic Director Cody Estle. The Orphans' Home Cycle is a series of nine plays based on the life of Foote's father between the years 1902 and 1928. The first play, Roots in a Parched Ground, was originally written in 1962. The other eight were written in the1970's and produced individually between 1978 and 1999. The plays were produced as a complete cycle for the first time in 2009 by Hartford Stage and New York's Signature Theater. Courtship and Valentine's Day are the fifth and sixth plays of the cycle, and concern the courtship and the first year of marriage of Horace and Elizabeth Robedaux, the characters based on Foote's parents.

Book club discussion of Farewell: A Memoir of a Texas Childhood by Horton Foote. Foote's memoir, written in 1999 is an affectionate look back at Foote's extended family and neighbors in Wharton Texas, where he was born in 1916 and lived until he was 16 years old. As a boy, Foote eagerly listened to the stories told by his elders. Those histories, as well as his own experiences, inspired the many plays and screenplays he created over his lifetime and readers will recognize characters and situations from those works in his memoir.

Raven will have copies of Farewell for sale throughout the run of Dividing the Estate and will invite readers to gather for a one-time book club to discuss it at the theater on Tuesday, April 14th.

Photo by Walter McBride