Tom Wopat, Colin Firth, And Ellen Burstyn Among Those To Star In Horton Foote's MAIN STREET

The final screenplay from Pulitzer prize and Oscar winner Horton Foote, “Main Street,” went before the cameras in Durham, North Carolina on April 6th with a blue chip cast and crew including Colin Firth, Ellen Burstyn, Patricia Clarkson, Amber Tamblyn and Orlando Bloom set to star with Andrew McCarthy, Tom Wopat and Victoria Clark also in featured roles.  Broadway Tony winning director John Doyle (“Sweeney Todd,” “Company”) makes his feature film debut, with Oscar nominee Don McAlpine (“Moulin Rouge,” “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”) behind the camera as director of photography.  The other members of the creative team include production designer Christopher Nowak (“Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead”) and costume designer Gary Jones (“Spider Man 2,” “Definitely, Maybe”).

Typical of Foote’s work, “Main Street” is a contemporary drama focusing on the lives of five residents of a small Southern city.  In the midst of today's challenging times, each of the colorful citizens of this close-knit Southern community -- will search for ways to reinvent themselves, their relationships and the very heart of their neighborhood.

Completed in 2008, “Main Street” is the final screenplay of one of America’s most celebrated writers. Typical of Foote’s past work (“Tender Mercies,” “The Trip to Bountiful”), “Main Street” focuses on the dreams and aspirations of everyday people, reflecting his earthly upbringing in a small Southern town."

Horton Foote is renowned as one of America's most celebrated dramatists and screenwriters.  His wise, wistful, artfully etched portraits of ordinary people trying to hold fast to their hopes and ambitions amidst loss and hardship in small towns established his voice as one of the most unique, and essential, on the American cultural scene in the last half century. Foote's best-known works include his play "The Trip to Bountiful," about a gentle widow who discovers the Texas town where she grew up has been abandoned, which received the Best Actress Oscar® for Geraldine Page and a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination for Foote.  His classic films also include his Academy Award®-winning adaptation of Harper Lee's beloved novel about prejudice, injustice and family, "To Kill a Mockingbird" and his Oscar® winning screenplay for "Tender Mercies," starring Robert Duvall as a washed-up country singer who finds new love.  He further received an Emmy Award for the CBS television movie "Old Man," based on the William Faulkner novel.  Foote's many acclaimed plays include "The Young Man From Atlanta," about an affluent couple transformed by tragedy, which garnered the Pulitzer Prize; his nine-play cycle "Orphan's Home," which unfolds the odyssey of a Texas orphan; and his recent Broadway play "Dividing The Estate" the comic tale of wealthy Texas family fighting over an inheritance.  Foote passed away at the age of 92 on March 4, 2009 in Hartford, Connecticut.  "Main Street" is his final screenplay.

Photo by Peter James Zielinski

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