Best Foote Forward

The acclaimed American playwright Horton Foote has been named Visiting Distinguished Dramatist at Baylor. Foote, who has received two Academy Awards and a Pulitzer Prize, worked with theater students for a week in early November and will return to campus this spring for additional activities, including a public lecture. 
Beginning in 2004, the University will sponsor the Horton Foote Playwrights Festival, to become an annual weeklong event, and will present the Horton Foote Excellence in American Playwriting Award. 
"Horton Foote is one of the world's greatest playwrights and certainly Texas' greatest natural resource," said Dr. Marion Castleberry, assistant professor of theater arts, who has known Foote for 20 years. "This is one of the most significant moments in the history of Baylor Theatre. I look forward to a very rewarding partnership between Baylor and Horton Foote." 
Born in Wharton in 1916, Foote received his first Academy Award in 1962 for his screenplay of To Kill a Mockingbird and his second in 1983 for Tender Mercies. He received a Pulitzer Prize for his play "The Young Man from Atlanta." 
In 1989, he was the recipient of The William Inge Award for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater. More recent honors include a Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy of Arts and Letters, an Emmy Award for his television adaptation of William Faulkner's The Old Man and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Writer's Guild of America. He also received the National Medal of Arts Award from President Bill Clinton.