THEATRICAL OUTFIT PRESENTS THE

ATLANTA PREMIERE OF HORTON FOOTE’S

PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING PLAY

THE YOUNG MAN FROM ATLANTA,

JANUARY 26 – FEBRUARY 20, 2011

(Atlanta, GA)   In 2007, with the playwright’s encouragement and guidance, Theatrical Outfit produced and Executive Artistic Director Tom Key directed Horton Foote’s The Chase, its only other professional production since debuting on Broadway in 1952.  During pre-production, Key and Foote began an on-going dialogue, which helped to deepen Key’s own understanding of the seemingly subtle yet profound ways Foote fashioned his characters and their personal life-responses to illuminate themes of common humanity and to elevate ethic or spiritual consciousness. 

Often likened to Chekhov, the prolific, oft-awarded Foote wrote about the quotidian in quiet lives, usually set in his native rural Texas; and while these studies in human nature might appear to audiences as relatively still on the surface, much like a Texas gusher, the explosive excavation of some buried wellspring delivers an unexpected wealth of insight and revelation.  In Foote’s deft hands, the particular becomes the universal, and Key became convinced that not only did Theatrical Outfit have the vision and aesthetic necessary to fully translate this specific drama, but that it should aim to present the Atlanta premiere of Foote’s 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning work The Young Man From Atlanta.

When Atlanta Journal-Constitution theater critic Wendell Brock interviewed Foote in 2007 about The Chase, Foote offered this informal directive:  “I’d like to see it done with strength, and I have a hunch this fellow in Atlanta knows what I’m talking about…He has a sense of the theatrical, and he wouldn’t be modest about raising the temperature of the actors.”

Now, from January 26 through February 20, The Young Man From Atlanta takes to Theatrical Outfit’s stage, with Key in the role of 1950’s Houston businessman Will Kidder, a man who learns too late that his bargain with success may have cost him his only son.  Atlanta stage veteran Marianne Hammock plays Will’s wife Lily Dale Kidder, a woman who comforts herself with religion and tightly-held notions.  As this middle-aged couple struggles to understand the tragic loss of their son, they are confronted not only about the true nature of their child’s death—was it an accident or suicide?—but also of his life choices and very identity, when the young man of the title, their son’s roommate, arrives unannounced from Atlanta.

Theatergoers may recognize the Kidders as characters from earlier Foote plays who resurfaced in Foote’s epic masterpiece The Orphans’ Home Cycle, which though written in the 1970s was produced as a whole for the first time at New York’s Signature Theatre in November, 2009, the same year Foote died at age 92.

In The Young Man From Atlanta, as in many of Horton Foote’s plays, the characters wrestle with grief, fear, courage, love—all in pursuit of finding inner peace.  That it has taken sixteen years for the play to arrive on the Atlanta stage prompts Key to remark, “I believe there is a readiness now to hear this story that may not have existed earlier.  Foote’s themes and the way he tackled them ensure a fresh and timeless appeal, but a string of current events have made The Young From Atlanta more relevant than ever; it takes time to grasp the consequences of cultural systems in individual lives, and this play provides a witness to our condition as powerfully and accurately as any work I have seen.”

Jessica Phelps West directs a cast that includes Tim Batten (Carson), Andrew Benator (Tom), Donna Biscoe (Etta), Robin Bloodworth (Ted), Tonia Jackson (Clara), and Frank Roberts (Pete).

Tickets are $15 - $35 and on sale now.  Preview performances are Wed., Jan. 26-Fri., Jan. 28 at 7:30 pm, and opening night is Sat., Jan. 29 at 7:30 pm.  Performance times are Weds. through Sats. at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 2:30 pm.  Sat. matinee on Feb. 5 at 2:30 pm.  $15 Seniors matinee on Wed., Feb. 9 and Sat., Feb. 19 at 2:30 pm. Recommended for audiences ages 16 and up due to adult language and content. 

Group discounts are available (call 678.528.1497) and $15 student tickets day of show, with student ID.  Box office hours are noon to 6 pm Tues. through Fri. and prior to curtain.  For more information contact the box office at 678.528.1500 or at www.theatricaloutfit.org.  Theatrical Outfit in The Balzer Theatre at Herren’s, 84 Luckie Street, Atlanta, GA  30303.

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About Theatrical Outfit

Theatrical Outfit is an Atlanta-based professional theater company whose purpose is to provide its diverse audiences, actors and artists with a rich theater experience and produce works that stimulate thoughtful discussion. It is intentional about using local talent to tell its “Stories that stir the soul” – which often come from classic and contemporary literature – featuring themes that are both relevant and revelatory.

Theatrical Outfit is a not-for-profit 501 (c) 3 organization supported by private and public funding, along with ticket sales revenue.  Major support is provided by the Fulton County Commission through the Fulton County Arts Council, the City of Atlanta Office of Cultural Affairs, Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund, the Georgia General Assembly through the Georgia Council for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.