About the Play:

Courtship has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Female/Female Scenes.

Courtship is a full-length drama by Horton Foote. This affecting, warmly nostalgic play illuminates the plight of a young Texas belle eager to break free from the restraints imposed by her strait-laced family. Especially recommended for school and contest use.

Courtship concerns the courtship and the first year of marriage of Horace Robedaux and Elizabeth Vaughn, the characters based on Horton Foote's parents. As gentle and warm as the spring night in which it takes place, Courtship is a mosaic of conversations and encounters that occur during a party at the home of a well-to-do family in Harrison, Texas in 1914. The Vaughns are substantial, God-fearing folk who expect their children to accept their standards, which sometimes seem unreasonable and oppressive to their lovely, romantically inclined daughter, Elizabeth. Secretly engaged to the rather rakish Horace Robedaux, Elizabeth announces her determination to break free, despite her parents' objections, and as she and her sister gossip about the others present, it is soon apparent that their elders are not always their betters and that the previous generation is often guilty of the very sins against which they warn their offspring. But, as the play ends, Elizabeth, while still restless, is not yet quite bold enough to really defy her parents – and to challenge the powerful but reassuring restraints that the times and a way of life have bequeathed to her and her contemporaries.

Courtship is the fifth of nine plays in the writer's The Orphans' Home Cycle, a series of plays based on the life of Horton 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 the 1970's and produced individually between 1978 and 1999. Courtship premiered in 1984 as part of the Humana Festival at the renowned Actors Theatre of Louisville. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in regional, high school, and college theatre productions.

Cast: 5 female, 3 male

What people say:

"…a nostalgic story of a girl's growing up in a repressive family environment…written with a sure touch…." — The New York Times

"…a gossamer portrait of tremendous young lust set on the porch of a nicely appointed home in 1914 Harrison, Texas." — Louisville News-American

About the Playwright:

Horton Foote (1916-2009) was a prolific American playwright and screenwriter with an ear for the resilient spirit of daily life in the small-town southern US states. Known as a writer's writer, he switched readily from the stage to television and film. He received Academy Awards for his screenplay adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird and his original screenplay Tender Mercies. During the Golden Age of television, he authored numerous notable live television dramas. For his 1997 television adaptation of William Faulkner's "Old Man," he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing of a Miniseries. He received the 1995 Pulitzer Prize and his first Tony nomination for his play, The Young Man From Atlanta.