$50,000 AT&T; Grant to Help SCR Stage Horton Foote World Premiere

A $50,000 grant from AT&T; will help South Coast Repertory produce “Getting Frankie Married ... and Afterwards,” a new play by Horton Foote that will have its world premiere April 5 at the Costa Mesa theater.

Foote, the 85-year-old Texan who has two screenwriting Oscars and won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for his drama “The Young Man From Atlanta,” will receive an additional $5,000 under the grant program, an SCR spokesman said.

AT&T; has been issuing its OnStage awards for new plays since 1985, and South Coast was one of 106 theaters invited to apply for the grants for 2002.

A panel of six professional dramatists, including Mark Taper Forum resident director Lisa Peterson and San Francisco playwright Philip Kan Gotanda, advised the grant administrator, the nonprofit Theatre Communications Group, on its choices.

Three other plays received funding: “Polk County,” an adaptation of a story by Zora Neale Hurston, to be staged in Washington, D.C.; “Holes,” an adaptation of an award-winning children’s story by Louis Sachar, which will premiere in Seattle; and “Yellowman,” a drama by Dael Orlandersmith to be seen in Philadelphia and Princeton, N.J.