At age 92, writer Horton Foote may have an Emmy and two Oscars but what he really wants is a Tony. That would certainly explain the surprise withdrawal of his play "Dividing the Estate" from the Lucille Lortel Awards.

The recent Primary Stages presentation of the piece was nominated Tuesday for best revival. Today the playwright contended in a letter to the organizers that he has made substantial revisions to the work since it premiered in 1989 and "could not honestly accept a nomination for this play as a revival."

With this well-received production transferring to Broadway in the fall, Foote would surely like to be in the running for best play next spring. To do so, he must convince the Tonys administration committee that this is, indeed, a new play. Though he has written more than 60 plays, only one has ever been nominated as Broadway's best –-"Young Man From Atlanta" in 1997.

While he lost then to Alfred Uhry's "The Last Night of Ballyhoo," Foote could take solace in the Pulitzer Prize he had picked up two years earlier for the original Atlanta staging of that play. Perhaps this latest brouhaha is a not-so-subtle reminder to the Pulitzer committee meeting over the coming weekend that they should reward this veteran again over new talents like Tracy Letts, actor turned author of "August: Osage County."