Christopher Ferdinand Durang (January 2, 1949 – April 2, 2024) was an American playwright known for works of outrageous and often absurd comedy. His work was especially popular in the 1980s, though his career seemed to get a second wind in the late 1990s.
Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You was Durang's watershed play as it brought him to national prominence when it won him the Obie Award for Best Playwright (1980). His play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike won the Tony Award for Best Play in 2013. The production was directed by Nicholas Martin, and featured ... read more
Jules Feiffer is a celebrated American cartoonist, playwright, and screenwriter born on January 26, 1929, in the Bronx, New York. He is best known for his satirical cartoon strips that appeared in The Village Voice for over four decades. Feiffer's work often tackled political and social issues, and he was one of the first cartoonists to address the changing cultural landscape of the 1960s.
Feiffer's career began in the 1940s as a staff cartoonist for The Daily Worker, a communist newspaper. In the 1950s, he began contributing to The Village Voice, where his cartoons quickly gained popularity. His first book, "Sick, ... read more
Charles H. Fuller Jr. was an American playwright, best known for his play A Soldier's Play, for which he received the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2020 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. ... read more
BROADWAY: Conceived and directed two Tony Award winning musicals: AIN'T MISBEHAVIN' (1978: Tony, N.Y. Drama Critics, Outer Critics, Drama Desk Awards — also Tony Award for Best Director); FOSSE (1999: Tony, Outer Critics, Drama Desk Awards); as well as RING OF FIRE, (2006). With composer David Shire: director/lyricist: BABY (1983, seven Tony nominations); lyricist: BIG (1996, Tony nomination: Best Score). With Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg, co-lyricist: MISS SAIGON (Evening Standard Award, London 1990; Tony nomination: Best Score, 1991); co-lyricist: THE PIRATE QUEEN (2007). Director: THE STORY OF MY LIFE (2009). Director/co-lyricist: Andrew Lloyd Webber's SONG & DANCE (1986 Tony ... read more
David Mamet is a prolific playwright, screenwriter, and director known for his distinct style and sharp dialogue. Born in Chicago in 1947, Mamet began his career as a playwright in the 1970s, quickly gaining a reputation for his gritty, realistic portrayals of working-class characters.
Mamet's breakthrough came in 1976 with his play "American Buffalo," which premiered at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago before moving to Broadway the following year. The play, which follows a group of small-time crooks planning a heist, was praised for its raw, naturalistic dialogue and won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best American Play.
In ... read more
McNally has had a remarkably far-ranging career spanning six decades. In 2018 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is a recipient of the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award and the Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award. He has won four Tony Awards for his plays Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class and his musical books for Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime.
He has written a number of TV scripts, including "Andre's Mother," for which he won an Emmy Award. He has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, four Drama Desk Awards, two ... read more
Miller (1915-2005) was born in New York City and studied at the University of Michigan. October 2015 marked the centenary of his birth. His plays include The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944), All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953), A View from the Bridge and A Memory of Two Mondays (1955), After the Fall (1964), Incident at Vichy (1964), The Price (1968), The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972), The Archbishop's Ceiling (1977), The American Clock (1980) and Playing for Time (1980). Later plays include The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991), ... read more
David Shire is a multi-talented composer, songwriter, and pianist known for his work on Broadway, film, and television. Born in Buffalo, New York in 1937, Shire began playing the piano at a young age and went on to study music at Yale University.
Shire's Broadway career began in 1964 with the musical "Here's Where I Belong." Although the show was short-lived, Shire's music caught the attention of producer Harold Prince, who would go on to collaborate with Shire on several successful productions. In 1970, Shire and Prince teamed up for the musical "Company," which earned Shire his first Tony Award nomination ... read more
August Wilson was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America". He is best known for a series of ten plays collectively called The Pittsburgh Cycle, which chronicle the experiences and heritage of the African-American community in the 20th century. Plays in the series include, Jitney (1982), Fences (1984), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984), Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1986), The Piano Lesson (1987), King Hedley II (1999). Two of his plays received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and two of his other works won the Tony Award for Best Play. In 2006 ... read more
Barry is in his 36th year of partnership with artistic director Lynne Meadow at MTC, where he has produced hundreds of American and world premieres for MTC. He is a member of the LORT Executive, Committee, the Broadway League Board of Governors and the Tony Administration Committee and is a trustee of the Equity-League Pension and Health Trust Funds. In the past, he has served as president of ART/New York. He received the 2000 Edith Oliver Award for Sustained Excellence Off-Broadway, the Arts and Business Council’s 1997 Arts Management Excellence Award and a citation from the New York City Council ... read more
Natasha Katz is a New York-based lighting designer. She is a six-time Tony Award winner who has designed extensively for theatre, opera, dance, concerts, and permanent lighting installations around the world. Her recent Broadway credits include: Diana, The Music Man, All My Sons, Burn This, The Prom, Frozen, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Cats, School of Rock, An American in Paris, Aladdin, Skylight, The Glass Menagerie, Once, Follies, The Coast of Utopia: Salvage, and Aida. ... read more
BROADWAY: Conceived and directed two Tony Award winning musicals: AIN'T MISBEHAVIN' (1978: Tony, N.Y. Drama Critics, Outer Critics, Drama Desk Awards — also Tony Award for Best Director); FOSSE (1999: Tony, Outer Critics, Drama Desk Awards); as well as RING OF FIRE, (2006). With composer David Shire: director/lyricist: BABY (1983, seven Tony nominations); lyricist: BIG (1996, Tony nomination: Best Score). With Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg, co-lyricist: MISS SAIGON (Evening Standard Award, London 1990; Tony nomination: Best Score, 1991); co-lyricist: THE PIRATE QUEEN (2007). Director: THE STORY OF MY LIFE (2009). Director/co-lyricist: Andrew Lloyd Webber's SONG & DANCE (1986 Tony ... read more
As Artistic Director, Lynne has been the artistic visionary and leader of MTC since 1972, creating work that has put the company at the forefront of the American theatre. She has accepted every major theatre award on behalf of MTC. Directing credits include Margaret Edson’s Wit, Donald Margulies’ Collected Stories (Broadway) and The Loman Family Picnic; Charles Busch’s The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (Broadway, national tour); Alan Ayckbourn’s Woman in Mind (Drama Desk nomination, Best Director) A Small Family Business (Broadway); David Greig’s The American Pilot; Ron Hutchinson’s Moonlight and Magnolias (MTC, Alliance Theatre); Leslie Ayvazian’s Nine Armenians (Drama ... read more
