100 Greatest American plays
The best way to experience a play is to see it. If that isn’t possible, reading is always an option. Or see the movie/s when is possible. This list is about the American authors that appear on IMDB. The plays are places as commentaries.
More details you will find here: https://www.amazon.com/Greatest-American-Plays-Thomas-Hischak/dp/1442256052/
Missing:
Anna Cora Mowatt - Fashion 1845
Clifton W. Tayleure - East Lynne 1863
More details you will find here: https://www.amazon.com/Greatest-American-Plays-Thomas-Hischak/dp/1442256052/
Missing:
Anna Cora Mowatt - Fashion 1845
Clifton W. Tayleure - East Lynne 1863
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- Royall Tyler is known for The Contrast (2022) and Omnibus (1952).The contrast 1787
- George L. Aiken was born on 19 December 1830 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was a writer, known for Uncle Tom's Cabin (1914). He was married to Cannelyte or Carmelyte ?. He died on 27 April 1876 in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA.Uncle Tom's cabin 1853
- William W. Pratt is known for Ten Nights in a Bar Room (1921), Ten Nights in a Bar-Room: Death of Little Mary (1901) and Ten Nights in a Bar Room (1911).Ten nights in a barroom 1858
- Dion Boucicault was born on 26 December 1822 in Dublin, Ireland, UK [now Republic of Ireland]. Dion was a writer, known for Conn, the Shaughraun (1912), Arrah-Na-Pogue (1911) and Kathleen Mavourneen (1919). Dion was married to Louise Thorndyke, Agnes Robertson and Anne Guiot. Dion died on 18 September 1890 in New York City, New York, USA.Rip Van Winkle 1866
- Joseph Jefferson III, often known as Joe Jefferson, was an American actor. He was the third actor of this name in a family of actors and managers, and one of the most famous 19th century American comedians. Beginning as a young child, he continued as a performer for most of his 76 years. Jefferson was particularly well known for his adaptation and portrayal of Rip Van Winkle on the stage, reprising the role in several silent film adaptations. After 1865, he created no other major role and toured with this play for decades.Rip Van Winkle 1866
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David Belasco was born on 25 July 1853 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for The Man Without a Face (1993), The Return of Peter Grimm (1935) and Sweet Kitty Bellairs (1930). He was married to Cecilia Loverich. He died on 14 May 1931 in New York City, New York, USA.The heart of Maryland 1895- Born into an upper-class family in Elmira, NY, the son of an army officer and an indulging socialite, Clyde Fitch would become the first major American playwright, ending European-sourced dominance of the American stage (somewhat ironic, seeing that many of his plays were set abroad). His career would barely span 20 years, but he proved extremely prolific, writing 36 original plays and 24 adaptations from other works.
Fitch graduated from Amherst College in 1886, rejecting a career in business. He spent the next four years, supported by his mother, learning the craft of writing. At 25 he enjoyed his first great success with his very first play, set in England, "Beau Brummell" (1890), which became the trademark role for actor Richard Mansfield, who would continue in the title role for the remainder of his life. For Broadway's #1 producer Charles Frohman, Fitch's "Masked Ball" (1892) paired star Maude Adams with John Drew Jr., making them the most popular acting duo of the decade. Interestingly, Fitch's "Barbara Frietchie" (1899) led later to Ruby Catherine Stevens changing her surname to Barbara (Barbara Stanwyck, her last name being lifted from British actress Joan Stanwyck). Fitch's big hit, "Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines" (1900), made Ethel Barrymore a major star.
Fitch's personal life involved constant socializing; a gregarious homosexual, he thoroughly enjoyed the notoriety he was achieving on both continents and the enormous wealth that came with it. His health, however, did not stand up to his raconteur lifestyle. He had long suffered from intense abdominal troubles and, against the advice of his personal physician, sought out non-surgical alternatives to his, as it turned out, appendicitis in Europe. He died in Châlons-sur-Marne, France on September 4, 1909 at age 44 from blood poisoning after emergency surgery. After several moves over a period of time, his body was finally cremated and his ashes were installed in a special Tuscan-style sarcophagus commissioned by his mother.Barbara Frietchie 1899 - Writer
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British-born playwright J. Hartley Manners, of Irish extraction, spent many years in the United States. In his twenties, in Australia, he began a relatively successful acting career and made his debut in London's West End in 1898. Joining the company of famed actor-manager Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, he toured the provinces as an actor. For famed actress Lily Langtry, with whom he was acting, he wrote the play "The Crossways" in 1902, which he produced and co-starred in. At the end of that year Manners, Langtry and the play traveled to America, where it had a brief Broadway run. Manners acted for only another two years, but devoted himself from 1902 to playwrighting, managing to write or collaborate on more than 30 plays in the next twenty-six years. In 1909 his play "The Great John Ganton" introduced one of the century's great theatrical stars, Laurette Taylor, to Broadway. Manners married Taylor and wrote and produced ten plays for her over the next decade. One of these, "Peg o' My Heart," was a huge success, spawning eight road companies during its Broadway run, playing more than 11,000 collective performances in its first nine years. It was filmed several times. An unproduced play was the posthumous source of the musical "The Gay Divorce," a Broadway hit for Fred Astaire and Cole Porter (later filmed as The Gay Divorcee (1934)). Manners had surgery to treat esophageal cancer in November, 1928, and died three weeks later.Peg o' my heart 1912- Mary Roberts Rinehart was born on 12 August 1876 in Allegheny City [now North Side, Pittsburgh], Pennsylvania, USA. She was a writer, known for The Nurse's Secret (1941), The Bat Whispers (1930) and Tish (1942). She was married to Stanley Rinehart. She died on 22 September 1958 in New York City, New York, USA.The bat 1920
- American playwright, many of whose plays were filmed. The leading light of early twentieth-century light comedy and farce and one of the most commercially successful playwrights of his era, Hopwood, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, graduated from the University of Michigan, which would later be the beneficiary of much of his substantial estate. He began a career as a journalist for a Cleveland newspaper as its New York correspondent, but within a year had one of his plays, "Clothes," produced on Broadway. Thereafter followed a string of hits written solely or in collaboration, among them "Getting Gertie's Garter," "The Bat," and "Seven Days." His plays were looked upon at the time as extremely risqué and one of them, "The Demi-Virgin," which featured suggestive subject matter and near-nude actresses, led to a Supreme Court determination over its alleged obscenity. (The court ruled in Hopwood's favor.) His Prohibition-era plays of flappers, bathtub gin, and jazz were iconic for his age, and his own life was reflected in aspects of his plays. He was a heavy drug and alcohol user, and he kept his homosexuality tightly concealed. Despite making millions of dollars a year in royalties, he was known as a tightwad. An inveterate proponent of night life, he died while vacationing on the Riviera under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Ultimately it was ruled that he had drowned, though bruises on his body and the simultaneous presence in the vicinity of an angry ex-lover who had reportedly threatened him have kept suspicion alive. The University of Michigan established the Hopwood Prize with his bequest, providing funds and education for many future leading lights of the American theatre.The bat 1920
- Eugene O'Neill, the winner of four Pulitzer Prizes for Drama and the 1936 Nobel Prize for Literature, is widely considered the greatest American playwright. No one, not Maxwell Anderson, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, nor Edward Albee, approaches O'Neill in terms of his artistic achievement or his impact on the American theater.
James O'Neill, one of the most popular actors of the late 19th century, was his father, so one could say that Eugene O'Neill was born to a life in the theater. His father, who had been born into poverty in Ireland before emigrating to the United States, developed his craft and became a star in the theaters of the Midwest. He married Mary Ellen "Ella" Quinlan, the Irish-American daughter of a wealthy Cleveland businessman, whose death when she was a teenager had hurt her emotionally. She remained emotionally fragile throughout her life, a condition exacerbated by a further tragedy, the loss of a child. A further strain was placed on her when it was discovered that James had lived in "concubinage" with a common-law wife who later sued him for child support and alimony, claiming he had fathered her child. Both were pious and believing Catholics.
They had three sons, including James Jr. (born 1878) and Edmund (1883), who died at the age of two from measles, leaving Ella distraught. Their last son, Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (his middle name a salute to the British prime minister who was in favor of home rule for Ireland), was born at the Barrett Hotel (home of many theatrical artistes) in New York City, on October 16, 1888. Supposedly, it was a difficult delivery, and in the spirit of the times, Ella was given morphine for her pain. She became an addict.
James O'Neill made a fortune playing The Count of Monte Cristo, both on Broadway in multiple productions and as a touring show. However, he suffered an artistic death as a performing artiste through the sheer repetition of the Monte Cristo role, which he turned to repeatedly as it always proved a success. He reportedly played the role at least 4,000 times, perhaps nearly twice that number. He would provide the prototype for the character of James Tyrone, the pater familias in his son's "Long Day's Journey Into Night". James O'Neill Sr. knew that he had suffered artistically from his commercial instincts, and Eugene never forgot that. His son remained steadfast in his own fidelity to his principles of artistic integrity.
The father also was a notorious skinflint, terrified that some unforeseen calamity would throw him back into the hellish poverty of his childhood in Ireland. Both young Gene and his older brother Jamie tried their hands at acting, and though Jamie was more successful than Gene, he never developed a significant, independent career as a professional thespian due to instability caused by his alcoholism. Jamie relied on his father for work, which further fueled his drinking.
Jamie was a full-blown alcoholic, just like his younger brother, Gene, and he drank himself to death at a relatively young age, a fate Gene managed to avoid, but not from lack of trying. The characters of Jamie in "Long Day's Journey Into Night" and James Tyrone Jr. in "A Moon for the Misbegotten" were based on him.
As a young man, Eugene suffered from tuberculosis, which likely exacerbated his propensity for pessimism (the stuff of his life became the guts of his last masterpiece, "Long Day's Journey Into Night"). His pessimistic, tragic outlook on life likely was hereditary: O'Neill's two sons, Eugene O'Neill Jr. and Shane O'Neill, became substance abusers as adults: Eugene Jr. was an alcoholic and Shane was a heroin addict. Both committed suicide. He disowned his daughter Oona Chaplin, for marrying Charles Chaplin, who was just six months younger than O'Neill himself. He had never had much to do with her anyway, nor any of his children. His life was devoted to writing.
After recovering from tuberculosis, O'Neill attended Princeton for the 1907-08 term, but was kicked out after his freshman year, allegedly for being drunk and disorderly at a reception held by the university president, future President of the United States Woodrow Wilson. For the next eight years he led a freebooting existence, fortune-hunting for gold in South America and plying the seas as an able-bodied seaman, while trying to drink himself to death (he even made an attempt at suicide). Eventually he returned to New York City and tried his hand at playwriting, and with the financial help of his father, studied playwriting at Harvard in 1915. His father was unimpressed by the results, and died the same year his son made his big breakthrough on Broadway (he did live to see the production of Eugene's first full-length play, "Beyond the Horizon", which opened on February 2, 1920 and ran for a then-impressive 111 performances, and its honoring with the 1920 Pulitzer Prize for Drama that May. James O'Neill Sr. died on August 10, 1920. His namesake, James O'Neill Jr., died three years later, at the age of 45.)
Where Eugene truly learned his craft was in the writing of one-act melodramas that dealt with the lives of sailors, that were performed by the Provincetown Players, which had theaters in Provincetown on Cape Cod and off of Washington Square in New York City (John Ford made a 1940 movie out of four of his sea plays, collected in The Long Voyage Home (1940)). The theater he created was a reaction against the theater of his father, the old hoary melodramas that packed them in for a night of crowd-pleasing entertainment.
Eugene started out as a dramatist at a time when there was an average of 70 plays being performed on Broadway each week. The Great White Way resembled a modern movie multiplex in that potential theatergoers would peruse the various marquees in and around Times Square seeking an entertainment for the night. At the time O'Neill began to establish himself, in pre- and post-World War I era, entertainment was first and foremost in most people's minds.
The movies and O'Neill would change that. The competition of the more sophisticated movies of the late silent era, and then the talkies, usurped the position of Broadway and the theater as the premier venue for American entertainment. The light plays that were the equivalent of television fare became extinct. Musicals continued to thrive, as did comedies, but drama became more serious and developed a psychological depth. O'Neill was the midwife of the phenomenon.
Eugene O'Neill helped foster the maturation of American drama, as he incorporated the techniques of both European expressionism and realism in his work. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, brought to the American stage a tragic vision that influenced scores of American playwrights that followed.
Eugene O'Neill died in the Shelton Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1953. Allegedly, his last words were, "Born in a hotel room, and goddammit! Died in one!" His health had been hurt by his alcoholism and he suffered from Parkinson's disease-like tremors of his hands that had made it difficult, if not impossible, to write since the early 1940s. It is believed that he suffered cerebellar cortical abiotrophy, a neurological disease in which certain neurons in the cerebellum of the brain die off, adversely affecting the balance and coordination of the sufferer. As a dramatist, he had flourished on Broadway from 1920, when his first full-length work, "Beyond the Horizon", debuted, winning him his first Pulitzer, until 1934, when his first and only comedy, Ah, Wilderness! (debut October 1933) came to an end that June and his play, "Days Without End," was staged in repertory between January and November). After 1934, he entered a cocoon, staying away from Broadway until after World War II, when the 1946 production of "The Iceman Cometh" debuted. The first production of "Iceman" failed, and O'Neill's reputation suffered, but the 1956 production of "Iceman" starring Jason Robards and directed by José Quintero was a great success, as was the posthumous production of "Long Day's Journey Into Night", which brought O'Neill his fourth Pulitzer. The two plays solidified his legend.The emperor Jones 1920
Anna Christie 1921
Ah, wilderness!
Premiere: October 2,1933 (Guild Theatre)
The iceman cometh 1946
Long day's journey into night 1956 - Writer
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Anne Nichols was born on 26 November 1891 in Dales Mill, Georgia, USA. She was a writer, known for Her Gilded Cage (1922), Abie's Irish Rose (1946) and Abie's Irish Rose (1928). She was married to Henry Duffey. She died on 15 September 1966 in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, USA.Abie's Irish Rose
Premiere: May 23, 1922 (Fulton Theatre)- Writer
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Elmer Rice was born on 28 September 1892 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and director, known for Holiday Inn (1942), Journey to Jerusalem (1941) and On Trial (1928). He was married to Barbara Talbot (Ambrose) Marshall, Betty Field and Hazel Levy. He died on 8 May 1967 in Southampton, Hampshire, England, UK.The adding machine
Premiere: March 19, 1923 (Garrick Theatre)
Street scene
Premiere: 1929- American playwright George Edward Kelly was born in Philadelphia, PA, in 1887. He came from a wealthy and socially prominent "mainline" family--his brother was actor Walter C. Kelly and his niece was Grace Kelly--and was educated in exclusive private schools. In 1911 he followed his brother onto the stage, That lasted about five years, after which he took to traveling the vaudeville circuit, performing in his own sketches. He wrote his first play, "The Torchbearers", in 1922 (it was turned into a British made-for-TV production, The Torchbearers (1939), in 1939) and in 1924 wrote his most popular play, "The Show-Off", which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and over the years was filmed in several versions. Although he didn't win the Pulitzer that year, he did the next year, for "Craig's Wife" (turned into a popular film, Craig's Wife (1936)). Unfortunately, his next several works didn't achieve the levels of success as those two did.
He died in Bryn Mawr, PA, in 1974.The show-off 1924 - Writer
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James Maxwell Anderson was born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, on December 15, 1888 to William Lincoln Anderson and Charlotte Perrimela (Stephenson) Anderson. The second child born to the couple, Anderson spent his formative years on his maternal grandmother's farm in Atlantic before the family moved to Andover, Ohio when he was three years old. His father attended a seminary at night to study for the ministry while he supported the family as a railroad fireman.
His father took up the life of a traveling minister, moving his family frequently until Anderson was in his late teens. Anderson attended schools in Ohio, Iowa, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania. The Anderson family's life was a vagabond one until they settled in Jamestown, North Dakota in 1907.
After graduating from Jamestown High School, Anderson went to the University of North Dakota in 1908. He worked his way through college as a waiter and serving on the night copy desk of the newspaper "The Grand Forks Herald." He was a member of the literary society Ad Altiora at UND and helped put together the "Dacotah" Annual. He also participated in college theatrics, serving as assistant director for the Sock and Buskin Dramatic Society.
Graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature in June 1911, Anderson married his UND classmate Margaret Haskett, a farmer's daughter, on August 1, 1911. They eventually had three sons, Quentin, Alan, and Terence.
His first job after college was serving as the principal of the Minnewaukan, North Dakota high school, where he doubled as an English teacher. After making pacifist comments to his students, his contract was not renewed, and he moved to Palo Alto, California, where he enrolled in a master's program in English Lit at Stanford University. After graduating from Stanford in 1914, he spent three years as a high school English teacher in San Francisco before accepting an offer to become chairman of Whittier College's English Department in 1917. Once again he got in trouble with his pro-pacifist statements, and he was fired after his first year for speaking out publicly on behalf of a student seeking conscientious objector status during World War I.
Moving back to San Francisco, he worked as a journalist on the "San Francisco Chronicle" and the "San Francisco Bulletin," then moved to New York City to take an editorial position on the liberal periodical "The New Republic." He continued his work as a newspaperman, becoming a stringer for the "New York Globe" and the New York World." He also found time to help launch the poetry magazine "Measure."
Turning his interest to the theater, he wrote his first play in 1923. Written in verse, "White Desert" was a flop, lasting only 12 performances, but it attracted the attention of "New York World" critic Laurence Stallings. Stallings chose Maxwell as his collaborator on his World War One play "What Price Glory?" Opening on September 3, 1924, the play was one of the stage sensations of the decade, earning kudos and running for 430 performances. The financial rewards of helping create such a big boffo box office blockbuster enabled Anderson to retire from journalism and become a full-time dramatist.
Many of his plays were written in verse, and they typically touch on social and moral problems, such as "Winterset" (1935), which addressed the Sacco & Vanzetti trials in fictional form. The play, which won the first New York Critics Circle Award, is about a gangster who visits the children of the anarchists executed for the murder he himself committed. Anderson won the 1933 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play "Both Your Houses," and repeated as the New York Critics Circle Award winner for "High Tor" in 1936. He wrote many historical dramas and two librettos for Kurt Weill, "Knickerbocker Holiday" (1938) and "Lost in the Stars" (1940). He was also a lyricist, his most famous creation being "September Song" from "Knickerbocker Holiday."
His plays included "Elizabeth the Queen" (1930), "Mary of Scotland " (1933), "Key Largo" (1939); "Truckline Café" (1945), "Joan of Lorraine" (1946), "Anne of the Thousand Days" (1947), and "The Bad Seed" (1954). Anderson also worked on numerous screenplays, including All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), for which he received an Academy Award nomination, Washington Merry-Go-Round (1932), Rain (1932) , Death Takes a Holiday (1934), and So Red the Rose (1935).
Plays of his that were turned into movies were "Mary of Scotland (1936), "Saturday's Children," which was filmed three times (once as "Maybe It's Love"), Winterset (1936), "Elizabeth the Queen", which became The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), The Eve of St. Mark (1944), Knickerbocker Holiday (1944). Key Largo (1948), "Joan of Lorraine," which became Joan of Arc (1948), The Bad Seed (1956), "The Devil's Hornpipe", which became Never Steal Anything Small (1959), and Anne of the Thousand Days (1969). "What Price Glory?" was made into a silent film in 1926 and was remade by John Ford in 1952.
He published two books of poetry, "You Who Have Dreams" in 1925, and "Notes on a Dream," published posthumously in 1972. Anderson also published two collections of essays, "The Essence of Tragedy and Other Footnotes and Papers" (1939) and "Off Broadway Essays About the Theatre" (1947).
His wife Margaret died on February 26, 1931, and he remarried in 1933, taking Gertrude "Mab" Higger as his second wife. They had a daughter, Hesper, born on August 12, 1934, and when Gertrude died on March 21, 1953, he married Gilda Hazard on June 6, 1954.
Among his many honors were honorary Doctor of Literature degrees from Columbia University in 1946 and the University of North Dakota in 1958, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters' Gold Medal in Drama in 1954.
Maxwell Anderson had a stroke on February 26, 1959 and died two days later in Stamford, Connecticut. His oeuvre included over thirty published plays and over a dozen unpublished ones.What price glory? 1924- Laurence Stallings was born on 25 November 1894 in Macon, Georgia, USA. He was a writer, known for She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Jungle Book (1942) and Song of the West (1930). He was married to Louise St. Leger Vance and Helen Purefoy Poteat. He died on 28 February 1968 in Pacific Palisades, California, USA.What price glory? 1924
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Ben Hecht, one of Hollywood's and Broadway's greatest writers, won an Oscar for best original story for Underworld (1927) at the first Academy Awards in 1929 and had a hand in the writing of many classic films. He was nominated five more times for the best writing Oscar, winning (along with writing partner and friend Charles MacArthur, with whom he wrote the classic play "The Front Page") for The Scoundrel (1935) (the other nominations were for Viva Villa! (1934) in 1935, Wuthering Heights (1939) (shared with MacArthur), Angels Over Broadway (1940) and Notorious (1946), the latter two for best original screenplay). Hecht wrote fast and wrote well, and he was called upon by many producers as a highly paid script doctor. He was paid $10,000 by producer David O. Selznick for a fast doctoring of the Gone with the Wind (1939) script, for which he received no credit and for which Sidney Howard won an Oscar, beating out Hecht and MacArthur's Wuthering Heights (1939) script.
Born on February 28, 1894, Hecht made his name as a Chicago newspaperman during the heady days of cutthroat competition among newspapers and journalists. As a reporter for the Chicago Daily News, he wrote the column "1001 Afternoons in Chicago" and broke the "Ragged Stranger Murder Case" story, which led to the conviction and execution of Army war hero Carl Wanderer for the murder of his pregnant wife in 1921. The newspaper business, which he and MacArthur famously parodied in "The Front Page", was a good training ground for a screenwriter, as he had to write vivid prose and had to write quickly.
While in New York in 1926 he received a telegram from friend Herman J. Mankiewicz, who had recently arrived in Hollywood. The telegram read: "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don't let this get around." Hecht moved to Hollywood, winding up at Paramount, working uncredited on the script for Lewis Milestone's adaptation of Ring Lardner's story The New Klondike (1926), starring silent superstar Thomas Meighan. However, it was his script for Josef von Sternberg's seminal gangster picture Underworld (1927) that got him noticed. From then until the 1960s, he was arguably the most famous, if not the highest paid, screenwriter of his time.
As a playwright, novelist and short-story writer, Hecht always denigrated writing for the movies, but it is for such films as Scarface (1932) and Nothing Sacred (1937) as well The Front Page (1931), based on his play of the same name, for which he is best remembered.
He died on April 18, 1964, in New York City from thrombosis. He was 70 years old.The front page 1928- Writer
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"Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers out there are starving!" When Patrick Dennis's fictional Auntie Mame uttered this pithy observation, she could have been speaking of Charles MacArthur. Charlie never shied away from the feast, and he certainly never went hungry. Arriving in November 1895 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Charlie was the second youngest of seven children born to stern evangelist William Telfer MacArthur and Georgiana Welsted MacArthur. His early life was dominated by his father's ministry, leading the family to travel cross country wherever the elder MacArthur's calling took them. Charlie spent much of his time during those years hiding in the bathroom -- the only place offering even a modicum of privacy for a member of such a large family -- reading virtually anything he could get his hands on. He developed a passion for the written word that would last him to his dying day. Resisting Reverend MacArthur's insistent urging that his son follow him into the ministry, young Charlie left the family's rural New York home soon after finishing high school. Heading off to the Midwest, he took a reporter's job at The Oak Leaves, a suburban Chicago newspaper owned by two of his older brothers and run by his older sister. His first professional taste of crafting something for others to read whetted his appetite for even more. Intently determined to pursue a calling which for him was as strong as the calling his father had heard, Charlie went to the City News Bureau of Chicago as the first step in his journey toward life as a journalist. Though only 19, the irreverent sense of humor and dislike for mindless authoritarianism for which he would later be so well known was already quite evident in the application he filled out for the job. In the space entitled "Tell us in exactly seventy-five words why you wish to become a reporter," Charlie wrote: "I want to become a reporter more because I like the work than for any other reason. I feel that even if I should branch off in another profession, the experience obtained in getting up on your toes after news would be valuable. These are my reasons. More words would be useless." The excitement of working in brash and brawling pre-1920s Chicago didn't quite satisfy Charlie's hunger for something more, however, and he soon hooked up with General "Black Jack" Pershing, galloping off to Mexico to join in the hunt for the infamous Pancho Villa. When World War I broke out, Charlie joined the Army's 149th Field Artillery, part of the Rainbow Division. During his time in France, he and his battery mate shot down a German plane with nothing more than a machine gun. Later in the war, Charlie sustained a mild shrapnel wound. In 1919 he penned his only book, A Bug's Eye View of the War (later republished in 1929 by Harper Collins as War Bugs) about his unit's adventures and misadventures during some of the most brutal and bloodiest fighting in history. Returning to Chicago just in time for Prohibition, the Roaring 20s, and Al Capone, Charlie became one of Chicago's most well-known and widely read reporters. He authored some of the most enduring pieces ever printed in the pages of the Chicago Tribune and Daily News. His style was inventive, charming, and witty. Readers couldn't get enough. Once, when writing about a dentist accused of sexually molesting his female patients, Charlie chose the headline "Dentist Fills Wrong Cavity". He also wrote several short stories, two of which, "Hang It All" (1921) and "Rope" (1923), were published in H.L. Mencken's The Smart Set magazine. His star continued to rise, and he eventually headed off to the greener pastures of New York City. Once settled in the Big Apple, he began to shift his efforts toward playwrighting. His first true Broadway success was in 1926 with the play "Lulu Belle", written in collaboration with Edward Sheldon. It would later be remade into a 1948 movie starring Dorothy Lamour and George Montgomery. His next play, "Salvation", written in collaboration with Sidney Howard, enjoyed a moderate Broadway run. During the summer of 1927, Charlie and long-time friend and collaborator, Ben Hecht, rented the premises of the Nyack Girl's Academy as a haven from which they could create their own special brand of playwrighting. Helen Hayes (the future Mrs. Charles MacArthur) would tell friends of times when she or Rose Hecht would visit to bring in food or other supplies for their men, and the building would be positively filled with shouts of laughter and merriment. The result of this seclusion was the 1928 Broadway debut of "The Front Page". The phenomenal stage success of "The Front Page" prompted Charlie to head to Hollywood and screenplay work. Having already developed such works as The Girl Said No (1930), Billy the Kid (1930) and The Unholy Garden (1931), he hit the jackpot in 1931, first with the movie version of The Front Page (1931) (again collaborating with Ben Hecht), which won Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director (Lewis Milestone), and Best Actor (Adolphe Menjou), and then, with the release of The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931), which netted a 1932 Best Actress Oscar for its star, Helen Hayes. The film also won awards at that year's Venice Film Festival for both its leading lady and its director, Edgar Selwyn. Charlie's screenplay for Rasputin and the Empress (1932), the only movie ever to feature siblings John Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore together in the same film, gained him his own first Academy Award nomination (in 1934, for Best Original Story). Even though their efforts had turned mostly to filmmaking by this point, it was also during this period that Hecht and MacArthur produced their second smash theatrical effort, "Twentieth Century", which debuted on Broadway in December 1932, and was later made into the well-received 1934 movie starring John Barrymore and Carole Lombard. Unhappy with the machinations of Hollywood's fledgling film industry, however, MacArthur and Hecht decided to set up their own shop in Astoria, New York, producing, writing, directing, and even making uncredited onscreen appearances in a series of films such as The Scoundrel (1935) (poking fun at themselves by playing downtrodden patrons of a charity flop house) and Crime Without Passion (1934) (in which they portrayed -- what else? -- newspaper reporters). Their work earned much critical acclaim, culminating in the 1936 Best Writing (Original Story) Academy Award for The Scoundrel (1935). Their 1939 collaboration to turn Rudyard Kipling's epic poem into the movie Gunga Din (1939), starring Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., was recognized in 1999 by the National Film Registry, and their adaptation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1939) garnered the two yet another Academy Award Best Writing (Screenplay) nomination in 1940. That year also saw the remake of "The Front Page" into the popular movie, His Girl Friday (1940), starring Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant. The advent of World War II prompted Charlie to interrupt his writing career and sign on in his country's service once again. He began his second stint of service years as a Major in the Chemical Warfare Service, returning home at the war's conclusion a Lt. Colonel. By now, the father of two children, Mary and James MacArthur, and husband to "The First Lady of the American Theatre", Charlie had amassed a considerable amount of fame in his own right, yet was still looking for something different. Resuming his theatrical and film work, he also took on the duties of editing and publishing the foundering Theatre World magazine, but left after little more than a year, dissatisfied with the politics and constraints of working in a corporate atmosphere. The tragic loss of his 19-year-old daughter to polio in 1949 was a blow from which Charlie would never quite recover. Though he continued to work on screenplays and movie scripts up until his death in 1956, some of which enjoyed a modicum of success, he would never again completely recapture the freewheeling enthusiasm of his earlier days. When his son grew old enough to begin considering a career of his own, his father advised, "Do anything you like, son, but never become a playwright. It's a death worse than fate!" Charles MacArthur left behind a lasting imprint upon both those who knew him personally and those who knew him only through his published works. Supremely disdainful of anything even remotely false or affected, Charlie nevertheless did follow the path his father wished him to take, albeit in his own inimical fashion. His words carried a truth and sincerity few writers have been able to achieve. His unique mix of subtle irony, gentle sarcasm, and poignant pathos reached as deeply into his audience at least as well as any fiery sermon from a pulpit ever could. As Ben Hecht said in the eulogy he delivered at his friend's memorial service (and later expanded upon in his 1957 book, "Charlie: The Improbable Life and Times of Charles MacArthur"), "Charlie was more than a man of talent. He was himself a great piece of writing. His gaiety, wildness and kindness, his love for his bride Helen, and his two children, and for his clan of brothers and sisters -- his wit and his adventures will live a long, long while".The front page 1928- Writer
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The playwright, screenwriter, essayist, raconteur and consummate wit Samuel Nathaniel Behrman became known as Broadway's pre-eminent author of sophisticated high comedy. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of a devout Jewish grocer, he grew up in fairly impoverished circumstances. He attended Clark College from 1912 but was suspended two years later for refusing to participate in compulsory physical education classes. Undeterred, Behrman enrolled at Harvard, studied drama at "47 Workshop" and English under Professor Charles Townsend Copeland, eventually publishing and selling (for $15) his first story "La Vie Parisienne". Having earned his bachelor's degree he moved to New York to further hone his writing skills. With the financial backing of his older brothers he was able to complete his M.A. at Columbia University in 1918. He then took on a position with The Times where he was put in charge of the Book Review 'queries and answers' section. Bored, he left this job and for the next few years "lived from hand to typewriter" near Times Square, turning out short stories and magazine articles.
Behrman was on the verge of accepting a teaching position at the University of Minnesota in 1926 when he was persuaded by a friend to write his first play, "The Second Man". Initially rejected by the Theatre Guild's script reader, this three-act comedy was brought to the attention of producer Lawrence Langner who recognised its potential. Starring Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, it did indeed become an instant success on Broadway and was equally lauded in London with Noël Coward in the lead role as the second-rate novelist Clark Storey. Many English theatre-goers at the time became convinced that Coward himself had written the piece under the pseudonym 'S.N. Behrman'. After "The Second Man" came other hits, including "Brief Moment " (1931), "Biography" (1932) and "End of Summer" (1936). The latter -- a satire on inherited wealth -- firmly established Behrman as a master of ironic, cosmopolitan drawing room comedy. His plays were invariably populated by larger-than-life characters, possessed of mordant wit and intellect and enacted by top stars of the stage. They also usually tended to be rather well-heeled. As the actor Hiram Sherman once pointed out: "even his bums are affluent" (NY Times, Sept.10, 1973).
Inevitably, Behrman was invited by Hollywood to adapt some of his own work for the screen (specifically, Brief Moment (1933) and The Pirate (1948)). His talent for dialogue was also gainfully employed via contributions to such literary classics as Queen Christina (1933), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), Anna Karenina (1935) and A Tale of Two Cities (1935). First signed with Fox (1930-33), Behrman spent the majority of his time at MGM (1933-37 and 1939-41) where he became Greta Garbo's favourite screenwriter. His last noteworthy effort for the studio was the script for the epic Quo Vadis (1951), co-written with John Lee Mahin and his frequent collaborator Sonya Levien.
Behrman published his first novel "The Burning Glass" in 1968. However, his interests now veered increasingly towards biographical work. He wrote several profiles of famous personalities for The New Yorker, including one of his late friend George Gershwin. Two biographies (one of the influential British antiques dealer Sir Joseph Duveen and another of the caricaturist and dandy Sir Max Beerbohm) were compiled in book form, respectively in 1952 and 1960. Behrman died in New York in September 1973 at the age of eighty.Biography 1932- Writer
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Jack Kirkland was born on 25 July 1900 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was a writer, known for The Gilded Lily (1935), Heads Up (1930) and Adventure in Manhattan (1936). He was married to Nancy Hoadley, Haila Stoddard, Julie Laird, Jayne Shadduck and Nancy Carroll. He died on 22 February 1969 in New York City, New York, USA.Tobacco road 1933- Writer
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Clifford Odets dropped out of high school to pursue acting. In the 1930s he became a charter member of the Group Theatre, the famous "Method" acting troupe founded by Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg and Cheryl Crawford. Beginning with "Waiting for Lefty" (1935), Odets quickly became the most famous young playwright in America. In the next four years he wrote five more plays, including "Awake and Sing!"; "Golden Boy" and "Rocket to the Moon", whose histrionics well suited the Group's exuberant style. On his first Hollywood assignment he met (and soon married) Luise Rainer, but they lived together only briefly. Between reconciliations with Rainer, Odets had a stormy, tempestuous affair with Frances Farmer. His other conquests included Fay Wray and a host of less famous women, including stage actress Betty Grayson, who became his second wife.
In 1934 - Odets joined the American Communists Party; he left the party a few months later. In 1952 - Odets was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee as a "friendly witness". He disavows Communism, and he "confirms names" of fellow Communists. He only said the names of people already mentioned to HUAC, and did not give any new names to the committee.
Odets was not himself 'blacklisted' by the HUAC.Awake and sing 1935
Waiting for Lefty 1935- Writer
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John Cecil Holm was born on 4 November 1904 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Blonde Inspiration (1941), Three Men on a Horse (1936) and Matinee Theatre (1955). He was married to Dolores Leids Boland and Faith Brown Holm. He died on 24 October 1981 in Westerly, Rhode Island, USA.Three men on a horse 1935- Writer
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Legendary Broadway writer/producer/director George Abbott was born in 1887 in Forestville, New York. His father was mayor of Salamanca, New York, for two terms. In 1898 his family moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Abbott attended Kearney Military Academy. The family returned to New York, where Abbott attended Hamburg High School, graduating in 1907, and the University of Rochester (BA degree in 1911). He wrote the play "Perfectly Harmless" for University Dramatic Club. He attended Harvard University from 1911-1912, studying play writing under George Pierce Baker, and wrote "The Head of the Family" for Harvard Dramatic Club. In 1912 he won $100 in a play contest sponsored by the Bijou Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, for "The Man in the Manhole", and worked at the Bijou for a year as assistant stage manager. He made his Broadway debut as an actor in 1913 in "The Misleading Lady" (as Babe Merrill, a drunken student), followed by "The Yeoman of the Guard" (1915), "The Queen's Enemies" (1916), "Daddies" (1918), "The Broken Wing" (1920), "Dulcy" (on tour) (1921), "Zander the Great" (1923), "White Desert" (1923), "Hell-Bent for Heaven" (1924), "Lazybones" (1924), "Processional" (1925) and "Cowboy Crazy" (1926). From that point he concentrated on writing and directing, with "The Fall Guy" (his Broadway's debut, 1925), "Three Men on a Horse" (1935), "Jumbo" (1935), "On Your Toes" (1936), "The Boys from Syracuse" (1938), "Too Many Girls" (1939), "Pal Joey" (1940), "Best Foot Forward" (1941), "On the Town" (1944), "High Buttom Shoes" (1947), "Where's Charley?" (1948), "Call Me Madam" (1950), "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (1951), "Wonderful Town" (1953), "The Pajama Game" (1954), "Damn Yankees" (1955), "New Girl Town" (1957), "Fiorello!" (1959), "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Forum" (1962), "Flora, the Red Menace" (1965; Liza Minnelli's Broadway debut).
He won five Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize (for "Fiorello!"). He was nominated for an Oscar for writing All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). His daughter, Judith Abbott, is a stage actress/director and was married (1946-49) to Tom Ewell.Three men on a horse 1935- Writer
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Clare Boothe Luce was born on 10 March 1903 in New York City, New York, USA. She was a writer and actress, known for Come to the Stable (1949), The Women (1939) and The Opposite Sex (1956). She was married to Henry Luce and George Tuttle Brokaw. She died on 9 October 1987 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.The women 1936- Writer
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American playwright of acerbic wit. Twice won the Pulitzer Prize, and is best known for his collaborative authorship of "Once in a Lifetime," with Moss Hart (1930); "Of Thee I Sing," with Morrie Ryskind and Ira Gershwin (1931); "Dinner at Eight," with Edna Ferber (1932); "You Can't Take It with You" and "The Man Who Came to Dinner," again with Hart (1936 and 1939, respectively) and "The Solid Gold Cadillac," with Howard Teichmann (1953). (George Gershwin supplied the music for "Of Thee I Sing.")You can't take it with you 1936
The man who came to dinner 1939- Writer
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Tony Award-winning American playwright/lyricist Moss Hart was born Oct. 24, 1904, in New York City to a poor Jewish family and raised in what he described as a "drab tenement" on 107th St. in the Bronx. He was educated in the city public school system. He showed a knack for writing at an early age--he wrote his first play at age 12--and would stage his plays at the local YMHA (Young Mens Hebrew Association). It wasn't long before he joined the Thalian Players, a little-theatre group, which won a citywide little-theatre competition sponsored by the Belasco theater organization. He worked for a clothing retailer, and he would write and direct the annual company shows. He began directing little-theater groups in the New York/New Jersey area, and found work as the social director at various summer camps in rural Pennsylvania and Vermont, writing and staging plays for the camps' clients.
His first "professional" play, "The Hold-Up Man", premiered in Chicago in the late 1920s, but was a failure. However, his play "Once in a Lifetime" (1930) was a major hit--it was made into a film, Once in a Lifetime (1932)--and was the start of a productive, and profitable, collaboration with writer George S. Kaufman (the royalties he received from the play made him a wealthy man at 26). Kaufman and Hart had a string of successful plays, ranging from wild farces to dark, serious dramas. In 1937 the team received a Pulitzer Prize for their comedy "You Can't Take It With You", which was made into a hugely successful film (You Can't Take It with You (1938)) the next year. Hart also worked by himself on occasion, and collaborated with Kurt Weill on "Lady in the Dark" (1941), which they wrote specifically for Gertrude Lawrence.
In addition to his work as a playwright on Broadway, he also directed several stage productions ("Camelot", "My Fair Lady", for which he won a Tony Award)) and wrote the screenplay for A Star Is Born (1954). His autobiography, "Act One", was made into a film (Act One (1963). He was married to actress Kitty Carlisle from 1946 to his death from a heart attack in Palm Springs, CA, in 1961.You can't take it with you 1936
The man who came to dinner 1939- Writer
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John Steinbeck was the third of four children and the only son born to John Ernst and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. His father was County Treasurer and his mother, a former schoolteacher. John graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and attended classes at Stanford University, leaving in 1925 without a degree. He was variously employed as a sales clerk, farm laborer, ranch hand and factory worker. In 1925, he traveled by freight from Los Angeles to New York, where he was a construction worker. From 1926-1928, he was a caretaker in Lake Tahoe, CA. His first novel, "Cup of Gold," was published in 1929. During the 1930s, he produced most of his famous novels ("To a God Unknown," "Tortilla Flat," "In Dubious Battle," "Of Mice and Men," and his Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Grapes of Wrath"). In 1941, he moved with the singer who would become his second wife to New York City. They had two sons, Thom (b. 1944) and John IV (b. 1946). In 1948, his close friend Ed Ricketts died, he went through a divorce, he took a a tour of Russia, and he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His wrote the screenplay for Viva Zapata! (1952), and 17 of his works have been made into movies. He received three Academy Award nominations. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. US President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded him the United States Medal of Freedom in 1964, and he was commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp on what would have been his 75th birthday. His ashes lie in Garden of Memories Cemetery in Salinas.Of mice and men 1937- Writer
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Robert E. Sherwood, a brilliant multifaceted writer, was born to Arthur Murray and Rosina Emmet Sherwood, educated at the Milton Academy (Massachusetts) and Harvard, and was wounded while serving with the Canadian Black Watch in WWI. His literary career started with jobs as movie critic at Vanity Fair and Life magazines, but he became a full-time writer with the success of his play "The Road to Rome" in 1927. His first movie writing job came in 1924, rewriting the subtitles for The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923). Over the years he worked with most of the major talents in the film business, including Alexander Korda, George S. Kaufman and Samuel Goldwyn, often working without credit. During WWII Sherwood served in a number of posts, most notably as director of the overseas branch of the Office of War Information (OWI). He resigned in 1944 and returned to film writing, winning an Oscar for his script for The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Sherwood received numerous literary awards throughout his career, including the Pulitzer Prize in 1936, '39, '41, and '49, and the Bancroft Prize for distinguished writing in American history in 1949.Abe Lincoln in Illinois
Premiere: October 15, 1938 (Plymouth Theatre)
Pulitzer Prize 1939- Thornton Niven Wilder was the second of five children in the family of a newspaper editor and a U.S. diplomat, Amos Parker Wilder, and Isabella Niven Wilder. He spent part of his childhood with his father, who was a Consul General in Hong Kong and China between 1906 and 1914. Wilder finished high school in California, received his undergraduate degree at Yale, and went to study archeology at the American Academy in Rome. He earned his M.A. in French from Princeton in 1926.
Wilder published his first play "The Trumpet Shall Sound" (1920) in Yale Literary Magasine. His first novel, "The Cabala" (1926), reflects his experiences in Europe, alluding to American expatriates around Gertrude Stein. His second novel "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" brought him his first Pulitzer Prize in 1928. He also won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his play "Our Town" (1938), and again for "The Skin Of Our Teeth" (1943).
During WWII he served in the Army Air Force, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. At that time Wilder wrote the screenplay for 'Shadow of a Doubt', a film by Alfred Hitchcock. His farcical play "The Matchmaker" (1954) was adapted in 1964 into a Broadway musical comedy Hello, Dolly! It was made into a film in 1969, starring Barbra Streisand as Dolly Levi. Wilder received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, and won the 1967 National Book Award for his novel "The Eighth Day". His numerous friends included Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and Montgomery Clift.Our town 1938
The skin of our teeth 1942
The matchmaker 1955 - Writer
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Howard Lindsay was born on 29 March 1889 in Waterford, New York, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for The Sound of Music (1965), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) and Swing Time (1936). He was married to Dorothy Stickney and Maria Virginia Frolich. He died on 11 February 1968 in New York City, New York, USA.Life with father 1939- Writer
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Russel Crouse was born on 20 February 1893 in Findlay, Ohio, USA. He was a writer, known for The Sound of Music (1965), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) and Anything Goes (1936). He was married to Anna Erskine and Dorothy Alison Greene (Alison Smith). He died on 3 April 1966 in New York City, New York, USA.Life with father 1939- Writer
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During the 1930s, it was fashionable to be a part of the radical political movement in Hollywood. Lillian Hellman devoted herself to the cause along with other writers and actors in their zeal to reform. Her independence set her apart from all but a few women of the day, and gave her writing an edge that broke the rules. Born in New Orleans in 1905, but raised in New York after the age of five, she studied at Columbia. She married Arthur Kober in 1925, did some work in publishing and wrote for the Herald Tribune. When her husband, also a writer, got a job with Paramount, they moved out to California. It was there that she met Dashiell Hammett and subsequently divorced Kober. Their relationship lasted, in one form or another, for 30 years. Her first important work was the play "The Children's Hour," which was based on a true incident in Scotland. This was an amazingly successful play, and gave Lillian a definite standing in the literary community. Her next venture, a play called "Days To Come," was a complete failure so off she went to Europe. There, she took in the Spanish Civil War and traveled around with Ernest Hemingway. When back in the States, she wrote "The Little Foxes," which opened in 1939 and was a financial windfall for her. She also followed Dorothy Parker and other highly esteemed writers to Hollywood where she was well compensated for her screenwriting efforts. While it may have been fun and daring to be part of a radical political group in the 1930s, with the '40s came the Un-American Activities Committee. She was forced to testify in government hearings, and there was the threat of black lists and tax problems. She remained a visible force and became almost an icon in her later years. Despite an assortment of health issues, including being practically blind, she traveled, lectured, and promoted her political beliefs. She was 79 when she died in 1984, and yet she is still very much with us. It's been over 60 years since it originally opened, but "The Little Foxes," along with other works, is still being produced at all levels of the theater. What writer could ask for anything more?The little foxes 1939- Paul Osborn was born on 4 September 1901 in Evansville, Indiana, USA. He was a writer, known for East of Eden (1955), South Pacific (1958) and Sayonara (1957). He was married to Millicent Green. He died on 12 May 1988 in New York City, New York, USA.Morning's at seven 1939
- Philip Barry was born on 18 June 1896 in Rochester, New York, USA. He was a writer, known for The Philadelphia Story (1940), Holiday (1938) and High Society (1956). He was married to Ellen Marshall Semple. He died on 3 December 1949 in New York City, New York, USA.Philadelphia Story 1939
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Oscar winner and Pulitzer Prize recipient William Saroyan, who gained world fame with his classic book "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze" (1934), was born in California to Armenak and Takoohi Saroyan.
With his unmistakably American literary works, deeply rooted in his Armenian heritage, William Saroyan soon established himself as one of the preeminent short story writers, playwrights and novelists in the United States.
In 1939 and 1940 William Saroyan's "My Heart's in the Highlands" and "The Time of Your Life" were staged for theater and "Love's Old Sweet Song" opened on Broadway, winning the New York Critics Circle Award.
In 1943 his MGM screenplay "The Human Comedy" was novelized and published and received great reviews, and he won the Academy Award for Best Writing Original Story for "The Human Comedy".
He wrote the lyrics of Ross Bagdasarian's famous # 1 hit song "Come On-a My House", performed by Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, and Rosemary Clooney, which was featured in Madonna's "Swept Away" (2002) and Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru (1952).
William Saroyan is one of the most important American writers of the 20th century -- along with such masters as John Updike, John Steinbeck, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller, who admired him. Saroyan is perhaps the only major and influential writer to receive both the Pulitzer Prize and the Academy Award, and his work continues to appear on the theater stage and the silver screen worldwide.The time of your life 1939- Joseph Kesselring was born on 21 June 1902 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer, known for Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Aggie Appleby, Maker of Men (1933) and The Best of Broadway (1954). He was married to Charlotte Elsheimer. He died on 5 November 1967 in Kingston, New York, USA.Arsenic and old lace 1941
- Mary Chase was born on 25 February 1906 in Denver, Colorado, USA. She was a writer, known for Harvey (1950), Sorority House (1939) and Harvey. She was married to Robert Lamont Chase . She died on 20 October 1981 in Denver, Colorado, USA.Harvey 1944
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Tennessee Williams met long-term partner Frank Merlo in the summer of 1948 (Merlo died of lung cancer in the fall of 1963). Though separated briefly in 1961 and again in 1962, the two were partners for 15 years. Merlo acted as his personal manager/secretary.
Williams spent much of his most prolific years in Rome, Italy, and his enduring friendship with Italian stage and screen legend Anna Magnani lasted 24 years and inspired both "The Rose Tattoo" and "Orpheus Descending". Magnani realized the lead parts of these two plays, which were written for her, in their film versions. The turbulent and inspirational friendship shared between Williams and Magnani is the subject of the internationally acclaimed play "Roman Nights" by Franco D'Alessandro.
Aside from his published "Memoirs", the only authorized biographical book on Williams is by Bruce Smith, entitled "Costly Performances - Tennessee Williams; The Last Stage." This book deals with the last four years of Williams' life (1979-1983).The glass menagerie 1945
A streetcar named Desire 1947
Cat on a hot tin roof 1955- Writer
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Garson Kanin has worked as an actor on stage and as a director on Broadway and in Hollywood, but his best-known work is as a writer. During the Great Depression, he dropped out of high school to help support his family by working as a musician and later as a comedian. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts from 1932 to 1933. He briefly worked as an actor on Broadway following his studies but then worked as an assistant to the Broadway director George Abbot. In 1937, he joined Samuel Goldwyn's staff but left after a year because he had not been given any directing assignments. He was signed by RKO and there directed such films as The Great Man Votes (1939) and Tom, Dick and Harry (1941), but he soon became frustrated by the lack of control he had over his films under the studio system. When he was drafted during World War II, he made documentary films for the War Information and Emergency Manpower offices. One of them, co-directed by Carol Reed, The True Glory (1945), won an Academy Award for Best Documentary. During the war years, Kanin began writing stories and plays as well. After the war, he directed his play "Born Yesterday" on Broadway, which he later adapted for the screen. He and his wife, Ruth Gordon, collaborated on four screenplays, including Adam's Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952). They stopped working on scripts together for the sake of their marriage after 1952, but in 1979 they co-wrote one more, the TV film Hardhat and Legs (1980). Kanin and Gordon were never under contract by any studio as writers. They wrote the scripts on their own and sold them to interested Hollywood studios.Born yesterday 1946- Writer
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Arthur Asher Miller was born on October 17, 1915, in New York City, one of three children born to Augusta (nee Barnett) and Isidore Miller. His family was of Austrian Jewish descent. His father manufactured women's coats, but his business was devastated by the Depression, seeding his son's disillusionment with the American Dream and those blue-sky-seeking Americans who pursued it with both eyes focused on the Grail of Materialism. Due to his father's strained financial circumstances, Miller had to work for tuition money to attend the University of Michigan, where he wrote his first plays. They were successful, earning him numerous student awards, including the Avery Hopwood Award in Drama for "No Villain" in 1937.
The award was named after one of the most successful playwrights of the 1920s, who simultaneously had five hits on Broadway, the Neil Simon of his day. Now almost forgotten except for his contribution to Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Hopwood achieved a material success that the older Miller could not match, but he failed to capture the immortality that would be Miller's. Hopwood's suicide, on the beach of the Cote d'Azur, reportedly inspired Norman Maine's march into the southern California surf in A Star Is Born (1937).
Like Fitzgerald, Miller tasted success at a tender age. In 1938, upon graduating from Michigan, he received a Theatre Guild National Award and returned to New York, joining the Federal Theatre Project. He married his college girlfriend, Mary Grace Slattery, in 1940; they would have two children, Joan and Robert. In 1944, he made his Broadway debut with "The Man Who Had All the Luck", a flop that lasted only four performances. He went on to publish two books, "Situation Normal" (1944) and "Focus" (1945), but it was in 1947 that his star became ascendant. His play "All My Sons", directed by Elia Kazan, became a hit on Broadway, running for 328 performances. Both Miller and Kazan received Tony Awards, and Miller won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. It was a taste of what was to come.
Staged by Kazan, "Death of a Salesman" opened at the Morosco Theatre on February 10, 1949, and closed 742 performances later on Nov 18, 1950. The play was the sensation of the season, winning six Tony Awards, including Best Play and Best Author for Miller. Miller also was awarded the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play made lead actor Lee J. Cobb, as Willy Loman, an icon of the stage comparable to the Hamlet of John Barrymore: a synthesis of actor and role that created a legend that survives through the bends of time. A contemporary classic was recognized, though some critics complained that the play wasn't truly a tragedy, as Willy Loman was such a pathetic soul. Given his status, Loman's fall could not qualify as tragedy, as there was so little height from which to fall. Miller, a dedicated progressive and a man of integrity, never accepted that criticism. As Willy's wife Linda said at his funeral, "Attention must be paid", even to the little people.
In 1983, Miller himself directed a staging of "Salesman" in Chinese at the Beijing People's Art Theatre. He said that while the Chinese, then largely ignorant of capitalism, might not have understood Loman's career choice, they did have empathy for his desire to drink from the Grail of the American Dream. They understood this dream, which Miller characterizes as the desire "to excel, to win out over anonymity and meaninglessness, to love and be loved, and above all, perhaps, to count." It is this desire to sup at the table of the great American Capitalists, even if one is just scrounging for crumbs, in a country of which President Calvin Coolidge said, "The business of America is business," this desire to be recognized, to be somebody, that so moves "Salesman" audiences, whether in New York, London or Beijing.
Miller never again attained the critical heights nor smash Broadway success of "Salesman," though he continued to write fine plays that were appreciated by critics and audiences alike for another two decades. Disenchanted with Kazan over his friendly testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, the two parted company when Kazan refused to direct "The Crucible", Miller's parable of the witch hunts of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Defending her husband, Kazan's wife, Molly, told Miller that the play was disingenuous, as there were no real witches in Puritan Salem. It was a point Miller disagreed with, as it was a matter of perspective--the witches in Salem were real to those who believed in them. However, subsequent research has shown that the cursorily-researched (at best) play contains fictional motifs (regarding Goodman and Goodwife Putnam and their offspring), limited research, and carelessness in identifying (or not identifying, as with William Stoughton) the true authors of the witch trials. Directed by another Broadway legend, Jed Harris, the play ran for 197 performances and won Miller the 1953 Tony Award for Best Play. Miller had another success with "A View from the Bridge", a play about an incest-minded longshoreman written with overtones of classical Greek tragedy, which ran for 149 performances in the 1955-56 season.
It was in 1956 that Miller made his most fateful personal decision, when he divorced his first wife, Mary Slattery Miller, and married movie siren-cum-legend Marilyn Monroe. With this marriage Miller achieved a different type of fame, a pop culture status he abhorred. It was a marriage doomed to fail, as Monroe was, in Miller's words, "highly self-destructive". In his 1989 autobiography, "Timebends", Miller wrote that a marriage was a conspiracy to keep out the light. When one or more of the partners could no longer prevent the light from coming in and illuminating the other's faults, the marriage was doomed. In his own autobiography, "A Life", Kazan said that he could not understand the marriage. Monroe, who had slept with Kazan on a casual basis, as she did with many other Hollywood players, was the type of woman someone took as a mistress, not as a wife. Miller, however, was a man of principle. He was in love. "[A]ll my energy and attention were devoted to trying to help her solve her problems", Miller confessed to a French newspaper in 1992. "Unfortunately, I didn't have much success."
The conspiracy collapsed during the filming of The Misfits (1961) (1961), with John Huston shooting the original script Miller had written expressly for his wife. The genesis of the story had come to him while waiting out a divorce from his first wife Mary in Nevada. Monroe hated her character Roslyn, claiming Miller had made her out to be the dumb blond stereotype she so loathed and had been trying to escape. Withering in her criticism of Miller, and ultimately unfaithful to him, she and Miller separated. Norman Mailer, in his 1973 biography, "Marilyn", ridiculed Miller for not doing enough to help Monroe. Film critic Pauline Kael lambasted Mailer by imputing petty machismo and jealousy as the cause of his animus against Miller. Miller would later reunite with Kazan to launch the new Lincoln Center Repertory Theater, with the play "After the Fall", a fictionalization of his relationship with Monroe. "Fall" ran for 208 performances in repertory in 1964 and 1965 and won 1964 Tony Awards for Jason Robards and Kazan's future wife Barbara Loden, playing the Miller and Monroe stand-ins Quentin and Maggie. Miller's own "Incident at Vichy" played in repertory with "Fall" in the 1965 season, but lasted only 32 performances.
On June 1, 1957, Miller was found in contempt of Congress for refusing to name names of a literacy circle suspected of Communist Party affiliations. The State Department deprived him of his passport, and he became a left-wing cause célèbre. In 1967 Miller became President of P.E.N., an international literacy organization that campaigned for the rights of suppressed writers. He published a collection of short stories entitled "I Don't Need You Any More", that same year. Returning to the Morosco Theatre, the site of his greatest triumph, "The Price" was Miller's last unqualified hit in America, running for 429 performances between February 7, 1968 and February 15, 1969. Though Miller won a 1968 Tony Award for Best Play, the bulk of his success as an original playwright was over. The Price (1971) (a 1971 teleplay) was nominated for six Emmy awards, including Outstanding Single Program-Drama or Comedy, and won three, including Best Actor for George C. Scott, who would later win a 1976 Tony playing Willy Loman in a 1975 Broadway revival.
Miller never again achieved success on Broadway with an original play. In the 1980s, when he was hailed as the greatest living American playwright after the death of Tennessee Williams, he even had trouble getting full-scale revivals of his work staged. One of his more significant later works, "The American Clock", based on Studs Terkel's oral history of the Great Depression, "Hard Times", ran for only 11 previews and 12 performances in late 1980 at the Biltmore Theatre. Also in 1980, Miller courted controversy by backing the casting of the outspokenly anti-Zionist Vanessa Redgrave as a concentration-camp Jewess in his teleplay Playing for Time (1980), an adaptation of the memoir "The Musicians of Auschwitz". Despite the fallout in the United States for America's then-greatest living playwright, his works were popular in Great Britain, whose intellectual and theatrical communities treated him as a major figure in world literature. The universality of his work was highlighted with his own successful staging of "Death of a Salesman" in Beijing in 1983.
"Death of a Salesman" has become a standard warhorse, now revived each decade on Broadway, and internationally. In addition to George C. Scott and Lee J. Cobb (who received an Emmy nomination for the 1966 teleplay; Miller himself received a Special Citation from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for the production), Dustin Hoffman and Brian Dennehy have garnered kudos for playing Willie Loman. The 1984 Broadway revival of "Salesman" won a Tony for best Reproduction and helped revive Miller's domestic reputation, while Volker Schlöndorff's 1985 film (Death of a Salesman (1985)) of the production won 10 Emmy nominations, including one for Miller as executive producer of the Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special. Hoffman won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for playing Willy Loman. The 1999 revival won four Tonys, including Dennehy for Best Actor, and ran for 274 performances at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. Arthur Miller died in Roxbury, Connecticut in 2005, aged 89. He had been suffering from cancer, pneumonia and a heart condition.
Miller based his works on American history, his own life, and his observations of the American scene. His stature is traditionally based on his perceived refusal to avoid moral and social issues in his writing. His willingness to fight for what he believed in his chosen art form made him a literary icon whose name will live on in world letters.Born yesterday 1946
All my sons
Premiere: January 29, 1947 (Coronet Theatre)
The crucible 1953- Thomas Heggen was born on 23 December 1919 in Fort Dodge, Iowa, USA. He was a writer, known for Mister Roberts (1955), Ensign Pulver (1964) and Mister Roberts (1965). He died on 19 May 1949 in New York City, New York, USA.Mister Roberts 1948
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Joshua Logan started directing plays while he was still at Princeton and among the first actors he directed were Henry Fonda and James Stewart. His graduation from Princeton was delayed to accompany a classmate to Russia to study with Konstantin Stanislavski, inventor of "method acting". Stanislavsko told him, "To be truly creative you must find your own way, you must not follow some old Stanislavski method". Stanislavski emphasized the importance of the writer and Logan was proudest of the plays and films that he wrote as well as directed. His second wife was the widow of actor Walter Connolly who was 9 years his senior. He published his autobiography in 1976 and died in 1988.Mister Roberts 1948- Writer
- Actor
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William (Motter) Inge brought small-town life in the American Midwest to Broadway with four successive dramatic triumphs: "Come Back Little Sheba" (1950), "Picnic" (1953; Pulitzer Prize), "Bus Stop" (1955) and "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" (1957). With the exception of his Academy Award-winning screenplay for Splendor in the Grass (1961), his later plays and prose never achieved the success of his early work. Convinced he could no longer write, Inge fell into a paralyzing depression, which resulted in his suicide.Come back, little Sheba 1950
Picnic 1953
Bus stop 1955- Carson McCullers was born on 19 February 1917 in Columbus, Georgia, USA. She was a writer, known for The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) and Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre (1963). She was married to James Reeves McCullers Jr.. She died on 29 September 1967 in Nyack, New York, USA.The member of the wedding 1950
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N. Richard Nash was born on 8 June 1913 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. N. Richard was a writer and director, known for Cry Macho (2021), Porgy and Bess (1959) and The Rainmaker (1956). N. Richard was married to Lillian J (Katherine Copeland) Kaplan, Janice Rule and Helena Louise Taylor. N. Richard died on 11 December 2000 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.The rainmaker 1954- Writer
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- Script and Continuity Department
Jerome Lawrence is best known for the plays "Auntie Mame," "Inherit the Wind," and "First Monday in October" which he co-wrote with Robert E. Lee. In all, they collaborated on 39 works over their 50 year partnership. A theatre archive is named for them at Ohio State University, where Lawrence graduated. He worked for several small Ohio newspapers as a reporter and editor before moving into radio as a writer for CBS. He taught playwriting at the University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing Program. The school recently named its one-act-play festival in his honor. Even though his works are still produced all over the world, Lawrence's lone Tony Award nomination was for Best Musical, for "Mame" (book).Inherit the wind 1955
Auntie Mame 1956- Writer
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- Script and Continuity Department
Robert E. Lee was born on 15 October 1918 in Elyria, Ohio, USA. He was a writer, known for Inherit the Wind (1960), First Monday in October (1981) and The Unexpected (1952). He was married to Janet Waldo. He died on 8 July 1994 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Inherit the wind 1955
Auntie Mame 1956- William Gibson was born on 13 November 1914 in Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer, known for The Miracle Worker (1962), Playhouse 90 (1956) and Two for the Seesaw (1962). He was married to Margaret Brenman-Gibson. He died on 25 November 2008 in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, USA.The miracle worker 1959
- Lorraine Hansberry was born on 19 May 1930 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was a writer, known for A Raisin in the Sun (1961), American Playhouse (1980) and Camera Three (1955). She was married to Robert Nemiroff. She died on 12 January 1965 in New York City, New York, USA.A raisin in the sun 1959
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- Actor
Gore Vidal was born Eugene Louis Vidal in 1925 in West Point, New York, to Nina (Gore) and West Point aeronautics instructor and aviation pioneer Eugene Luther Vidal. The Vidals endured a rocky marriage divorcing ten years after Gore's birth. Young Gore spent much of his childhood with his blind grandfather, Senator T.P. Gore of Oklahoma. Vidal would later become the confidant of Jacqueline Kennedy when Jackie's mother married his former stepfather, Hugh D. Auchincloss. After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1943, Gore joined the US Army Reserves. Some of his Army experiences inspired his first novel, Williwaw, which was published when he was just 19. He dedicated the novel to J.T., a deceased prep-school friend. Subsequent novels would prominently feature gay male characters, and Gore found soon found his books had staying power on bestseller lists. In 1960, he unsuccessfully ran for Congress, backed by celebrity supporters like Paul Newman & Vidal's ex-fiancé Joanne Woodward. Another unsuccessful foray into politics would occur in 1982 when he ran for governor of California. In addition to being an accomplished writer, he is also a novice actor. His biggest roles to date have been in Gattaca (1997), Bob Roberts (1992), and With Honors (1994).The best man 1960- Writer
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- Soundtrack
Edward Albee was born on 12 March 1928 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He was a writer, known for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), A Delicate Balance (1973) and Qui a peur de Virginia Woolf? d'Edward Albee (2011). He died on 16 September 2016 in Montauk, New York, USA.The Zoo story 1960
Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? 1962- Author, playwright and songwriter. She joined ASCAP in 1959, and her chief musical collaborators included LeRoy Anderson, Jay Gorney, Jean Ford, and her husband, Walter Kerr. She authored "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" and "The Snake Has All the Lines", the plays "Jenny Kiss'd Me", "King of Hearts", "Mary, Mary", and "Poor Richard", and the Broadway stage scores and libretti for "Touch and Go" and "Goldilocks". Her popular-song compositions include "This Had Better Be Love", "It'll Be Alright in a Hundred Years", "Be a Mess", "The Pussy Foot", "Save a Kiss", and "I Never Know When to Say When".Mary, Mary 1961
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Neil Simon was born on 4 July 1927 in The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for The Odd Couple (1968), Murder by Death (1976) and The Goodbye Girl (1977). He was married to Elaine Joyce, Diane Lander, Marsha Mason and Joan Baim. He died on 26 August 2018 in New York City, New York, USA.Barefoot in the park 1963
The odd couple 1965
Brighton Beach Memoirs 1983
Lost in Yonkers 1991- Writer
- Soundtrack
James Goldman was born on 30 June 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was a writer, known for The Lion in Winter (1968), Robin and Marian (1976) and Cyber Bandits (1995). He was married to Barbara Goldman and Maria McKeon. He died on 28 October 1998 in New York City, New York, USA.The lion in winter 1966- Producer
- Script and Continuity Department
- Writer
Mart Crowley was born on 21 August 1935 in Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA. He was a producer and writer, known for The Boys in the Band (2020), Hart to Hart (1979) and The Boys in the Band (1970). He died on 7 March 2020 in New York City, New York, USA.The boys in the band 1968- Writer
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- Music Department
John Guare was born on 5 February 1938 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a writer and actor, known for Atlantic City (1980), Six Degrees of Separation (1993) and Taking Off (1971).The house of blue leaves 1971
Six degrees of separation 1990- Actor
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Character actor and playwright Jason Miller had a variety of jobs before he started a writing career and wrote his own play, "That Championship Season", for which he received the Pulitzer Prize Award. Miller gave up his professional writing career in the early seventies to start acting. In 1973, he starred as a troubled priest in the horror film classic The Exorcist (1973), for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 1982, he directed the revival of his play, That Championship Season (1982), to the screen. The father of actor Jason Patric and actor/director/writer Joshua John Miller, Miller's other film credits include playing the title role in the made-for-television film F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood (1975), The Ninth Configuration (1980), Toy Soldiers (1984), The Exorcist III (1990) and Rudy (1993)". Miller died in Scranton, Pennsylvannia at the age of 62.That championship season 1972- Writer
- Producer
David Rabe was born on 10 March 1940 in Dubuque, Iowa, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for The Firm (1993), Casualties of War (1989) and Hurlyburly (1998).Streamers 1976- Albert Innaurato was born on 2 June 1947 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a writer, known for Happy Birthday, Gemini (1980), Great Performances (1971) and The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd (1987). He died on 24 September 2017 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.Gemini 1977
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- Music Department
- Actor
Author, playwright and composer Ira Levin decided on a career of a writer at the age of 15. Educated at the elite Horace Mann school, he went on to two years at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, before transferring to New York University, where he majored in philosophy and English. He earned his degree in 1950. In 1953 he was drafted into the army. Based in Queens, New York, he wrote and produced training films for Uncle Sam before moving into television, penning scripts for such anthology series as Lights Out (1946) and The United States Steel Hour (1953). He made a bright theatre debut at the age of 25 with an adaptation of Mac Hyman's "No Time for Sergeants" (1955). He went on to write several plays, including the longest-running Broadway mystery to date, "Deathtrap" (1978), and several popular novels, including "A Kiss Before Dying", and other plays including "Critics Choice" and "Interlock" and the Broadway stage score and libretto for "Drat the Cat!". Joining ASCAP in 1965, he wrote the popular gospel song "He Touched Me" with his chief musical collaborator Milton Schafer.Deathtrap 1978- Writer
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Lanford Wilson was born on 13 April 1937 in Lebanon, Missouri, USA. He was a writer, known for The Migrants (1974), American Playhouse (1980) and Lemon Sky (1988). He died on 24 March 2011 in Wayne, New Jersey, USA.Talley's folly 1979- Actor
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Sam Shepard was born Samuel Shepard Rogers in Fort Sheridan, IL, to Jane Elaine (Schook), a teacher, and Samuel Shepard Rogers, a teacher and farmer who was also in the army. As the eldest son of a US Army officer (and WWII bomber pilot), Shepard spent his early childhood moving from base to base around the US until finally settling in Duarte, CA. While at high school he began acting and writing and worked as a ranch hand in Chino. He graduated high school in 1961 and then spent a year studying agriculture at Mount San Antonio Junior College, intending to become a vet.
In 1962, though, a touring theater company, the Bishop's Company Repertory Players, visited the town and he joined up and left home to tour with them. He spent nearly two years with the company and eventually settled in New York where he began writing plays, first performing with an obscure off-off-Broadway group but eventually gaining recognition for his writing and winning prestigious OBIE awards (Off-Broadway) three years running. He flirted with the world of rock, playing drums for the Holy Modal Rounders, then moved to London in 1971, where he continued writing.
Back in the US by 1974, he became playwright in residence at San Francisco's Magic Theater and continued to work as an increasingly well respected playwright throughout the 1970s and into the '80s. Throughout this time he had been dabbling with Hollywood, having most notably in the early days worked as one of the writers on Zabriskie Point (1970), but it was his role as Chuck Yeager in 1983's The Right Stuff (1983) (co-starring Fred Ward and Dennis Quaid) that brought him to the attention of the wider, non-theater audience. Since then he has continued to write, act and direct, both on screen and in the theater.
He died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis--commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease--in Kentucky on July 27, 2017.True West 1980
Buried child 1996- Writer
- Actress
Beth Henley was born on 8 May 1952 in Jackson, Mississippi, USA. She is a writer and actress, known for Crimes of the Heart (1986), True Stories (1986) and Swing Shift (1984).Crimes of the heart 1981- Writer
- Producer
Charles Fuller was born on 5 March 1939 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for A Soldier's Story (1984), Zooman (1995) and Love Songs (1999). He was married to Miriam A. Nesbitt and Claire Prieto. He died on 3 October 2022 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.A soldier's story 1981- A.R. Gurney was born on 1 November 1930 in Buffalo, New York, USA. He was a writer, known for 3 by Cheever (1979), Television Theater (1953) and TV teatar (1956). He was married to Mary Forman Goodyear. He died on 13 June 2017 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.The dining room 1982
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Harvey Fierstein is an American actor, screenwriter and playwright who has been in several stage productions, films, shows and games. He voiced Yao in Mulan and Huaca in Kingdom of the Sun (prototype for The Emperor's New Groove). He also acted in Hairspray, Independence Day, Mrs. Doubtfire, Bros, Big Mouth, Death to Smoochy and Bullets Over Broadway,Torch Song Trilogy 1982- Writer
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- Art Director
Marsha Norman was born on 21 September 1947 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. She is a writer and art director, known for The Laundromat (1985), Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001) and The Color Purple (2023). She has been married to Tim Dykma since 1987. She was previously married to Dann C. Byck, Jr. and Michael Norman.'night, mother 1983- Writer
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Born in 1947 in Chicago, he was educated at Goddard College, in Vermont, and studied drama at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, before returning to Chicago and establishing the St Nicholas Theatre Company in 1972. He remained their resident writer for four years. The first of his plays to secure international recognition was 'Sexual Perversity in Chicago' (1974) and 'American Buffalo' (1975). The latter was eventually performed by Al Pacino on Broadway and London's West End earning him an 'Award Obie' when it transferred from Chicago to New York. His play 'Glengarry Glen Ross' won the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. His other plays include 'A Life in the Theatre' (1977). 'Edmond' (1982). 'The Shawl' (1985) and 'Speed the Plow' (1988). The rejection of his screen adaption of 'Sexual Perversity in Chicago' was completely rewritten and released as 'About Last Night in 1986. He soon attracted wide acclaim as a screenwriter when his version of 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' (1981) was made by Bob Rafelson and his original screenplay for 'The Verdict (1982) was nominated for an Oscar. Subsequent screenplays include 'The Untouchables' (1987), 'We're No Angels' (1990), 'Glengarry Glen Ross' (1992). He then wrote and directed 'House of Games' (1987), 'Things Change' (1988) and 'Homicide' (1991). He's also published two collections of essays 'Writing in Restaurants' (1986) and Some Freaks' (1989). In 1987, he conducted a series of classes at Columbia University Film School which were put into print as 'On Directing Film' (1992).Glengarry Glen Ross 1984- Writer
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August Wilson once dropped out of school, disillusioned after having been unjustly accused of plagiarism by a racist instructor who could not fathom the artistic and intellectual genius of a then young Black male writer. Wilson was not disillusioned forever. Having now completed a decade by decade cycle of seven plays that illustrate the complexity, problems, and beauty of Black American life, Wilson sits at the pinnacle of American playwrights who have achieved world-renown. He first became involved in theatre in the late 1960s when he co-founded the Black Horizons Theater which was a community theatre located in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. His first professional production was "Black Bart and the Sacred Hills" which was based on an earlier series of poems. "Black Bart..." was produced at St. Paul's Penumbra Theatre in 1981. Wilson's breakthrough occurred when Lloyd Richards--then Dean and Artistic Director of the Yale Repertory Theatre--brought Wilson to the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and premiered his plays at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. Richards, the only Black American at Yale to have a Department Chair named for him, was a major influence on and expert collaborator with Wilson, who used Yale as a workshop for developing many of his productions. To date, his plays have been staged on Broadway and at regional theatres across the United States. He has won Pulitzer Prizes for "Fences" (1987) and "The Piano Lesson" (1990) and New York Drama Critics Circle Awards for "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", "Fences", "Joe Turner's Come and Gone", "The Piano Lesson", "Two Trains Running", and "Seven Guitars". His most recent works include "Jitney" and "King Hedley II". He has been honored with Rockefeller and Guggenheim Fellowships in Playwrighting; is an Alumnus of New Dramatists and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, further demonstrating an artistic, intellectual, and literary profundity that has assured him a permanent and prominent place in the history of American Theatre.Fences 1987
Joe Turner's come and gone 1988
The piano lesson 1990- Writer
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Robert Harling was born in 1951. He is a writer and producer, known for The Evening Star (1996), Steel Magnolias (1989) and The First Wives Club (1996).Steel magnolias 1987- Producer
- Writer
Born in Los Angeles in 1957 to immigrants, Hwang is a successful playwright. He graduated from Stanford University in 1979 and attended Yale in 1980. He is most famous for M. Butterfly (1993), which was adapted for the screen in 1993, directed by David Cronenberg and starring Jeremy Irons and John Lone.M. Butterfly 1988- Writer
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Wendy Wasserstein was born on 18 October 1950 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She was a writer and actress, known for Life with Mikey (1993), The Object of My Affection (1998) and Great Performances (1971). She died on 30 January 2006 in New York City, New York, USA.The Heidi Chronicles 1988- Writer
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Ken Ludwig is known for Great Performances (1971), Crazy for You (2020) and Heißmann & Rassau: Otello darf nicht platzen (2014).Lend me a tenor 1989- Writer
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Tony Kushner's play "Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes" earned him the Pulitzer Prize, among many other awards. His other acclaimed plays include "Slavs", "Homebody/Kabul" and "Caroline, or Change". He has collaborated with children's author and illustrator Maurice Sendak on several books. In 2003, Kushner married his boyfriend, Mark Harris, editor at large of Entertainment Weekly; they were the first gay couple to be featured in The New York Times' "Vows" column.Angels in America 1993- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
- Actor
Terrence McNally was born on 3 November 1938 in St. Petersburg, Florida, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for American Playhouse (1980), Frankie and Johnny (1991) and The Ritz (1976). He was married to Thomas Kirdahy. He died on 24 March 2020 in Sarasota, Florida, USA.Love! Valour! Compassion! 1995- Actress
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Paula Vogel was born on 16 November 1951 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. She is an actress and writer, known for Sonnets for an Old Century (2021), Tatort (1970) and Indecent (2018).How I learned to drive 1997- Writer
- Producer
Donald Margulies is known for The End of the Tour (2015), Untitled Keith Moon Project and Baby Boom (1988).Dinner with friends 1999- Writer
- Director
David Auburn was born on 30 November 1969 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is a writer and director, known for Charlie's Angels (2019), The Lake House (2006) and Proof (2005). He is married to Frances Rosenfeld.Proof 2000- Additional Crew
- Visual Effects
- Director
Richard Greenberg was born on 21 January 1947 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was a director, known for Predator (1987), Flash Gordon (1980) and Edge of Darkness (2010). He died on 16 June 2018 in New York City, New York, USA.Take me out 2003- Writer
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John Patrick Shanley was born on 3 October 1950 in The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He is a writer and director, known for Moonstruck (1987), Doubt (2008) and Congo (1995).Doubt 2005- Actor
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Tracy Letts is the son of actor Dennis Letts and best-selling author Billie Letts, of "Where The Heart Is" and "The Honk And Holler Opening Soon" fame. Tracy is also the author of the stage play "Killer Joe", which ran off-Broadway in 1998 for nine months and starred Scott Glenn, Amanda Plummer, Michael Shannon, Sarah Paulson and Marc Nelson.August: Osage County 2007- Actor
- Writer
Bruce Norris was born on 16 May 1960 in Houston, Texas, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for The Sixth Sense (1999), A Civil Action (1998) and All Good Things (2010).Clybourne Park 2012