Craig Lucas
Craig Lucas | |
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![]() Lucas at the 2019 Pacific Playwrights Festival | |
Born | Atlanta, Georgia | April 30, 1951
Occupation | Writer, actor, playwright, director |
Nationality | American |
Genre | Playwrighting, screenwriting |
Craig Lucas (born April 30, 1951) is an American playwright, screenwriter, theatre director, musical actor, and film director.
Biography[]
Born on April 30, 1951, he was found abandoned in a car in Atlanta, Georgia. Lucas was adopted when he was eight months old by a conservative Pennsylvania couple. His father was an FBI agent; his mother was a painter. She was born Jewish but suppressed the identity, which Lucas relates in his storytelling.[1] He graduated in 1969 from Conestoga High School in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. In the 1960s and 1970s, Lucas became interested in the political left and discovered an attraction toward men. He is openly gay,[1] and recalls that his coming out made it possible for him to develop as a playwright and as a person.
In 1973, Lucas left Boston University with a Bachelor of Arts in theatre and creative writing. His mentor Anne Sexton urged him to move to New York City to become a playwright. He worked in many day jobs while performing in Broadway musicals including Shenandoah, On the Twentieth Century, Rex, and Sweeney Todd. Stephen Sondheim later told him he was a better writer than actor.[2]
Lucas met Norman René in 1979. Their first collaboration was Marry Me a Little in 1981. The two wrote a script incorporating songs that had been written for but discarded from Stephen Sondheim musicals, and René also directed. They followed this with the plays (1981) and (1984); (1987), an original music by Lucas and Craig Carnelia; and another play, Reckless (1983).[3] In 1990, they had their biggest commercial and critical success with Prelude to a Kiss. They also collaborated for the feature film Longtime Companion (1990), the 1992 film adaptation of Prelude to a Kiss with Alec Baldwin and Meg Ryan, and the 1995 film version of Reckless with Mia Farrow and Mary-Louise Parker.
Following his early work on romantic comedies, Lucas began to write more serious works about AIDS, including The Singing Forest (not to be confused with the film of the same name) and The Dying Gaul, the latter of which was made into a film that Lucas also directed. Lucas also wrote the book for the musical The Light in the Piazza, and directed the world premiere at the Intiman Theater in Seattle. The Lincoln Center production, directed by Bartlett Sher, garnered him a Tony Award nomination.
Lucas has also directed plays such as Loot. He directed Birds of America, a film starring Matthew Perry and Hilary Swank, in 2007.
Lucas's play premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in December 2008. The production was directed by Lucas's frequent collaborator Bartlett Sher and featured Victoria Clark, Michele Pawk and Jonathan Groff.[4] The play ran from November 14 (previews) through December 21.
In June 2013, Melbourne's Regent Theatre hosted the world premiere (and Broadway try-out) of King Kong,[5] for which Lucas has provided the book with a score by Marius de Vries.[6][7] As of 2014, Lucas is no longer involved with this musical.[8]
Amélie, a musical based on the award-winning film of 2001, premiered at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre (Berkeley, California) In September 2015, with a book by Lucas, music by Daniel Messé (of Hem), lyrics by Nathan Tysen and Messé, and directed by Pam MacKinnon.[9] The production had its pre-Broadway engagement at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. It transferred to Broadway, starting previews on March 9, 2017 and closing on May 21, 2017, after 27 previews and 56 regular performances.
Awards[]
In 2001 Lucas received an Obie Award for his direction of Harry Kondoleon's at the Rattlestick Theater. He won the 2003 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Screenplay for The Secret Lives of Dentists. His Small Tragedy was awarded an Obie as Best American Play in 2004. Lucas's other awards include the Excellence in Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award; and Outer Critics Circle, L.A. Drama Critics Circle, Drama-Logue and Lambda Literary Awards.
Fellowships include those from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pew Charitable Trusts.
He has received the Tony Award nomination for the books of: An American in Paris (2015), Light in the Piazza (2005) and Prelude to a Kiss. He was nominated for the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Prelude to a Kiss.
Works[]
Broadway[]
As an actor[]
- Shenandoah (1975) – musical – actor
- Rex (1976) – musical – actor
- On the Twentieth Century (1978) – musical – actor
- Sweeney Todd (1979) – musical – actor
As a playwright[]
- Prelude to a Kiss (1990) – play – Tony Award Nomination for Best Play, Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding New Play
- (1997) – play
- Reckless (2004) – play
- The Light in the Piazza (2005) – musical – bookwriter – Tony Nomination for Best Book of a Musical
- Prelude to a Kiss (2007) – revival of a play
- An American in Paris (2014) – musical – bookwriter
- Amélie (2015) – musical – bookwriter
Off-Broadway[]
- Missing Persons (1981), revised (1995) – two-act play – produced Off-Off-Broadway, at Production Company
- Alec Wilder: Clues to a Life (adapted from Alec Wilder's Letters I Never Mailed) (1982) – two-act play
- Reckless (1983), revised (1988) – two-act play
- Blue Window (1984) – one-act play
- Credo (1995) –
- The Dying Gaul (1998) – play
- Stranger (2000) – play (Vineyard Theatre)
- This Thing of Darkness (2002) – play – (with David Schulner)
- Small Tragedy (2004) – play
- Miss Julie adaptation originally written by August Strindberg (2005), at the Rattlesticks Playwrights Theater
- I Was Most Alive With You (2018) - Playwrights Horizons
Regional[]
- Blue Window (1984) – play – for Best New Play of 1984
- Three Postcards (1987) – musical – Premiered at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California
- Marry Me A Little (1988) – musical revue – Songs by Stephen Sondheim, conceived and developed by Craig Lucas and Norman René
- Prelude to a Kiss (1988) – play – Commissioned and premiered by South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California
- God's Heart (1995) – play – produced at Trinity Repertory Company
- The Singing Forest (2004) – play – Premiered at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle, Washington.
- (2007) – play – Premiered at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle, Washington.
Films[]
- Longtime Companion (1990) – screenwriter
- Prelude to a Kiss (1992) – screenwriter
- Reckless (1995) – screenwriter
- The Secret Lives of Dentists (2002) – screenwriter
- The Dying Gaul (2005) – screenwriter/director
- Birds of America (2008) – director
Opera[]
Miscellaneous[]
- Savage Light, a play (with David Schulner) that was supposed to premiere at the Humana Festival of New American Plays, was deemed "too sexually explicit to stage".[11]
References[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b Gener, Randy (November 23, 2011). "Rachel in Wonderland: Interview with playwright Craig Lucas on "Reckless" as a hallucinatory Christmas fable". Culture of One World (originally commissioned for Applause). Archived from the original on October 28, 2013. Retrieved August 21, 2012.
- ^ Esther, John (2005). "The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide". Gay & Lesbian Review. Boston, Massachusetts: Gay & Lesbian Review, Inc. ISSN 1532-1118.
- ^ Jones, Kenneth. "Mary-Louise Parker Escapes Through a Window in Broadway's 'Reckless' Sept. 23" Playbill, September 23, 2004
- ^ Jones, Kenneth (December 9, 2008). "Craig Lucas 'Prayer for My Enemy', With Tony Winners Pawk and Clark, Opens in NYC". playbill.com.
- ^ "King Kong – Craig Lucas". kingkongliveonstage.com. Retrieved May 31, 2012.
- ^ Trueman, Matt (October 20, 2011). "King Kong musical to open in Melbourne before hitting New York". London: guardian.co.uk. Retrieved May 31, 2012.
- ^ "King Kong". visitvictoria.com. Retrieved May 31, 2012.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Hetrick, Adam. " King Kong Revamped for U.S. Premiere as Original Creative Team Departs" Playbill, September 5, 2014
- ^ "The Verdict: Critics Review Samantha Barks in 'Amélie' Musical" Playbill, September 14, 2015
- ^ Holland, Bernard (December 16, 1992). "Review/Theater: Orpheus in Love; Orpheus as Mediator Between 2 Worlds, But Just Which 2?" – via NYTimes.com.
- ^ Boehm, Mike (January 31, 2000). "Having Faith in the Play". Los Angeles Times.
Sources[]
- Biography at Playbill Online
- Biography from the Intiman Theatre website
- Biography at the Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Queer Culture.
- Cast Out: Queer Lives in Theater (U. Michigan Press, edited by Robin Bernstein) contains Lucas's essay "Making a Fresh Start."
External links[]
- Playwrights Horizon
- Craig Lucas at IMDb
- Craig Lucas at the Internet Broadway Database
- Craig Lucas at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
- Craig Lucas – Downstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing.org
- 1951 births
- Living people
- Writers from Atlanta
- People from Chester County, Pennsylvania
- Writers from Seattle
- American adoptees
- 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
- Gay writers
- LGBT directors
- LGBT dramatists and playwrights
- LGBT people from Georgia (U.S. state)
- LGBT screenwriters
- LGBT writers from the United States
- Lambda Literary Award for Drama winners
- Boston University College of Fine Arts alumni
- American male dramatists and playwrights
- 20th-century American male writers
- 20th-century American screenwriters