Craig Lucas

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Craig Lucas is an American playwright, screenwriter, theatre director, musical actor, and film director. He is currently Associate Artistic Director at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle.

Born on April 30, 1951, and abandoned in a car in Atlanta, Lucas was adopted when he was eight months old by a Pennsylvanian couple. His adoptive family was conservative; his father was an FBI agent and his mother was a housewife. He graduated in 1969 from Conestoga High School in Berwyn, PA. In the 1960s and 1970s, Lucas was interested in the political left and discovered an attraction towards men. He recalls that his coming out made it possible for him to develop as a playwright and as a person.

In 1973, Lucas graduated from Boston University, with a Bachelor of Arts in theatre and creative writing. His mentor, Anne Sexton, urged him to try his luck in New York. He worked in many day jobs while performing in Broadway musicals including Shenandoah, On the Twentieth Century, and Sweeney Todd.

In 1991, he rewrote his play, “Missing Persons,” which a friend showed to director Norman Rene. Rene promised to produce the play when finished. This was the beginning of a fifteen-year collaboration. While working on “Missing Persons,” the two developed a musical revue based on the music of Stephen Sondheim, entitled “Marry Me a Little," about two people who live next to each other and never meet yet both sing about the failure to connect with others.

After his early work on romantic comedies, Lucas began to write more serious works about AIDS, including "Singing Forest" and “The Dying Gaul," the latter of which was made into a film that Lucas also directed. Lucas also authored the book for the musical The Light in the Piazza, which garnered him a Tony Award nomination.

Lucas also directed classic plays such as Miss Julie and Loot. While some critics have divided his work into gay plays (Blue Window, Longtime Companion) and straight plays (Reckless, Three Postcards, Prelude to a Kiss), Lucas has always written about human problems in a universal manner.

1 Awards
2 Works
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Awards

In 2001 Lucas received an OBIE Award for his direction of Harry Kondoleon’s Saved or Destroyed. He won the 2003 New York Film Critics Award for Best Screenplay for The Secret Lives of Dentists. His Small Tragedy was awarded an Obie as Best American Play in 2004. Lucas' other awards include the Excellence in Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the PEN/Laura Pels Mid-Career Achievement Award, the Outer Critics, L.A. Drama Critics, Drama-Logue and Lambda Literary Awards; he has also received a Tony Award nomination, and fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts and the PEW Charitable Trust and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Prelude to a Kiss.

[edit] Works

[edit] Broadway

Shenandoah (1975) - musical - actor
Rex (1976) - musical - actor
On the Twentieth Century (1978) - musical - actor
Sweeney Todd (1979) - musical - actor
Prelude to a Kiss (1990) - play - playwright - Pulitzer Prize for Drama Nomination, Tony Award Nomination for Best Play, Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding New Play
The Dying Gaul (1998) - play - playwright
Reckless (2004) - play - playwright
The Light in the Piazza (2005) - musical - bookwriter - Tony Nomination for Best Book of a Musical
Prelude to a Kiss revival (2007)

[edit] Off-Broadway

Missing Persons (1995) - play - playwright - Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding Play
Blue Window (2001) - play - playwright
Small Tragedy (2004) - play - playwright

[edit] Regional Theater

Reckless (1984) - play - playwright
Blue Window (1984) - play - playwright - George and Elizabeth Marton Award for Best New Play of 1984
Three Postcards (1987) - play - playwright - Premiered at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California
Marry Me A Little (1988) - play - Songs by Stephen Sondheim, conceived and developed by Craig Lucas and Norman Rene
Prelude to a Kiss (1988) - play - playwright - Commissioned and premiered by South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California
Singing Forest (2004), premiered at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle, Washington.