Mark Medoff
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Mark Medoff (born March 18, 1940) is an American playwright, screenwriter, film and theatre director, actor, and professor.
Born in Mount Carmel, Illinois, Medoff received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Miami and his Master's from Stanford University. In 1967, while working as an instructor at the Capitol Radio Engineering Institute in Washington, D.C., he wrote his first play, The Wager. His first play to be staged in New York City was When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?, which won him the 1974 Drama Desk and Obie Awards for Outstanding New Playwright.
Medoff's big breakthrough and most famous work was 1980s Children of a Lesser God, which won him the Tony, Drama Desk, and Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Play. It would be twenty-four years before he was represented on Broadway again; Prymate closed after twenty-two previews and five performances after terrible reviews.[1]
Medoff's screen credits include adaptations of his plays Red Ryder and Children of a Lesser God, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, BAFTA, and Writers Guild of America Award, Clara's Heart, and City of Joy. In 2000, he produced and directed the documentary Who Fly on Angels’ Wings, about a mobile pediatric unit traveling through the under-served regions of southern New Mexico, and the following year he directed the feature film Children on Their Birthdays, based on the short story by Truman Capote.
Medoff's theatre directing credits include Waiting for Godot, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Equus, and Hot L Baltimore. As an actor, he has appeared in the plays Marat/Sade, Black Comedy/White Lies, and Old Times, among others, and the films The Twilight of the Golds, Santa Fe, Homage, Red Ryder, and Clara's Heart.
Medoff was co-founder of the American Southwest Theatre Company and head of the Department of Theatre Arts for nine years at New Mexico State University, where he has been a professor for a total of twenty-seven years and currently is teaching Screenwriting and Acting for Film, Short Film Production, and Film Directing and Producing. For one semester a year between 2003-06, he worked at Florida State University as a Reynolds Eminent Scholar in the School of Theatre. For the spring semester of 2008 he joined the faculty of the University of Houston School of Theatre and Dance as Distinguished Lecturer.[2] He is the winner of the Kennedy Center Medallion for Excellence in Education and Artistic Achievement, given periodically to professionals in theater who also teach and mentor students.
Medoff has been married to second wife Stephanie Thorne since 1972; they have three daughters.
[edit] References
- ^ Talkin' Broadway Review: Prymate
- ^ "Tony Award Winner Mark Medoff Joining UH School of Theatre & Dance." Houston Alumline, Winter 2007.
