Warren Leight
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Warren Leight (born 1957) is a Tony Award-winning American playwright, screenwriter, film director and television producer.
Raised in the Sunnyside section of the borough of Queens and the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Leight began his writing career with the 1980 horror flick Mother's Day, followed by the documentary Before the Nickelodeon: The Cinema of Edwin S. Porter, the indie Stuck on You!, and the Miramax release The Night We Never Met, which he also directed and which earned him a nomination at the Deauville Film Festival. He also scripted the 1996 Greg Kinnear comedy Dear God.
In the 80's, he was the creative director/writer for a highly regarded quartet of female comics known as the "High Heeled Women," which included actress Arleen Sorkin that performed in cabarets in New York City.
For his first theatrical project, Leight teamed with composer-lyricist Charles Strouse on the 1985 musical "Mayor", inspired by Ed Koch and his dealings with Leona Helmsley and Bess Myerson. It ran for 185 performances at the Top of the Gate in Greenwich Village before transferring uptown to the Latin Quarter for another seventy. His efforts garnered him a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Book.
Leight's 1998 play "Side Man" won him the Tony Award and nominations for both the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 2001, his play "Glimmer, Glimmer & Shine" was produced by the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and the Manhattan Theatre Club in NYC with John Spencer. He contributed works to The 24 Hour Plays, a unique theatrical event in which six short plays are written, rehearsed, directed, and performed within 24 hours, in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2007. His 2006 off-Broadway effort, "No Foreigners Beyond This Point", earned him another Drama Desk nomination. Other plays include "James and Annie" and "Stray Cats".
Leight ventured into television as a freelance writer for 100 Centre Street in 2002. On a suggestion from playwright Theresa Rebeck, "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" executive producer Rene Balcer hired Leight to join the staff of the series in its second season as a writer/producer. His colleagues included a reference to Leight's play "Side Man" in a third-season episode, "Shrink-Wrapped"; a bickering couple argues about the motivations of the married couple in the play. Upon a recommendation from Balcer, Leight was named the show's executive producer and head writer in 2006 when Balcer left the show at the end of the fifth season.
Leight presently lives with his wife and daughter in the West Village, Manhattan.
