Ken Ludwig is an American playwright and theatre director.
Born in York, Pennsylvania, Ludwig was educated at the York Suburban Senior High School, York PA Haverford College (Class of 1972), Harvard Law School, and Trinity College at Cambridge University. His first Broadway play, Lend Me a Tenor (1989), garnered him his first Tony Award nomination; his second was for Best Book of a Musical for Crazy for You (1992), which won the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, LA Drama Critics Circle, Helen Hayes, and Laurence Olivier Awards as Best Musical. Other Broadway credits include Moon Over Buffalo (1995) with Carol Burnett and Lynn Redgrave (on Broadway) and Frank Langella and Joan Collins at the Old Vic in London, the book for a musical adaptation of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (2001), and a new adaptation of the classic Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur play, Twentieth Century (2004) starring Alec Baldwin and Anne Heche.
Among Ludwig’s other works are Shakespeare in Hollywood, which was presented at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., in 2003 and won the Helen Hayes’ Award for Best Play of the Year; Leading Ladies, premiered at The Cleveland Play House in 2004; Be My Baby, at the Alley Theatre in 2005, with Hal Holbrook and Dixie Carter; and the completion of Thornton Wilder's adaptation of George Farquhar's Restoration comedy The Beaux’ Stratagem, staged at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C., in 2006. Ludwig’s adaptation of The Three Musketeers opened at Bristol Old Vic in England in December 2006.
Ludwig's latest projects are an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, which premiered at the Alley Theatre in April 2007 and played at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket on London's West End in 2008, which won the AATE Distinguished Play Award for Best Adaptation of the Year. Another stage adaptation of the George and Ira Gershwin film An American in Paris, premiered at the Alley Theatre in Houston as "The Gershwins' An American in Paris" in May 2008.
Ludwig’s other plays include Sullivan and Gilbert, premiered by the National Art Center of Canada and the Kennedy Center, and Postmortem, which appeared off-Broadway.
Over the years, Ludwig has earned an Olivier Award, two Tony Award nominations, two Helen Hayes Awards, the Edwin Forest Award, and an honorary doctorate from York University.
In 2006, The Times called Ludwig “the purveyor of light comedy to Middle America. ...There is hardly a regional theatre in America that hasn’t a work of his scheduled.” His work has been performed in over 25 countries throughout the world, with translations into at least 16 languages.
Ludwig practiced law for several years with the Washington, D.C., firm of Steptoe & Johnson. He has lectured on drama at universities throughout the United States.
Ludwig, his wife, Adrienne George, and their children Olivia and Jack reside in Washington, D.C. His brother, Eugene Ludwig, was U.S. Comptroller of the Currency.