| Mark Lamos | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 10, 1946 Melrose Park, Illinois, U.S. |
Mark Lamos (born March 10, 1946) is an American theatre and opera director, producer and actor. Under his direction, Hartford Stage won the 1989 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre and he has been nominated for two other Tonys. He is now Artistic Director of the Westport Country Playhouse.
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Born in Melrose Park, Illinois,[1] Lamos studied violin and ballet at an early age and attended Northwestern University on a music scholarship.[2]
He began his theatrical career as an actor at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. His early Broadway appearances all were in short-lived productions: The Love Suicide at Schofield Barracks and The Creation of the World and Other Business in 1972, Cyrano in 1973, and a revival of Man and Superman in 1978. He also appeared in the 1990 film Longtime Companion.[1][3]
Lamos joined the Hartford Stage as Artistic Director in 1980.[4] During his tenure the company staged Einstein and the Polar Bear, Is There Life After High School?, Stand-Up Tragedy, and Our Country's Good, all of which transferred to Broadway.[1][3] New York directing credits include The Deep Blue Sea, The Gershwins' Fascinating Rhythm, The Rivals, and Seascape.[1][3] Off-Broadway, he directed, among others, Indian Blood at Primary Stages in 2006, receiving a nomination for the Callaway Award, Director. For the Public Theater, he directed As You Like It (2005) and Love's Fire (1998). ,At Lincoln Center, he directed Measure For Measure (1989) and Big Bill (2004).[5] Lamos has directed Much Ado About Nothing for the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C., Giuseppe Verdi's I Lombardi at the Metropolitan Opera House, John Harbison's operatic adaptations of Winter’s Tale and The Great Gatsby and Charles Wuorinen's opera Haroun and Sea of Stories with libretto by British poet James Fenton based on the novel of Salman Rushdie[6]. His many guest directing credits for regional theatre companies include the Stratford Festival (Canada), La Jolla Playhouse, American Conservatory Theater (San Francisco) - The Circle, the Guthrie Theater - Edgardo Mine, McCarter Theatre, the Old Globe Theatre (San Diego) - Resurrection Blues, 2004, Yale Repertory Theatre - Lulu, and the Kennedy Center where he directed Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (2004).[1][7][8][9]
He was appointed the artistic director of the Westport Country Playhouse, effective in February 2009.[4][10]
Lamos was awarded the 2007 Beinecke Fellow, Yale University, the Stanford Chair at University of Miami in Coral Cables,[2] has lectured at Yale and was a visiting adjunct professor in the Department of Theater at the University of Michigan.[7]
Lamos is openly gay. His partner since 1979 is Jerry Jones.[11]