Rebecca Gilman
| Rebecca Gilman | |
|---|---|
| Born | Rebecca Claire Gilman 1965 Birmingham, Alabama |
| Occupation | Playwright |
| Notable award(s) | Evening Standard Award |
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Influences
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Rebecca Gilman (b. 1965 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American playwright. She attended Middlebury College, graduated from Birmingham-Southern College, and earned a Master of Fine Arts from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa. She lives in Chicago and serves on the board of the Dramatists Guild of America.[1]
Gilman was the first American playwright to win an Evening Standard Award. She serves on the advisory board for Chicago Dramatists.[2] She was received the 2008 Harper Lee Award.[3]
Her most widely known works are Spinning Into Butter, a play that addresses political correctness and racial identity, and Boy Gets Girl, which was included in Time Magazine's List of the Best Plays and Musicals of the Decade.
A production of her adaptation of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was the occasion of a protest by actors who felt only a deaf person should play a deaf person on stage.[4][5] She is an assistant professor in Northwestern University's Department of Radio-TV-Film and core faculty in Northwestern's MFA in Writing for the Screen+Stage program.
When asked about her influences, she remarked that "I'm a big fan of Wallace Shawn. He's incredibly smart and the only writer who writes about intellectuals in a complicated and even contradictory way. He's really funny, too. I also like Donald Margulies, Kenneth Lonergan, and Conor McPherson...Caryl Churchill, Kia Corthron, and a Chicago playwright, Jamie Pachino." [6]
[edit] Plays
- The American in Me
- Dollhouse, adapted from Henrik Ibsen's play
- My Sin and Nothing More
- The Crime of the Century
- The Crowd You're In With
- The Land of Little Horses
- The Sweetest Swing in Baseball
- Spinning Into Butter (2000), which won the Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays and a Jeff Award
- Boy Gets Girl (2000)
- The Glory of Living (2001), a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize and won an Osborn Award, an After Dark Award, a Jeff Citation, the George Devine Award, and the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright
- Blue Surge (2001)
- The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (2005), adapted from the novel by Carson McCullers
- The Boys are Coming Home (book by Gilman, music and lyrics by Leslie Arden)[7]
- Lord Butterscotch and the Curse of the Darkwater Phantom (co-written with Lisa Dillman and Brett Neveu; world premiere, Fall 2007)
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.dramatistsguild.com/about.aspx
- ^ http://www.chicagodramatists.org/about/
- ^ http://www.writersforum.org/programs/harper/rebecca_gilman.aspx
- ^ http://thefastertimes.com/theatertalk/2009/10/14/the-new-york-theater-workshop-vs-the-deaf-a-modest-proposal-for-casting-plays/ | For a discussion of the issues raised by the protest about The Heart is a Lonely Hunter production and script
- ^ Healy, Patrick (October 14, 2009). "Hearing Man in Deaf Role Stirs Protests in New York". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/theater/14deaf.html?scp=2&sq=Rebecca%20Gilman&st=cse.
- ^ "Twenty Questions". American Theatre (magazine) (Theatre Communications Group) 19 (2): 88. 2002. ISSN 8750-3255.
- ^ See the Goodman Theatre website for more information.
[edit] External links
- Rebecca Gilman's alumna page at the Birmingham Southern College website
- Rebecca Gilman - Eclipse Theatre Company's 2006 featured playwright
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