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Madeleine George

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Madeleine George is an American playwright and author. Her play The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2014.

Biography

George grew up in Amherst, MA, and attended Amherst Regional High School.[1] She began writing plays as a student, and participated in the Young Playwrights Festival at Playwrights Horizons and The Public Theatre when she was still a teenager.[2] The New York Times' critic Ben Brantley reviewed her play Sweetbitter Baby, written when George was 17, describing it as "a portrait of a romance going sour in the course of a night...it...leaves its affecting residue of a sense of unbridgeable isolation."[3]

George holds a B.A., Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude, from Cornell University, from which she graduated in 1996, and an M.F.A. from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.[4] In 2003, she became a founding member of 13P (Thirteen Playwrights, Inc.),[5] an Obie-Award-winning collective, along with playwrights such as Anne Washburn, Sarah Ruhl and Young Jean Lee.

Works

Theater

Precious Little, a drama about a linguist who learns that due to a genetic abnormality, the child she is carrying may never learn to speak, was produced in New York by Clubbed Thumb as part of their Summerworks series in 2009.[6] It has subsequently been produced by the Rivendell Theatre Ensemble in Chicago, City Theatre in Pittsburgh, Shotgun Players in Berkeley, and many other theaters.[7]

George's dark comedy The Zero Hour was presented by 13P at Walkerspace in New York in 2010, and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Drama. Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England, "a screwball sex comedy about the perils of monogamy, certainty, and academic administration,"[8] was originally produced by New Jersey's Two River Theater in 2011 and named the Best Play of 2011 by the New Jersey Star-Ledger.

The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence was produced by Playwrights Horizons in 2013,[9] and subsequently won an Outer Critics Circle Award and Obie Award. George was inspired to write the play after watching an episode of Jeopardy! featuring the supercomputer Watson.[10] In naming it a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the committee praised it as "a cleverly constructed play that uses several historical moments – from the 1800s to the 2010s – to meditate on the technological advancements that bring people together and tear them apart."[11]

George won the 2016 Whiting Award for Drama.[12]

George's play, Hurricane Diane, which "combines suburban New Jersey housewives, gardening, climate change, and Greek tragedy,"[13] premiered at the Two River Theater in January 2017. George is the theater's first Playwright in Residence.

Books

George is the author of two young-adult novels, Looks (2008) and The Difference Between You and Me (2012), both published by Viking Press. The Difference Between You and Me was a Kirkus Best Teen Book of 2012, a selection of the Junior Library Guild, and an ALA Rainbow List selection.[14]

Personal life

George is married to the playwright Lisa Kron. They live in Brooklyn.[15]

References

  1. ^ Lederman, Diane. "Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Annie Baker returns to Amherst to talk with nominee Madeleine George" MassLive.com February 4, 2015.
  2. ^ Sanford, Tim. "Tim Sanford and Madeleine George on The (curious case of) the Watson Intelligence" Playwrightshorizons.org.
  3. ^ Brantley, Ben. "Concern About Communication Unites Young Playwrights Festival" The New York Times September 27, 1993.
  4. ^ "Bard Prison Initiative: Who We Are", retrieved February 22, 2017.
  5. ^ "HOME". 13p.org. Retrieved 2017-02-26.
  6. ^ http://www.playbill.com/article/clubbed-thumb-announces-2009-summerworks-plays-com-160704, retrieved February 22, 2017.
  7. ^ http://www.samuelfrench.com/p/9807/precious-little, retrieved February 22, 2017.
  8. ^ http://www.samuelfrench.com/p/9808/seven-homeless-mammoths-wander-new-england, retrieved February 22, 2017.
  9. ^ Collins-hughes, Laura (2013-11-21). "Love Machines". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-02-26.
  10. ^ "In a New Play, Trusty Sidekick Is a Supercomputer". NPR. December 13, 2013. Retrieved February 25, 2017. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  11. ^ http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/madeleine-george, retrieved February 22, 2017.
  12. ^ "Madeleine George | WHITING AWARDS". www.whiting.org. Retrieved 2017-02-26.
  13. ^ "Two River Theater: Meet Our Playwright-In-Residence, Madeleine George", retrieved February 22, 2017.
  14. ^ http://www.madeleinegeorge.com/about/
  15. ^ Spaner, Whitney. "How Lisa Kron's Biggest Admirer Became Her Life Partner" Playbill.com, April 25, 2015.
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