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Oral History: Emily Mann Interviewed by Alexis Greene
Thursday, June 30, 2022, 6:00 PM EDT
Category: Public Events
Oral History Project Presents
Multi-Award-Winning Playwright, Screenwriter, and Director:
EMILY MANN
Interviewed by Arts Journalist, Editor, and Author:
ALEXIS GREENE
Thursday, June 30th, 2022 6pm
On Zoom
 
Emily Mann is a multi-award winning playwright, screenwriter and director. In her 30 years as Artistic Director and Resident Playwright at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey, she wrote 15 new plays and adaptations, directed over 50 productions, produced 180 plays and musicals, supported and directed the work of emerging and legendary playwrights, and received the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theater. She has directed world premieres by Ntozake Shange, Edward Albee, Christopher Durang, Ken Ludwig, Nilo Cruz, Danai Gurira among others, and is known for her productions of Williams, Chekhov, Shakespeare and Ibsen. On Broadway, she directed Anna in the Tropics, and A Streetcar Named Desire, her plays Having Our Say, adapted from the book by Sarah L. Delany and A. Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth and Execution of Justice; Her other plays include: Still Life; Annulla, An Autobiography; Greensboro (A Requiem); Meshugah; Mrs. Packard, and Hoodwinked (a Primer on Radical Islamism). Adaptations: Baby Doll, Scenes from a Marriage, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, A Seagull in the Hamptons, The House of Bernarda Alba, and Antigone. Her play, Gloria: A Life about the legacy of Gloria Steinem, ran Off-Broadway and aired on PBS’ Great Performances. Currently in development for Broadway: her adaptation of The Pianist and a new musical adapted from the Kent Haruf novel Our Souls at Night, with composer Lucy Simon, lyricist Susan Birkenhead and director Victoria Clark. Her awards include: Peabody (for her teleplay of Having Our Say), Hull Warriner, NAACP, 6 Obies, Guggenheim; Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, WGA nominations; Princeton University Honorary Doctorate of Arts; Helen Merrill Distinguished Playwrights’ Award; Margo Jones Award; TCG Visionary Leadership Award; Lilly Award and Gordon Davidson Award, both for Lifetime Achievement. She was recently inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. Photo credit: Merri Cyr 
 
Alexis Greene is an author and arts journalist. Recently she completed a biography of the pioneering playwright and stage director Emily Mann, the first woman to be artistic director of the McCarter Theatre Center, in Princeton, New Jersey. Emily Mann: Rebel Artist of the American Theater, published by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, is the first biography of this exceptional artist, who led the McCarter to national recognition for three decades, until stepping down in 2020 and returning to playwriting and directing. In addition to her biography of Emily Mann, Greene has written or edited numerous books about women in the American theater, including the biography Lucille Lortel: The Queen of Off Broadway (2004), and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Daily News, and American Theatre magazine, among other publications. She holds a PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, has taught at New York University, and was a co-founder and the first president of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA). From 2008 to 2013 she was head of communications for the Community Environmental Center in Long Island City, Queens. Greene lives in New York City and upstate New York with her husband, Gordon R. Hough. www.alexisgreene.com or Susannah Greenberg, Public Relations, [email protected]  Photo Credit: Charles Chessler.
 
This program is made possible, in part, with funds from the NYS Council on the Arts, a state agency, with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. The Oral History Project also enjoys continued support from the Edith Meiser Foundation. LPTW is proud to have SHOWTIME as a Brava Sponsor!

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