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John Guare

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John Guare
Guare at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2009
Guare at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2009
Born (1938-02-05) February 5, 1938 (age 86)
Jackson Heights, Queens, New York, U.S.
OccupationPlaywright
EducationGeorgetown University (BA)
Yale University (MFA)
Period1964–present
Notable worksThe House of Blue Leaves; Six Degrees of Separation
SpouseAdele Chatfield-Taylor

John Guare (/ɡɛr/ GERR; born February 5, 1938) is an American playwright and screenwriter. He is best known as the author of The House of Blue Leaves and Six Degrees of Separation.

Early life

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He was raised in Jackson Heights, Queens.[1] In 1949, his father suffered a heart attack and subsequently moved the family to Ellenville, New York, while he recovered.[2] His father's relatives lived there, making it an idyllic experience for him. Guare did not regularly attend school in Ellenville because the school's daily practices were not in keeping with the recommendations of the Catholic Church, causing his father to suspect the school had communist leanings. Instead of attending school, Guare was assigned home study and took exams intermittently, which allowed him time to go to the movies and see all the hits of the time.[2] This had a lasting influence on Guare and his career.

He attended Georgetown University and the Yale School of Drama, graduating in 1962 with a M.F.A in Playwriting.[2][1] Under the direction of Georgetown's Donn B. Murphy, his play The Toadstool Boy, about a country singer's quest for fame, won first place in the District of Columbia Recreation Department's One-Act-Play competition.[2] In 1960, the Mask and Bauble presented The Thirties Girl, a musical for which Guare did the book, much of the music and the lyrics,[2] again under Murphy's tutelage. Set in Hollywood's turbulent 1920s, it deals with the dethronement of a reigning diva by a fresh-faced starlet.

Career

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Guare's early plays, mostly comic one-acts exhibiting a flair for the absurd, include To Wally Pantoni, We Leave a Credenza, produced at Caffe Cino in 1965[2] and Muzeeka (1968).[3]

Cop-Out premiered on Broadway at the Cort Theatre on April 7, 1969, and closed on April 12, 1969, as part of two one-act plays, including Home Fires. Cop-Out starred Linda Lavin and Ron Leibman.[4][5]

The House of Blue Leaves, a domestic drama by turns wildly comic and despairingly poignant, premiered Off-Broadway in 1971 at the Truck and Warehouse Theatre. It was revived Off-Broadway at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1986 before transferring to Broadway later in 1986.[6] The play was revived on Broadway in 2011, starring Ben Stiller, whose mother, Anne Meara, had appeared in the 1971 production.[7] According to Marilyn Stasio writing in Variety the play "sets the bar for smart comic lunacy."[8]

Chaucer in Rome, "said to be a sequel of sorts to ... 'The House of Blue Leaves' and includ[ing] the son of one of the earlier play's characters"[9] received its world premiere at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in July 1999[10] and was produced Off-Broadway in 2001 at Lincoln Center Theater's Newhouse Theater.[11]

Later plays include Marco Polo Sings a Solo, produced at the Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival in January to March 1977, with a cast that featured Joel Grey, Anne Jackson, Madeline Kahn, and Sigourney Weaver. Bosoms and Neglect was produced on Broadway in 1979, and revived Off-Broadway in 1998 by the Signature Theatre Company. Moon Over Miami was produced at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 1987 and then at the Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven in February 1989.[12]

Guare's cycle of plays on nineteenth-century America are: Gardenia (1982)[13] Lydie Breeze (1982)[14] and Women and Water (1985).[15] The so-called Lydie Breeze series, also called the "Nantucket" series, "follows a group of idealistic 19th century characters and their attempts to create a utopian society. "[16]

Six Degrees of Separation was originally produced Off-Broadway by Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in June 1990.[17] Six Degrees of Separation is an intricately plotted comedy of manners about an African-American confidence man who poses as the son of film star Sidney Poitier. It has been the most highly praised and widely produced of Guare's full-length plays.[citation needed] It was made into a film in 1993, starring Stockard Channing and Will Smith.[18]

Four Baboons Adoring the Sun was presented on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theater from February 22, 1992, to April 19, 1992, and was nominated for the 1992 Tony Award, Best Play.[19]

Lake Hollywood (1999) and A Few Stout Individuals (2002) both received their world premieres at Signature Theatre. A Few Stout Individuals is set in nineteenth century America, with a cast of characters that includes Ulysses S. Grant, Mark Twain, soprano Adelina Patti and the Emperor and Empress of Japan.[20]

Guare has also been involved with musical theatre. His libretto with Mel Shapiro for the musical Two Gentlemen of Verona was a success when it premiered in 1971 and was revived in 2005 at the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park. It won the two men the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical as well as the Tony Award for best Book of a Musical. He wrote the songs for Landscape of the Body. [21] Guare wrote narration for Psyche, a tone poem by César Franck, which premiered at Avery Fisher Hall in October 1997, conducted by Kurt Masur with the New York Philharmonic.[22]

He revised the book (uncredited) of the Cole Porter musical comedy Kiss Me, Kate for its 1999 Broadway revival.[23] He wrote the book for the musical Sweet Smell of Success, which premiered on Broadway in 2002, for which he received a 2002 Tony Award nomination, Book of a Musical.[24]

His play A Free Man of Color was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Pulitzer citation said: "An audacious play spread across a large historical canvas, dealing with serious subjects while retaining a playful intellectual buoyancy."[25]

Guare wrote the screenplay for Louis Malle's film Atlantic City (1980), for which he was nominated for an Oscar.[26]

Other activities

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He was an original member in 1965 of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut[27] and Resident Playwright at the New York Shakespeare Festival, during which time he wrote Landscape of the Body, Rich and Famous, and Marco Polo Sings a Solo.[27]

He is a council member of the Dramatists Guild.[28]

He is Co-Executive Editor of the Lincoln Center Theater Review,[29] which he founded in 1987.[30] He co-produces the New Plays Reading Room Series at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts and teaches in the Playwriting department at the Yale School of Drama.[citation needed]

Critical acclaim

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In his foreword to a collection of Guare's plays, Louis Malle wrote:

Guare practices a humor that is synonymous with lucidity, exploding genre and clichés, taking us to the core of human suffering: the awareness of corruption in our own bodies, death circling in. We try to fight it all by creating various mythologies, and it is Guare's peculiar aptitude for exposing these grandiose lies of ours that makes his work so magical.[31]

Gregory Mosher, formerly the artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater, said that Guare, "along with David Mamet, Sam Shepard and a handful of other dramatists, reshaped the face of contemporary American theater over the past quarter century."[32]

Works

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All plays for the stage unless otherwise noted.

Awards and honors

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Personal life

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He is married to Adele Chatfield-Taylor, an historic preservationist; she was President and CEO of the American Academy in Rome. They split their time between New York City, Long Island and the historic village of Waterford, Virginia, where his wife grew up.[27]

References

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  1. ^ a b Druckman, Stephen. "THEATER; In Guare's Art, Zero Degrees of Separation" The New York Times, April 11, 1999
  2. ^ a b c d e f Plunka, Gene A., "Chapter 1", The Black Comedy of John Guare, University of Delaware Press, 2002, ISBN 0874137632, pp 26–27, 29
  3. ^ Muzeeka Archived 2015-11-17 at the Wayback Machine lortel.org, accessed November 14, 2015
  4. ^ "'Cop-out' Broadway" playbillvault.com, accessed November 15, 2015
  5. ^ Simonson, Robert. "FRINGE WATCH: John Guare's 'Cop-Out' Gets Rare Staging" Playbill, August 1, 2000
  6. ^ "'The House of Blue Leaves' Broadway 1986" playbillvault.com, accessed November 16, 2015
  7. ^ Gans, Andrew. "'House of Blue Leaves' Revival, With Ben Stiller and Edie Falco, Begins on Broadway April 4" Archived 2011-04-17 at the Wayback Machine playbill.com, April 4, 2011
  8. ^ Stasio, Marilyn. "Review: 'The House of Blue Leaves'" Variety, April 25, 2011
  9. ^ Simonson, Robert. "Guare's 'Chaucer in Rome' Opens at Lincoln Center Theater, June 7" Playbill, June 7, 2001
  10. ^ Simonson, Robert. "John Guare's 'Chaucer in Rome' Ends Williamstown Run Aug. 8" Playbill, August 6, 1999
  11. ^ " Chaucer in Rome Listing" lct.org, accessed June 30, 2015
  12. ^ Curry, Jane Kathleen. John Guare: A Research and Production Sourcebook, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, ISBN 0313312524, p. 3, 178
  13. ^ Rich, Frank. "Stage. Guare's 'Gardenia' Antedates His 'Lydie'" New York Times, April 29, 1982
  14. ^ Rich, Frank. "Stage: Guare's 'Lydie Breeze'" New York Times, February 26, 1982
  15. ^ Gussow, Mel. "Stage. Guare Chronicle 'Women and Water'" New York Times, December 8, 1985
  16. ^ Haun, Harry; Lefkowitz, David; and Simonson, Ribert. "NY's Signature Opens OB Season with a Guare Solo, Sept. 27-Oct. 25" Playbill, September 26, 1998
  17. ^ "'Six Degrees of Separation' 1990" Archived 2015-11-17 at the Wayback Machine lortel.org, accessed November 16, 2015
  18. ^ "'Six Degrees Of Separation' Film Overview" tcm.com, accessed November 16, 2015
  19. ^ a b "'Four Baboons Adoring the Sun' Broadway" playbillvault.com, accessed November 15, 2015
  20. ^ Jones, Kenneth. "John Guare's Latest, 'A Few Stout Individuals', Opens Off-Bway May 12" Playbill, May 12, 2002
  21. ^ Brantley, Ben. "Gold Lamé Dreams Dashed by Polyester Reality in 'Landscape of the Body'" New York Times, April 17, 2006
  22. ^ TommasIni, Anthoiny. "Classical Music. Spelling Out The Musical Tale of 'Psyche'" New York Times, October 5, 1997
  23. ^ Jones, Kenneth. "The Stars Fill the Sky: 'Kiss Me, Kate' Revival Opens on Bway Nov. 18" Playbill, November 18, 1999
  24. ^ "'Sweet Smell of Success' Broadway" Archived 2015-09-27 at the Wayback Machine playbillvault.com, accessed November 14, 2015
  25. ^ a b "Pulitzer Prize for Drama" pulitzer.org, accessed November 15, 2015
  26. ^ Atlantic City tcm.com, accessed November 14, 2015
  27. ^ a b c Cattaneo, Anne. "John Guare, The Art of Theater No. 9. Interview" The Paris Review, Winter 1992, accessed November 14, 2015
  28. ^ "Membership Profile Information. John Guare" Archived 2015-11-17 at the Wayback Machine dramatistsguild.com, accessed November 16, 2015
  29. ^ "Magazine: LCT Review" lct.org, accessed November 15, 2015
  30. ^ "Events, Upcoming January 11, 2016" thesegalcenter.org, accessed November 15, 2015
  31. ^ John Guare. Three Exposures. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982. ISBN 9780151901784. Page viii.
  32. ^ Herman, Jan. "Writer's Gift Measured by 'Degrees'" Los Angeles Times, November 2, 1996
  33. ^ Sommer, Elyse. "A CurtainUp Review. 'Marco Polo Sings a Solo'" curtainup.com, September 28, 1998
  34. ^ "'Marco Polo Sings a Solo' 1977" Archived 2015-02-13 at the Wayback Machine lortel.org
  35. ^ Sommer, Elyse. "A CurtainUp Review. 'Lake Hollywood'" CurtainUp, May 6, 1999
  36. ^ "'A Free Man of Color' Broadway" Archived 2015-11-17 at the Wayback Machine playbillvault.com, accessed November 15, 2015
  37. ^ Gans, Andrew. "'Private Lives' Paul Gross Will Star in World Premiere of John Guare's' Are You There, McPhee?'" Playbill, April 12, 2012
  38. ^ Hetrick, Adam. "John Guare Makes Acting Debut in His New Play '3 Kinds of Exile', Beginning May 15 at the Atlantic" Playbill, May 15, 2013
  39. ^ Fierberg, Ruthie. " 'Nantucket Sleigh Ride' Opens Off-Broadway March 18" playbill, March 18, 2019
  40. ^ "Obies Search" villagevoice.com, accessed November 14, 2015
  41. ^ "'The House of Blue Leaves' 1971" Archived 2015-11-17 at the Wayback Machine lortel.org, accessed November 15, 2015
  42. ^ "'The House of Blue Leaves' Broadway 1986" playbillvault.com, accessed November 15, 2015
  43. ^ "'Two Gentlemen of Verona' Awards" ibdb.com, accessed November 15, 2015
  44. ^ "'Two Gentlemen of Verona' Broadway Production" playbillvault.com, accessed November 15, 2015
  45. ^ "Award of Merit" Archived 2016-01-31 at the Wayback Machine artsandletters.org, accessed November 15, 2015
  46. ^ "Awards" Archived 2010-09-11 at the Wayback Machine artsandletters.org, accessed November 14, 2015
  47. ^ "Christo, Guare Elected to Institute" Los Angeles Times, March 3, 1989
  48. ^ "Who's in the Theatre Hall of Fame" Playbill, June 12, 1996
  49. ^ "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
  50. ^ Viagas, Robert and Lefkowitz, David. "NY's Signature Will Devote 1998–99 Season to John Guare" Playbill, August 5, 1998, retrieved December 25, 2017
  51. ^ Hernandez, Ernio. "Playwrights John Guare and Craig Lucas Win Annual PEN/ Laura Pels Award for Drama" Playbill, May 5, 2003
  52. ^ "05".
  53. ^ "A.C.T. Grants Honorary MFA Degrees To Tracy Chapman & John Guare 5/11" broadwayworld.com, May 11, 2009
  54. ^ Purcell, Carey. "John Guare, Christopher Durang and More Will Be Honored at Dramatists Guild of America Awards" Playbill, February 11, 2014
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