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Donald Margulies (born September 2, 1954) (MARG-yoo-leez) is an American playwright and a professor of English and Theater Studies at Yale University. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2000 for his play, Dinner With Friends.

Other notable works include Time Stands Still (2009); Shipwrecked! An Entertainment — The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (As Told by Himself) (2007), Brooklyn Boy (2004), Sight Unseen (1991) and Collected Stories (1996), the last three of which were commissioned and originally produced by South Coast Repertory. "Sight Unseen" (which won a 1992 OBIE Award for Best American Play and the Dramatists' Guild/Hull-Warriner Award) and "Collected Stories" were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, in 1992 and 1997, respectively.

"Dinner With Friends" was commissioned by Actors Theatre of Louisville [KY], where it had its world premiere at the 1998 Humana Festival of New American Plays. It was produced later that year at South Coast Repertory [Costa Mesa, CA], and opened November 4, 1999 at the Variety Arts Theatre [New York] where it played 654 performances. In addition to the Pulitzer, "Dinner with Friends" received an American Theatre Critics’ Association New Play Citation, The Dramatists’ Guild/Hull-Warriner Award, the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play, the Outer Critics Circle Award, a Drama Desk Award nomination, and was selected a Burns Mantle Best Play of 1999-2000). It went on to have a long run in Paris at the Comedie des Champs-Elysees, and productions in cities all over the world including London, Berlin, Vienna, Stockholm, Tokyo, Mumbai, Seoul, Tel Aviv and Istanbul. In 2001 it was an Emmy Award-nominated film for HBO.

"Time Stands Still" opened on Broadway on January 28, 2010 at the Manhattan Theatre Club's Friedman Theatre for a limited engagement. It resumed performances on September 23, 2010 at the Cort Theatre, where it ran until January 30, 2011; between its two runs, it played a total of 24 previews and 194 performances. It starred Laura Linney, Brian d'Arcy James, Eric Bogosian and Alicia Silverstone (later succeeded at the Cort by Christina Ricci), and was directed by Daniel Sullivan. The play was nominated for a 2010 Tony Award for Best Play and was selected a Burns Mantle Best Play of 2009-2010. Linney was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. In 2009, "Time Stands Still" had its world premiere at the Geffen Playhouse [Los Angeles], which had commissioned it. Directed by Sullivan, the Geffen premiere featured Silverstone, Anna Gunn, David Harbour and Robin Thomas. Its foreign premiere took place In Stockholm in 2009, and productions are planned in many cities across the country and around the world.

After its world premiere in the 2007 Pacific Playwrights Festival at South Coast Repertory where it starred Gregory Itzin and was directed by Bart DeLorenzo, "Shipwrecked! An Entertainment" went on to productions at the Geffen Playhouse (where it again was directed by DeLorenzo and starred Itzin), Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, CT (directed by Evan Cabnet); Primary Stages [New York] (directed by Lisa Peterson; both featuring Michael Countryman); and in theaters all over the United States. It received an Outer Critics’ Circle Award nomination for Outstanding New Play in 2009.

"Brooklyn Boy" also began life at the Pacific Playwrights Festival, in 2003, and was produced at South Coast Repertory, on Broadway by Manhattan Theatre Club at the Biltmore Theatre, and in Paris at the Comedie des Champs-Elysees. It was an American Theatre Critics’ Association New Play Award finalist, an Outer Critics’ Circle nominee, and a Burns Mantle Best Play of 2004-2005. The play was directed by Daniel Sullivan and its original cast was Adam Arkin, Arye Gross, Allan Miller, Ari Graynor, Mimi Lieber, Kevin Isola and Dana Reeve (whose role was played on Broadway by Polly Draper).

"Sight Unseen" was given its New York premiere by Manhattan Theatre Club at City Center II on January 27, 1992; it later moved to the Orpheum Theatre where it ran for a combined total of 293 performances. It was directed by Michael Bloom and starred Dennis Boutsikaris, Deborah Hedwall, Jon DeVries and, in the supporting role of a German art critic, Laura Linney. In 2005, Linney played the female lead in the play's Broadway premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club's Biltmore Theatre, with Ben Shenkman, Byron Jennings and Ana Reeder, directed by Sullivan. Linney received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance.

"Collected Stories" has had three New York productions: its premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club's City Center Stage I, in 1997, with Maria Tucci and Debra Messing, directed by Lisa Peterson; the following year at the Lucille Lortel Theatre with Uta Hagen and Lorca Simons, directed by William Carden; and, on Broadway, in 2010, at Manhattan Theatre Club's Friedman (formerly Biltmore) Theatre, starring Linda Lavin and Sarah Paulson, directed by Lynne Meadow. Lavin received a 2010 Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play for her performance. She had previously played the role of Ruth Steiner in 1999 at the Geffen Playhouse in a production co-starring Samantha Mathis, directed by Gilbert Cates, which was later re-produced for PBS Hollywood Presents in 2002. The play has had dozens of productions all over the country and around the world, perhaps most notably in London in 1999, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, with Helen Mirren and Anne-Marie Duff, directed by Howard Davies.

"The Model Apartment" premiered at Los Angeles Theatre Center in 1988 (directed by Roberta Levitow) but wasn't produced in New York until 1995, by Primary Stages, directed by Lisa Peterson. Margulies won the OBIE Award for Playwriting and the play was a Dramatists’ Guild/Hull-Warriner Award finalist and a Drama Desk nominee.

"The Loman Family Picnic" was first produced by Manhattan Theatre Club at City Center Stage II in 1989, with Marcia Jean Kurtz and Larry Block, directed by Barnet Kellman. MTC revived it on Stage I in 1993, with Christine Baranski and Peter Friedman, directed by Lynne Meadow. It was a Drama Desk nominee and a Burns Mantle Best Play of 1988-1989.

"What's Wrong With This Picture?" was first produced by Manhattan Theatre Club in 1985, by Jewish Repertory Theatre [New York] in 1990, and at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on Broadway in 1994.

Other plays include "God of Vengeance", based on the Yiddish classic by Sholem Asch, which premiered at ACT Theatre [Seattle] in 2000, and in 2002 at Williamstown Theatre Festival, in productions directed by Gordon Edelstein; "Two Days" (Long Wharf Theatre); "Broken Sleep: Three Plays" (Williamstown Theatre Festival); "July 7, 1994" (Actors Theatre of Louisville); "Found a Peanut" (Joseph Papp/New York Shakespeare Festival); "Pitching to the Star" (West Bank Café); "Resting Place" (Theatre for the New City); "Gifted Children" and "Zimmer" (Jewish Repertory Theatre). In 1982, "Luna Park", a one-act play inspired by the short story "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" by Delmore Schwartz and produced by Jewish Rep, was his New York debut as playwright.

Margulies has developed numerous scripts for film and television. Currently, he is adapting the novel MIDDLESEX by Jeffrey Eugenides into an HBO miniseries.

Margulies has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York Foundation for the Arts, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He was the recipient of the 2000 Sidney Kingsley Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Theatre by a playwright. In 2005 he was honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters with an Award in Literature and by the National Foundation for Jewish Culture with its Award in Literary Arts. Margulies is an alumnus of New Dramatists and serves on the council of The Dramatists Guild of America.

He attended John Dewey High School in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Purchase College where he received a BFA in visual arts. Margulies lives with his wife, Lynn Street, a physician, and their son, Miles, in New Haven, Connecticut, where he is an adjunct professor of English and Theatre Studies at Yale University.

Notable Works[link]

• Found a Peanut
• The Loman Family Picnic
• The Model Apartment
• Sight Unseen
• What's Wrong with This Picture?
• Shipwrecked! An Entertainment
• Luna Park
• July 7, 1994
• Nocturne
• Pitching to the Star
• God of Vengeance
• Dinner with Friends
• Collected Stories
• Brooklyn Boy
• Time Stands Still

References[link]

English Department (2008). "Donald Margulies: Adjunct Professor of English". Yale University. http://www.yale.edu/english/profiles/margulies.html. Retrieved 2008-12-21. 

External links[link]

• Donald Margulies at the Internet Broadway Database
• Donald Margulies at the Internet Movie Database
• Donald Margulies at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Program from the world premiere of Shipwrecked! at South Coast Repertory
• Program from the world premiere of Brooklyn Boy at South Coast Repertory
• Donald Margulies - Downstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing.org

Neil N. LaBute^[1] (born March 19, 1963) is an American film director, screenwriter and playwright.

Early life[link]

LaBute was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Marian, a hospital receptionist, and Richard LaBute, a long-haul truck driver.^[2][3] LaBute is of French Canadian, English, and Irish ancestry,^[3] and was raised in Spokane, Washington. He studied theater at Brigham Young University (BYU), where he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At BYU he also met actor Aaron Eckhart, who would later play leading roles in several of his films. He produced a number of plays that pushed the envelope of what was acceptable at the conservative religious university, some of which were shut down after their premieres. However, he also was honored as one of the "most promising undergraduate playwrights" at the BYU theater department's annual awards.^[4] LaBute also did graduate work at the University of Kansas, New York University, and the Royal Academy of London.

Career[link]

LaBute's exposure to and interest in the film industry came with a viewing of The Soft Skin (La Peau Douce 1964), said the director to Robert K. Elder in an interview for The Film That Changed My Life.^[5]

It exposed me, probably in the earliest way, to “Hey, I could do that.” I’ve never been one to love the camera or even to be as drawn to it as I am to the human aspect of it, and I think it was a film that speaks in a very simple way of here’s a way that you can tell a story on film in human terms. It was the kind of film that made me go, “I could do this; I want to tell stories that are like this and told in this way.” And so it was altering for me in that way, in its simplicity or deceptive simplicity.^[6]

In 1993, he returned to Brigham Young University to premiere his play In the Company of Men, for which he received an award from the Association for Mormon Letters. He taught drama and film at IPFW in Fort Wayne, Indiana in the early 1990s where he adapted and filmed the play, shot over two weeks and costing $25,000, beginning his career as a film director. The film won the Filmmakers Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival, and major awards and nominations at the Deauville Film Festival, the Independent Spirit Awards, the Thessaloniki Film Festival, the Society of Texas Film Critics Awards and the New York Film Critics Circle.

LaBute has received high praise from critics for his unsettling portrayals of humans.^{[citation needed]} In the Company of Men portrays two misogynist businessmen (one played by Eckhart) cruelly plotting to romance and emotionally destroy a deaf woman. His next film Your Friends & Neighbors (1998), with an ensemble cast including Eckhart and Ben Stiller, was a shockingly honest^{[citation needed]} portrayal of the sex lives of three suburban couples. In 2000 he wrote an off-Broadway play entitled Bash: Latter-Day Plays, a set of three short plays (Iphigenia in orem, A gaggle of saints, and Medea redux) depicting essentially good Latter-day Saints doing disturbing and violent things. One of the plays was a much-talked-about one-person performance by Calista Flockhart.^{[citation needed]} This play resulted in his being disfellowshipped from the LDS Church. He has since formally left the LDS Church.^[7]

LaBute's 2002 play The Mercy Seat was one of the first major theatrical responses to the September 11, 2001 attacks.^{[citation needed]} Set on September 12, it concerns a man who worked at the World Trade Center but was away from the office during the attack — with his mistress. Expecting that his family believes that he was killed in the towers' collapse, he contemplates using the tragedy to run away and start a new life with his lover. Starring Liev Schreiber and Sigourney Weaver, the play was a commercial and critical success.^{[citation needed]} While hesitant to term The Mercy Seat "political theater", Labute said, "I refer to this play in the printed introduction as a kind of emotional terrorism that we wage on those we profess to love." He dedicated this edition to David Hare, in response to Hare’s "straightforward, thoughtful, probing work."^[8]

LaBute's The Wicker Man, was an American version of a British cult classic. His first horror film, it starred Nicolas Cage and Ellen Burstyn and was released on September 1, 2006 by Warner Bros. Pictures to scathing critical reviews and mediocre box office.^{[citation needed]} It has spawned several memes, mostly concerning Cage's hammy acting and overdone lines.^{[citation needed]}

His next play, reasons to be pretty, played Off-Broadway May 14-July 5, 2008 in a production by MCC Theater at The Lucille Lortel Theatre. LaBute's first ever Broadway production is reasons to be pretty which began previews at the Lyceum Theatre on March 6, 2009 with an opening on April 2, 2009. The play was nominated for three 2009 Tony Awards—including Best Play, Best Leading Actor in a Play (Thomas Sadoski), and Best Featured Actress in a Play (Marin Ireland) -- but did not win in any category. reasons opened to good reviews and continued to pick up fans, but, not enough to sustain its existence on Broadway. The producers ended the run early, with the last performance on June 14, 2009.

Critics have responded to his plays as having a misanthropic tone.^[9][10][11] Rob Weinert-Kendt in The Village Voice referred to LaBute as "American theater's reigning misanthrope."^[12] The New York Times said that critics labeled him a misanthrope, on the release of his film, Your Friends & Neighbors. The UK's Independent newspaper dubbed him "America's misanthrope par excellence."^[13] Citing In the Company of Men and The Shape of Things, critic Daniel Kimmel identified a thread running through his work: "LaBute is a misanthrope who assumes that only callous people who use and abuse others can survive." Critics labeled him a misogynist after his In the Company of Men.^[14]

LaBute directed Death at a Funeral, a remake of a 2007 British film of the same name. It was written by Dean Craig (who also wrote the original screenplay) and starred Chris Rock.

LaBute wrote a new Introduction and new scenes for the Chicago Shakespeare Theater production of The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare from April 7 to June 6, 2010. LaBute framed the classic play in overtly metatheatrical terms and added a lesbian romance in a subplot.

LaBute's first produced play, Filthy Talk for Troubled Times (1989)--a series of biting exchanges by two 'everyman' in a bar—was staged from June 3–5, 2010 by MCC Theater in Manhattan as a benefit for MCC's Playwrights' Coalition and their commitment to developing new work. LaBute also directed the reading.

MCC will be the home to the World Premier of The Break of Noon. It will run from October 28-December 22, 2010. The play starts the 25th season of MCC. The play will then open in Los Angeles at the Geffen Theater, again directed by Bonney, from January 25-March 6, 2011 (Opening night: February 2, 2011). The show stars Tracee Chimo, David Duchovny, John Earl Jelks, and Amanda Peet. The show was directed by Jo Bonney, set design by Neil Patel, costume design by ESosa, lighting design by David Weiner, original music by Justin Ellington, sound design by Darron L.West, special effects by Matthew Holtzclaw, dialect coach Stephen Gabis, wig design by J. Jared Janas & Rob Greene, production manager B.D. White, production stage manager Christina Lowe, general manager Ted Rounsaville, casting by Telsey + Company, and publicity by O&M Co.^[15]

The Unimaginable, a new short play by LaBute, will premier as part of the Terror 2010 season at the Southwark Playhouse in London, England from October 12-October 31, 2010.

He will also be partaking in the Bush Theatre's 2011 project Sixty Six Books where he has written a piece based upon a chapter of the King James Bible^[16]

Style[link]

LaBute's style is very language-oriented. His work is terse, rhythmic, and highly colloquial. His style bears similarity to one of his favorite playwrights, David Mamet. LaBute even shares some similar themes with Mamet including gender relations, political correctness, and masculinity.^[17]

Filmography[link]

• In the Company of Men (1997)
• Your Friends & Neighbors (1998)
• Tumble (Sundance short-narrated by Neil Labute-2000)
• Nurse Betty (2000)
• Bash: Latter-Day Plays (2001) (TV)
• Possession (2002)
• The Shape of Things (2003)
• The Wicker Man (2006)
• Lakeview Terrace (2008)
• Death at a Funeral (2010)
• Sexting (2010 short)
• Seconds of Pleasure (pre-production)^[18]

LaBute also provides a guest audio commentary for the DVD release of Sex, Lies, and Videotape, alongside Steven Soderbergh.^{[citation needed]}

Theater productions[link]

• Filthy Talk For Troubled Times (1989)
• In the Company of Men (1992)
• Bash: Latter-Day Plays (1999)
• The Shape of Things (2001)
• The Distance From Here (2002 - MCC Theater)
• The Mercy Seat (2002 - MCC Theater)
• Autobahn (2003 - MCC Theater)
• Fat Pig (2004 - MCC Theater)
• This Is How It Goes (2005)
• Some Girl(s) (2005 - MCC Theater)
• Wrecks (2005 - Everyman Palace Theatre, Cork, Ireland / 2006 - Public Theater, New York)
• In A Dark Dark House (2007 - MCC Theater)
• reasons to be pretty (2008 - MCC Theater/2009 - Lyceum Theatre)
• Helter Skelter/Land of the Dead (2008 - The Bush Theatre)
• The Break of Noon Premiere-MCC Theater- October 28/December 10, 2010 West Coast Premiere-Geffen Theater-January 25/March 6, 2011
• "The New Testament," (a world premiere) /"Helter Skelter,"(also directed by LaBute) (2009-Open Fist Theatre Company, Los Angeles)
• Some White Chick (2009 - Southwark Playhouse)
• The Purple Marmoset (2009 - MCC Theater)
• The Furies (2009 - World Premiere Weekend)
• Filthy Talk for Troubled Times (also directed by LaBute) (June 3–5, 2010—MCC Theater)
• In a Forest, Dark and Deep (2011 West End)

The live stage performance rights for most of these plays are licensed by Broadway Play Publishing Inc.

References[link]