Craig Lucas

Craig Lucas is an American playwright, screenwriter, theatre director, musical actor, and film director. He is currently Associate Artistic Director at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle.

Born on April 30 1951, Lucas was adopted when he was eight months old by a conservative Pennsylvania couple. His father was an FBI agent; his mother was a housewife. He graduated in 1969 from Conestoga High School in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. In the 1960s and 1970s, Lucas became interested in the political left and discovered an attraction towards men. He recalls that his coming out made it possible for him to develop as a playwright and as a person.

In 1973, Lucas left Boston University with a Bachelor of Arts in theatre and creative writing. His mentor, Anne Sexton, urged him to try his luck in New York City as a playwright. He worked in many day jobs while performing in Broadway musicals including Shenandoah, On the Twentieth Century, Rex, and Sweeney Todd.

Lucas met Norman René in 1979. Their first collaboration was Marry Me a Little in 1981. The two wrote a script incorporating songs that had been written for but discarded from Stephen Sondheim musicals, and René also directed. They followed this with the plays Missing Persons (1981) and Blue Window (1984); Three Postcards (1987), an original music by Lucas and Craig Carnelia; and another play, Reckless (1983). In 1990 they joined forces for what would prove to be their biggest commercial and critical success, Prelude to a Kiss. They also joined forces for the feature film Longtime Companion (1990), the 1992 film adaptation of Prelude with Alec Baldwin and Meg Ryan, and the 1995 film version of Reckless with Mia Farrow and Mary Louise Parker.

Following his early work on romantic comedies, Lucas began to write more serious works about AIDS, including The Singing Forest and The Dying Gaul, the latter of which was made into a film that Lucas also directed. Lucas also authored the book for the musical The Light in the Piazza, and directed the world premiere at the Intiman Theater in Seattle. The Lincoln Center production, directed by Bartlett Sher, garnered him a Tony Award nomination.

Lucas has also directed classic plays such as Loot. While some critics have divided his work into gay plays (Blue Window, Longtime Companion) and straight plays (Reckless, Three Postcards, Prelude to a Kiss), Lucas has always written about human problems in a universal manner. He directed Birds Of America, a film starring Matthew Perry and Hilary Swank, in 2007.

Awards

In 2001 Lucas received an OBIE Award for his direction of Harry Kondoleon’s Saved or Destroyed at the Rattlestick Theater. He won the 2003 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Screenplay for The Secret Lives of Dentists. His Small Tragedy was awarded an Obie as Best American Play in 2004. Lucas's other awards include the Excellence in Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; the PEN/Laura Pels Mid-Career Achievement Award; and Outer Critics Circle, L.A. Drama Critics Circle, Drama-Logue and Lambda Literary Awards.

He has also received a Tony Award nomination (for the book of Light in the Piazza). Fellowships include those from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pew Charitable Trusts. Perhaps most notably, he was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his plays Prelude to a Kiss and "The Dying Gaul".

Works

Broadway

• Shenandoah (1975) - musical - actor
• Rex (1976) - musical - actor
• On the Twentieth Century (1978) - musical - actor
• Sweeney Todd (1979) - musical - actor
• Prelude to a Kiss (1990) - play - playwright - Pulitzer Prize for Drama Nomination, Tony Award Nomination for Best Play, Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding New Play
• God's Heart (1997) - play - playwright
• Reckless (2004) - play - playwright
• The Light in the Piazza (2005) - musical - bookwriter - Tony Nomination for Best Book of a Musical
• Prelude to a Kiss (2007) - revival of a play - playwright

Off-Broadway

• The Dying Gaul (1998) - play - playwright
• Missing Persons (1995) - play - playwright - Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding Play
• Stranger (2001) - play - playwright
• This Thing Of Darkness (2002) - play - playwright (with David Schulner)
• Blue Window (1984) - play - playwright
• Small Tragedy (2004) - play - playwright

Regional

• Reckless (1984) - play - playwright
• Blue Window (1984) - play - playwright - George and Elizabeth Marton Award for Best New Play of 1984
• Three Postcards (1987) - play - playwright - Premiered at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California
• Marry Me A Little (1988) - musical revue - Songs by Stephen Sondheim, conceived and developed by Craig Lucas and Norman Rene
• Prelude to a Kiss (1988) - play - playwright - Commissioned and premiered by South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California
• The Singing Forest (2004) - play - playwright - Premiered at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle, Washington.
• Prayer For My Enemy (2007) - play - playwright - Premiered at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle, Washington.

Films

• Longtime Companion (1990) - screenwriter
• Prelude to a Kiss (1992) - screenwriter
• Reckless (1995) - screenwriter
• The Secret Lives of Dentists (2002) - screenwriter
• The Dying Gaul (2005) - screenwriter/director
• Birds of America (2007) - director

References

• Biography at Playbill Online
• Biography from the Intiman Theatre website
• Biography at the Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Queer Culture.
• Cast Out: Queer Lives in Theater (U. Michigan Press, edited by Robin Bernstein) contains Lucas's essay "Making a Fresh Start."

External links

• Craig Lucas at the Internet Movie Database
• Craig Lucas - Downstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing.org