'Doug Wright' is an award-winning American
playwright,
librettist, and
screenplay writer.
Wright’s play ''Quills'' premiered at
Washington, DC's Woolly Mammoth Theatre in 1995 and subsequently debuted
Off-Broadway at
New York Theatre Workshop. The play recounts the imagined final days in the life of the
Marquis de Sade. ''Quills'' garnered the 1995 Kesselring Prize for Best New American Play from the
National Arts Club and, for Wright, a 1995
Village Voice Obie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting. In 2000, Wright wrote the screenplay for
the film version of ''Quills'' which starred
Geoffrey Rush.
Wright’s ''
I Am My Own Wife'' was produced Off-Broadway by
Playwrights Horizons in 2003. It transferred to
Broadway where it won the
Tony Award for Best Play, as well as the
Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The subject of this one-person play, which starred
Jefferson Mays, is the
German transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf.
In 2006, Wright wrote the
book for ''
Grey Gardens,'' starring
Christine Ebersole and
Mary Louise Wilson. The
musical is based on the
Maysles brothers’ 1975
film documentary of the same title about
Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (“Big Edieâ€) and her daughter
Edith Bouvier Beale (“Little Edieâ€),
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s aunt and cousin.
As of 2007, he is adapting the
Disney's film
The Little Mermaid for Broadway.
Some of his earlier plays include “Interrogating the Nude,†“Watbanaland,†“The Stonewater Rapture†(about the sexual awakening of two Texas teenagers), “Dinosaurs,†and a musical, “Buzzsaw Berkeley†(with songs by
Michael John LaChiusa).
For television, Wright worked on four pilots for producer
Norman Lear and
teleplays for
Hallmark Entertainment and
HBO.
In film, Wright’s credits include screenplays for
Fine Line Features,
Fox Searchlight, and
Dreamworks SKG.
Wright has a bachelor's degree from
Yale College. He was a member of the Class of 1985 and
Wolf's Head. He earned his
M.F.A. from
New York University. He is a member of the
Dramatists Guild and serves on the board of
New York Theatre Workshop. He is a recipient of the William L. Bradley Fellowship at Yale University, the
Charles MacArthur Fellowship at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, an HBO Fellowship in playwriting and the Alfred Hodder Fellowship at
Princeton University.
Wright lives in New York City with his partner, singer/songwriter
David Clement.
Quotes:
“No human appetite is too base, no idea so holy, no institution so revered that it should be spared art's scrutiny.†DW
“Being a playwright and being a novelist have precious little in common. In truth, playwrights are a lot like cookbook authors. I feel closer to Betty Crocker than I do Don Delillo or Joyce Carol Oates. What are plays, after all, but recipes for three-dimensional events? They're not written to be read; they're written to be realized...†DW
“We write in hopes of discovering that the nightmares that taunt us are shared ones.†DW
Upcoming work
Stage adaptations of:
★ ''
The Little Mermaid'', planned for a
Broadway production in
2007.
Works on stage
★ ''
Grey Gardens''
★ ''
I Am My Own Wife''
★ ''
Quills''
Works on film
★ ''
Quills''
★ ''
Memoirs of a Geisha''
Awards and honors
★
2004 Tony Award for Best Play, ''I Am My Own Wife''
★
2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, ''I Am My Own Wife''
★
2005 Lambda Literary Award for Drama, ''I Am My Own Wife''
★
2006 KulturForum Europa, Toleranzpreis -
KulturPreis Europa for Drama, ''I Am My Own Wife''
External links
★
★
★
Production: Grey Gardens Working in the Theatre video by the
American Theatre Wing, November 2006
★ Toleranzpreis 2006 i.R.d.
KulturPreis Europa 2006
Toleranzpreis - KulturPreis Europa 2006
Hommage Dr. Claude Janniak, President Swiss national council