Lynne Meadow
Encyclopedia
Lynne Meadow is an American
theatre producer and director and a college
professor
.
A cum laude graduate of Bryn Mawr
, Meadow attended the Yale School of Drama
. In 1972 she joined the Manhattan Theatre Club
as Artistic Director, and in that position she has directed and produced more than one hundred New York City
and world premieres of plays by American and international playwright
s, including Terrence McNally
, Beth Henley
, John Guare
, Athol Fugard
, Brian Friel
, Harold Pinter
, Alan Ayckbourn
, John Patrick Shanley
, and August Wilson
.
Under Meadow's leadership, MTC has been honored with every prestigious theatre award, including fifteen Tony Award
s, four Pulitzer Prizes for Drama
, forty-five Obie Award
s, twenty-five Drama Desk Award
s, as well as New York Drama Critics' Circle
Awards, Outer Critics Circle Award
s, and Theatre World Award
s.
Meadow's directing credits include Sally and Marsha
, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife
and Absent Friends
.
Meadow has taught at the Circle in the Square Theatre School, Stony Brook University, Yale University
, and NYU
. She is married to attorney
Ronald Shechtman.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
theatre producer and director and a college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
.
A cum laude graduate of Bryn Mawr
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
, Meadow attended the Yale School of Drama
Yale School of Drama
The Yale School of Drama is a graduate professional school of Yale University providing training in every discipline of the theatre: acting, design , directing, dramaturgy and dramatic criticism, playwriting, stage management, sound design, technical design and production, and theater...
. In 1972 she joined the Manhattan Theatre Club
Manhattan Theatre Club
Manhattan Theatre Club is a theater company located in New York City. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, Manhattan Theatre Club has grown since its founding in 1970 from an Off-Off Broadway showcase into one of the country’s most acclaimed...
as Artistic Director, and in that position she has directed and produced more than one hundred New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and world premieres of plays by American and international playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
s, including Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally is an American playwright who has received four Tony Awards, an Emmy, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been a member of the Council of the...
, Beth Henley
Beth Henley
Elizabeth Becker "Beth" Henley is an American dramatist and actress. She writes primarily about women's issues and family in the Southern United States. She is also a screenwriter who has written many film adaptations of her plays...
, John Guare
John Guare
John Guare is an American playwright. He is best known as the author of The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation, and Landscape of the Body...
, Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director who writes in English, best known for his political plays opposing the South African system of apartheid and for the 2005 Academy-Award winning film of his novel Tsotsi, directed by Gavin Hood...
, Brian Friel
Brian Friel
Brian Friel is an Irish dramatist, author and director of the Field Day Theatre Company. He is considered to be the greatest living English-language dramatist, hailed by the English-speaking world as an "Irish Chekhov" and "the universally accented voice of Ireland"...
, Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
, Alan Ayckbourn
Alan Ayckbourn
Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-three full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their...
, John Patrick Shanley
John Patrick Shanley
John Patrick Shanley is an American playwright, screenwriter, and director. He also contributed articles on the performing arts to The New York Times among other publications.-Life and career:...
, and August Wilson
August Wilson
August Wilson was an American playwright whose work included a series of ten plays, The Pittsburgh Cycle, for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama...
.
Under Meadow's leadership, MTC has been honored with every prestigious theatre award, including fifteen Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
s, four Pulitzer Prizes for Drama
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than the calendar year...
, forty-five Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
s, twenty-five Drama Desk Award
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
s, as well as New York Drama Critics' Circle
New York Drama Critics' Circle
The New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 24 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. The organization was founded in 1935 at the Algonquin Hotel by a group that included Brooks Atkinson, Walter Winchell, and Robert Benchley...
Awards, Outer Critics Circle Award
Outer Critics Circle Award
The Outer Critics Circle Awards are presented annually for theatrical achievements both on and Off-Broadway and were begun during the 1949-1950 theater season. The awards are decided upon by theater critics who review for out-of-town newspapers, national publications, and other media outlets...
s, and Theatre World Award
Theatre World Award
The Theatre World Award, first awarded for the 1945-46 season, is an American honor presented annually to actors and actresses in recognition of an outstanding New York City stage debut performance, either on Broadway or off-Broadway.-History:...
s.
Meadow's directing credits include Sally and Marsha
Sally and Marsha
Sally and Marsha is a comedy-drama, written by Sybille Pearson and directed by Lynne Meadow. It premiered Off-Broadway in 1982.-Productions:Pearson was a graduate student at City College, and the play was read there by Jill Eikenberry and Pamela Reed in May 1980...
, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife
The Tale of the Allergist's Wife
The Tale of the Allergist's Wife is a play by Charles Busch.In his first play written for a mainstream audience, Busch explores the Upper West Side milieu of aspiring intellectual and middle-aged upper class matron Marjorie Taub, who lives comfortably with her doctor husband Ira in an expensively...
and Absent Friends
Absent Friends (play)
Absent Friends is a 1974 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn.When Colin, a friend who has been absent, comes back to his circle of friends, his friends are worried about how to approach him over the death of his fiancée, Carol . Diana organizes a tea party for Colin's arrival...
.
Meadow has taught at the Circle in the Square Theatre School, Stony Brook University, Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, and NYU
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
. She is married to attorney
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
Ronald Shechtman.
Selected producing credits
- 1978: Ain't Misbehavin'
- 1981: Crimes of the HeartCrimes of the HeartCrimes of the Heart is a play by Beth Henley.-Synopsis:At the core of the tragic comedy are the three Magrath sisters, Meg, Babe, and Lenny, who reunite at Old Granddaddy's home in Hazlehurst, Mississippi after Babe shoots her abusive husband. The trio was raised in a dysfunctional family with a...
- 1984: The Miss Firecracker ContestMiss FirecrackerMiss Firecracker is a 1989 comedy film directed by Thomas Schlamme. It stars Holly Hunter, Mary Steenburgen, Tim Robbins, Alfre Woodard, and Scott Glenn...
- 1986: LootLoot (play)Loot is a two-act play by the English playwright Joe Orton. The play is a dark farce that satirises the Roman Catholic Church, social attitudes to death, and the integrity of the police force....
- 1987: Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de LuneFrankie and Johnny in the Clair de LuneFrankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune is a two-character play by Terrence McNally.It focuses on two lonely, middle-aged people whose first date ends with them tumbling into bed. Johnny is certain he has found his soul mate in Frankie. She, on the other hand, is far more cautious and disinclined...
- 1988: Woman in MindWoman In MindWoman in Mind is the 32nd play by English playwright, Alan Ayckbourn. It was premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round, Scarborough, in 1985. Despite pedestrian reviews by many critics, strong audience reaction resulted in a transfer to London's West End...
- 1989: The Lisbon TraviataThe Lisbon TraviataThe Lisbon Traviata is a 1989 play by Terrence McNally.It focuses on two of the playwright's favorite subjects, gay relationships and Maria Callas, and includes one of his most memorable characters, flamboyantly bitchy and viciously wicked opera queen Mendy...
- 1990: The Piano LessonThe Piano LessonThe Piano Lesson is a 1990 play by American playwright August Wilson. The Piano Lesson is the fifth play in Wilson's The Pittsburgh Cycle. Wilson began writing this play by playing with the various answers regarding the possibility of "acquir[ing] a sense of self-worth by denying ones past"...
- 1991: Lips Together, Teeth ApartLips Together, Teeth ApartLips Together, Teeth Apart is a 1991 play by American playwright Terrence McNally.-Plot:A gay community in Fire Island provides an unlikely setting for two straight couples spending the Fourth of July weekend in a house inherited by Sally from her brother who died of AIDS. Through monologues...
- 1995: Love! Valour! Compassion!Love! Valour! Compassion!Love! Valour! Compassion! is a play by Terrence McNally. Its off-Broadway premiere took place at the Manhattan Theatre Club on October 11, 1994, in a staging by Joe Mantello that ran for 72 performances...
- 1999: Putting It TogetherPutting It TogetherPutting it Together is a musical revue showcasing the songs of Stephen Sondheim. Drawing its title from a song in Sunday in the Park with George, it was devised by Sondheim and Julia McKenzie...
- 2000: ProofProof (play)Proof is a play by David Auburn originally produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club on 23 May 2000. It then went to Broadway on 24 October 2000 at the Walter Kerr Theatre, and was directed by Daniel J. Sullivan, with Mary-Louise Parker as Catherine, Larry Bryggman as Robert, Ben Shenkman as Hal, and...
; Fuddy MeersFuddy MeersFuddy Meers is an American play by David Lindsay-Abaire. It tells the story of an amnesiac, Claire, who awakens each morning as a blank slate on which her husband and teenage son must imprint the facts of her life. One morning Claire is abducted by a limping, lisping man who claims her husband... - 2001: King Hedley IIKing Hedley IIKing Hedley II is a play by American playwright August Wilson, the ninth in his ten-part series, The Pittsburgh Cycle. This is the ninth of the plays in Wilson's ten-play cycle, each from a different era...
; A Class ActA Class ActA Class Act is a musical with a book by Linda Kline and Lonny Price and music and lyrics by Edward Kleban. The musical is based on the life of composer-lyricist Ed Kleban, who died at the age of 48 in 1987... - 2004: DoubtDoubt (play)Doubt: A Parable is a 2004 play by John Patrick Shanley. Originally staged off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club on November 23, 2004, the production transferred to the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway in March 2005 and closed on July 2, 2006 after 525 performances and 25 previews...
- 2006: Rabbit HoleRabbit HoleRabbit Hole is a play written by David Lindsay-Abaire. It was the recipient of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play was originally commissioned by South Coast Repertory and first presented at its Pacific Playwrights Festival reading series in 2005...
; Three Days of RainThree Days of RainThree Days of Rain is a play by Richard Greenberg that was commissioned and produced by South Coast Repertory in 1997. The title comes from a line from W. S. Merwin's poem, "For the Anniversary of My Death"... - 2007: TranslationsTranslationsTranslations is a three-act play by Irish playwright Brian Friel written in 1980. It is set in Baile Beag , a small village at the heart of 19th century agricultural Ireland...