Paul Alexander
Encyclopedia
Paul Alexander is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 writer, playwright and stage director. He has published eight books, authored critically praised plays and directed plays as well as a documentary film. He is the founder and artistic director of The Artists Theatre Group, Inc., a New York-based not-for-profit theatre company.

Early life and education

Paul Alexander was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955. After graduating from The University of Alabama, where he studied with renowned Southern author Barry Hannah, he was accepted at the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the age of 21. There, he studied with Marvin Bell and Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Justice. Following Iowa, he served as a reporter for the Houston bureau of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

magazine for two years.

Writing

Alexander is the editor of Ariel Ascending: Writings About Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...

. This book led him to write Rough Magic, a biography of Plath, the American poet who committed suicide in 1963, which the New York Times Book Review has called "essential reading" and Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...

has described as "galvanizing and bold ... a serious and sophisticated work." In 1993, Tipper Gore, the wife of the Vice President, selected Rough Magic as one of the most significant books published about mental illness in the last year.

Alexander wrote cover stories for The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...

and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

about the death of Andy Warhol and the battle over his estate, which became the basis of his nonfiction book, Death and Disaster: The Rise of the Warhol Empire and the Race for Andy's Millions. Alexander is also the author of Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean, an American bestseller that has been published in ten countries.

In 1996, John F. Kennedy, Jr.
John F. Kennedy, Jr.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. , often referred to as John F. Kennedy, Jr., JFK Jr., John Jr. or John-John, was an American socialite, magazine publisher, lawyer, and pilot. The elder son of U.S. President John F...

 recruited Alexander to write for George
George (magazine)
George was a glossy monthly magazine centered on the theme of politics-as-lifestyle co-founded by John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Michael J. Berman with publisher Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. in New York City in September 1995...

magazine. His article in the inaugural issue (with Cindy Crawford
Cindy Crawford
Cynthia Ann "Cindy" Crawford is an American model. Known for her trademark mole just above her lip, Crawford has adorned hundreds of magazine covers throughout her career. She was named #3 on VH1's 40 Hottest Hotties of the 90s...

 on the cover) about the presidential campaign of Senator Robert Dole led to an association with the magazine that lasted until Kennedy's death. Afterwards, Alexander wrote a number of political articles for Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

, including "All Hat, No Cattle," the first major expose of George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

 that appeared in the summer of 1999, and "Ready for His Close-Up," the first presidential profile of John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...

 that appeared in 2002.

Alexander is the author of three political books: The Candidate, a chronicle of John Kerry's presidential campaign; Man of the People: The Life of John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....

; and Machiavelli’s Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Carl Rove. His journalism has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...

, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...

, The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...

, Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...

, Worth
Worth (magazine)
Worth is an American wealth management magazine for high net worth individuals. It is published on a bi-monthly basis and circulated to over 110,000 recipients.-History:Worth was founded in 1992 as a wealth management magazine for high net worth individuals...

, The New York Observer, Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan (magazine)
Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...

, More
More (magazine)
More, launched in September 1998, is a women's lifestyle magazine published once a month by the Meredith Corporation with a rate base of 1.3 million and a circulation of 1.5 million...

, Interview
Interview (magazine)
Interview is an American magazine which has the nickname The Crystal Ball Of Pop. It was founded in late 1969 by artist Andy Warhol. The magazine features intimate conversations between some of the world's biggest celebrities, artists, musicians, and creative thinkers...

, ARTnews
ARTnews
ARTnews is an arts magazine based in New York, founded by James Clarence Hyde in 1902 as Hyde’s Weekly Art News. It is published 11 times a year.ARTnews covers all art, from ancient to Post-modernism...

, Mirabella
Mirabella
Mirabella was a women's magazine published from 1989 to 2000. It was created by and named for Grace Mirabella, a former Vogue editor in chief....

, Premiere
Premiere (magazine)
Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, Première , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there.-History:The magazine originally...

, Out
Out (magazine)
Out is a popular gay and lesbian fashion, entertainment, and lifestyle magazine, with the highest circulation of any gay monthly publication in the United States. It carries itself in a similar editorial manner to Details, Esquire, and GQ. Out was published by PlanetOut Inc...

, The Advocate
The Advocate
The Advocate is an American LGBT-interest magazine, printed monthly and available by subscription. The Advocate brand also includes a web site. Both magazine and web site have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to LGBT people...

, Travel & Leisure, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, Biography
Biography (journal)
Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly is an international, academic journal that provides a forum for biographical scholarship. Its articles explore the theoretical, generic, historical, and cultural dimensions of life-writing; and the integration of literature, history, the arts, and the...

, Men's Journal
Men's Journal
Men's Journal is an American men's lifestyle magazine focused on outdoor recreation and comprising editorials on the outdoors, environmental issues, health and fitness, style and fashion, and "gear". It is owned by Jann Wenner of Wenner Media....

, Best Life
Best Life
Best Life, published by Rodale Inc. in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, United States, was the first luxury service magazine for men, and the fastest-growing men's magazine in America, with a circulation of more than 500,000.-History:...

and The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast is an American news reporting and opinion website founded and published by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker as well as the short-lived Talk Magazine. The Daily Beast was launched on October 6, 2008, and is owned by IAC...

. In Europe, his nonfiction has appeared in Paris Match
Paris Match
Paris Match is a French weekly magazine. It covers major national and international news along with celebrity lifestyle features. It was founded in 1949 by the industrialist Jean Prouvost....

, Gente
Gente
-Covers:The Italian-language version of the song was covered in 1995 by Brazilian singer Renato Russo and included in his album Equilibrio distante.-Charts:...

and The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

.

Broadcasting

In 2001, Alexander and writer John Calvin Batchelor began broadcasting a radio show on WABC in New York entitled Batchelor and Alexander, which was eventually syndicated by ABC Radio. It was the highest-rated late-night radio show in America.

Alexander left the show in 2003 to pursue work as a playwright and director.

Hollywood

Alexander is the director of Brothers in Arms, a feature-length film about John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...

 and his experiences in Vietnam. Released in 2004 during the presidential campaign by First Run Features, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

described the movie as "inspired filmmaking."

In 2005, A-list screenwriter and producer Shane Salerno
Shane Salerno
Shane Salerno is an American screenwriter, producer and director. He has written or co-written several blockbuster films including Armageddon and Shaft and is also one of the writer-producers of the successful CBS drama series Hawaii Five-0...

 purchased the film rights to Alexander's Salinger, his 1999 book on the reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger
J. D. Salinger
Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980....

. The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...

would later call Alexander's book "the only significant biography of Salinger." For five years, Salerno worked in secret on a feature-length documentary on Salinger, based on Alexander's book. When news of the documentary broke on Deadline Hollywood in January 2010, it made headlines around the world. Journalist Michael Fleming has described the film, which will be released in 2010, as "arrestingly powerful". Alexander is distinguished as having been the only biographer not prosecuted by Salinger during his lifetime.

Alexander is also the author of the original screenplay, Good Night, Dorothy Kilgallen, based on his forthcoming book that ties the syndicated columnist's death to her investigation of the JFK assassination. "The striking thing about Paul's book proposal was that Dorothy wasn't reporting on the death of a president as much as she was investigating the murder of a friend," said producer, Shane Salerno
Shane Salerno
Shane Salerno is an American screenwriter, producer and director. He has written or co-written several blockbuster films including Armageddon and Shaft and is also one of the writer-producers of the successful CBS drama series Hawaii Five-0...

, who sold the project to Twentieth Century Fox in 2008. News of the deal made the front page of the trade publication, Daily Variety.

Theatre

Alexander is the author of the play Strangers in the Land of Canaan. Produced by the Sanctuary Theater Workshop, founded originally by the legendary actress, Geraldine Page, and directed by Rip Torn, the play had a successful Off-Broadway run in 1996, including a stint at The Actors Studio.

In 2003, Alexander wrote and directed Edge, a one-woman show about Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...

. Developed at the Actors Studio
Actors Studio
The Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights at 432 West 44th Street in the Clinton neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded October 5, 1947, by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, Robert Lewis and Anna Sokolow who provided...

, Edge starred Angelica Torn
Angelica Torn
Angelica Torn is an American award winning actress, director, producer and screenwriter and the only daughter of actors Rip Torn and the late Geraldine Page.She legally and professionally changed her name to Angelica Page in September, 2011....

, who received an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for her performance when the play ran in New York. The play met with a rush of praise: "expertly directed by [Paul] Alexander" nytheatre; "a resurrected Sylvia Plath ... the showcase of a lifetime" The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

; "relentlessly watchable" Time Out New York; "breathtaking" Theatermania; "sexy and laceratingly funny" New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...

; "powerful" The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

. Following the critically acclaimed New York production, Edge next ran in London where it was praised as "superb" Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...

and "a virtuoso performance" British Theatre Guide
British Theatre Guide
The British Theatre Guide is an on-line database of specially commissioned reviews of theatre productions throughout the United Kingdom, together with theatre-related news reports, interviews with leading theatre practitioners, obituaries and comprehensive annual obituary listings.It also...

. Along with touring runs in Australia and New Zealand, Edge played a variety of U.S. cities, including Miami, where New Times
Miami New Times
The Miami New Times is a free weekly newspaper published in Miami and distributed every Thursday. It primarily serves the Miami area and is headquartered near Miami's Design District.-Overview:...

named Torn Best Actress. In all, Torn performed Edge 400 times.

A second company, Method Machine, has begun performing Edge, mounting runs in Rochester, New York, St. Petersburg, Florida, and the Berkshires.

Alexander directed a production of Ariel Dorfman's play Death and the Maiden at The King's Head Theatre
The King's Head Theatre
The King's Head Theatre, founded in 1970 by Dan Crawford, is an Off-West End venue in London. It was the first pub theatre in the UK. Adam Spreadbury-Maher became Artistic Director in March 2010 .-Background:...

 in London featuring Leigh Lawson
Leigh Lawson
Leigh Lawson is a film and stage actor, director, and writer.-Career:Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Lawson has acted in film and television since the early 1970s, directed plays in the West End and on Broadway...

, Angelica Torn
Angelica Torn
Angelica Torn is an American award winning actress, director, producer and screenwriter and the only daughter of actors Rip Torn and the late Geraldine Page.She legally and professionally changed her name to Angelica Page in September, 2011....

 and Rupert Wickam, as well as New York Stories, a night of one-act plays by Paul Manuel Kane that ran Off-Broadway. He has also directed numerous workshop productions and stage readings, ranging from classics such as George Bernard Shaw's Candida to musical "works-in-progress".

The Artists Theatre Group

In 2008, Alexander founded The Artists Theatre Group, a not-for-profit theatre company, based in New York, whose mission is "to nurture the voice of the artist — the actor, the writer, the director, the choreographer, the designer — while at the same time attempting to develop an ongoing audience who wants to be challenged and moved by the theatre".

ATG's initial production was a second New York run of Edge, which once again met with praise with The New York Post declaring, "Angelica Torn's mesmerizing portrayal brings to mind her mother, Geraldine Page."

In 2009, ATG presented, in association with Warren Baker and Sally Jacobs, the New York premier of Irish playwright Frank McGuinness's drama, Gates of Gold, which The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

raved was "an endearing love letter of a play" celebrating the founders of the Gate Theatre
Gate Theatre
The Gate Theatre, in Dublin, was founded in 1928 by Hilton Edwards and Micheál Mac Liammóir, initially using the Abbey Theatre's Peacock studio theatre space to stage important works by European and American dramatists...

 in Dublin, Michael MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards
Hilton Edwards
Hilton Edwards was an English-born Irish actor and theatrical producer. He was the son of Thomas George Cecil Edwards and Emily Edwards ....

.

In 2010, ATG will next present a revival of Hamilton Deane
Hamilton Deane
Hamilton Deane was an Irish actor, playwright and director. He played a key role in popularising Bram Stoker's Dracula as a stage play and, later, a film.-Life:Deane was born in Clontarf, a suburb of Dublin...

 and John L. Balderston
John L. Balderston
John L. Balderston was an American playwright and screenwriter best known for his horror and fantasy scripts....

's stage adaptation of Bram Stoker
Bram Stoker
Abraham "Bram" Stoker was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula...

's Dracula, the first time the play has been presented in New York since the 1977 production starring Frank Langella
Frank Langella
-Early life:Langella, an Italian American, was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of Angelina and Frank A. Langella Sr., a business executive who was the president of the Bayonne Barrel and Drum Company. Langella attended Washington Elementary School and Bayonne High School in Bayonne...

. That production won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play and went on to run 925 performances on Broadway. It also became the basis of the film featuring Langella, Sir Laurence Olivier and Donald Pleasence
Donald Pleasence
Sir Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE, was a British actor who gained more than 200 screen credits during a career which spanned over four decades...

.

Other Accolades

A former fellow at the Hoover Institution
Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace is a public policy think tank and library founded in 1919 by then future U.S. president, Herbert Hoover, an early alumnus of Stanford....

 in the fall of 2002 at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

, Alexander is a member of the PEN American Center
PEN American Center
PEN American Center , founded in 1922 and based in New York City, works to advance literature, to defend free expression, and to foster international literary fellowship. The Center has a membership of 3,300 writers, editors, and translators...

, The Authors Guild
The Authors Guild
The Authors Guild is a not-for-profit American organization of and for authors. It has around eight thousand members, among them published authors, literary agents and attorneys . The current president is Scott Turow and the current vice president is Judy Blume...

, and the Playwrights and Directors Unit of The Actors Studio.
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