Nicky Silver is an American

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

. Formerly of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

, he resides in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. Many of his plays have been produced

off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer th ...

, and also at the

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company is a non-profit theatre company located at 641 D Street NW in the Penn Quarter neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1980, it produces new plays which it believes to be edgy, challenging, and thought-provokin ...

in Washington, D.C.

Biography

Early life

Silver was born in 1960 in Philadelphia and as teen, attended

Stagedoor Manor Stagedoor Manor is a performing arts training center located in Loch Sheldrake, New York. Since its opening, it has trained thousands of young actors, many of whom have gone on to success in film, television, and theater. Stagedoor Manor is ...

Performing Arts Training Center in upstate

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. He graduated from the

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

(NYU) Tisch School of the Arts.Horwitz, Simi
"Face to Face : Nicky Silver Answers - "The Maiden's Prayer'"
backstage.com, March 13, 1998

Career

Many of his early plays were originally produced

off-off-Broadway Off-off-Broadway theaters are smaller New York City theaters than Broadway and off-Broadway theaters, and usually have fewer than 100 seats. The off-off-Broadway movement began in 1958 as part of a response to perceived commercialism of the pro ...

at the Vortex Theatre in New York. Later, his plays premiered at

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer th ...

venues such as the Vineyard Theatre and

Playwrights Horizons Playwrights Horizons is a not-for-profit Off-Broadway theater located in New York City dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers, and lyricists, and to the production of their new work. Under the ...

. Silver noted: "My first real break came when the artistic director of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, D.C. happened to walk in and saw, 'Fat Man in Skirts.'" Several of his plays received premieres at the

in Washington, DC, including
Fat Men in Skirts
' (1991),
Free Will and Wanton Lust
' (January 1993) and ''The Food Chain'' (1993-94 season). In her review of ''Fat Men in Skirts'' at Woolly Mammoth Theatre for ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

'',

Lloyd Rose Lloyd Rose is an American writer most associated with her work on various ''Doctor Who'' spin-offs. She has also written for the American television series '' Homicide: Life on the Street'' and '' Kingpin''. She often jokes in her biographies th ...

wrote: "Silver is a modern American absurdist in the tradition of John Guare or Harry Kondoleon, but more of a lowbrow. His go-for-the-laugh instincts are as naked as any sitcom writer's. The dizzying, rather wonderful thing about "Fat Men in Skirts" is that such a shallow technique is made to serve such a deep and anguished vision. Silver never met a pain he couldn't laugh at." '' Pterodactyls'' was produced Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre in October 1993.

Ben Brantley Benjamin D. Brantley (born October 26, 1954) is an American theater critic, journalist, editor, publisher and writer. He served as the chief theater critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1996 to 2017, and as co-chief theater critic from 2017 to ...

wrote in his ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' review: "His grimly witty play 'Pterodactyls' recycles all the cliches of the unraveling all-American family and scales them up to the point that they become poignantly grotesque symbols of a species on the verge of extinction... staged with firecracker snap by David Warren and illuminated by several incandescent performances, 'Pterodactyls' offers, for its first three-quarters, as much antic fizz as any comedy in town." ''Pterodactyls'' gained additional recognition in the media because the play was produced with large dinosaurs by sculptor

Jim Gary Jim Gary (March 17, 1939 – January 14, 2006) was an American Sculpture, sculptor popularly known for his large, colorful creations of dinosaurs made from discarded automobile parts. These sculptures were typically finished with automobile ...

in its sets. ''Raised in Captivity'' was produced at the Vineyard Theater in March 1995. Ben Brantley wrote in his ''New York Times'' review: "The roads to alienation, as modern literature can testify, are many and varied. But they have seldom been mapped out with the fearless combination of comic artifice and heart-wrenching empathy that Mr. Silver brings to them. 'Raised in Captivity' is about guilt, redemption and self-punishment, and against all odds, it is also very funny." His plays ''Pterodactyls'' and ''Raised in Captivity'' received back-to-back

Drama Desk Award The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. F ...

nominations for Outstanding Play in 1994 and 1995, respectively. His play ''The Food Chain'' ran Off-Broadway at the Westside Theatre in August 1995 to June 1996, (initially produced at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre) with direction by Robert Falls and a cast that featured Hope Davis, Patrick Fabian and Phyllis Newman. Ben Brantley in his ''New York Times'' review wrote: "In 'The Food Chain,' Nicky Silver's toxic, fractured tale of sex, loneliness and the importance of being thin, the pursuit of love is an even more convoluted process than usual. It's hard, after all, to forge a relationship when all you can really hear is the sound of your own voice. For the poisonously funny, image-obsessed Manhattanites in the play, all the world's a mirror. It's no accident that much of this breathless comedy of neuroses at the Westside Theater is made up of monologues, even though there are nearly always at least two people onstage." The play was nominated for the

Outer Critics Circle Award The Outer Critics Circle Awards are presented annually for theatrical achievements both on Broadway and Off-Broadway. They are presented by the Outer Critics Circle (OCC), the official organization of New York theater writers for out-of-town newsp ...

as Outstanding Off-Broadway Play, and won the

Obie Award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the ...

, Performance for Tom McGowan. Silver wrote the new

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical ...

for the

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

revival of the

Rodgers and Hart Rodgers and Hart were an American songwriting partnership between composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and the lyricist Lorenz Hart (1895–1943). They worked together on 28 stage musicals and more than 500 songs from 1919 until Hart' ...

musical, ''

The Boys from Syracuse ''The Boys from Syracuse'' is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart, based on William Shakespeare's play ''The Comedy of Errors'', as adapted by librettist George Abbott. The score includes swing and other contemporar ...

'', produced by the Roundabout Theater Company in 2002. ''

The Lyons ''The Lyons'' is a play by Nicky Silver. The play first ran Off-Broadway in 2011 and then premiered on Broadway in 2012. This marks the Broadway debut of a Nicky Silver play.Jones, Kenneth" 'The Lyons', Led By Linda Lavin and Dick Latessa, Opens o ...

'', opened on

in April 2012, after an Off-Broadway run at the Vineyard Theater in 2011. It was his first play to be produced on Broadway. The play starred Linda Lavin and Dick Latessa. His play ''Too Much Sun'' premiered Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre on May 1, 2014 in previews, officially on May 18, with direction by Mark Brokaw and starring Linda Lavin and Jennifer Westfeldt. ''This Day Forward'' premiered Off-Broadway on November 21, 2016 at the Vineyard Theatre. The play, a comedy, is directed by Mark Brokaw and features Holley Fain and Michael Crane.

Original plays (select)

* ''Fat Men in Skirts'' 1989 (Vortex Theatre); 1991 (Woolly Mammoth) * ' - 1993 * ''Free Will and Wanton Lust'' - 1993 * ''Raised in Captivity'' - 1995 * ''The Food Chain'' - 1995 * ''Fit to be Tied'' - 1996 * ''The Maiden's Prayer'' - 1998 * ''The Eros Trilogy'', consisting of ''Claire'', ''Philip'' and ''Roger and Miriam'' - 1999 * ''The Altruists'' - 2000 * '' Beautiful Child'' - 2004 * ''The Agony and the Agony'' - 2006 * ''Three Changes'' - 2008 * ''The Lyons'' - 2011 * ''Too Much Sun'' - 2014 * ''This Day Forward'' – 2016

Critical analysis

In the preface to his interview with Silver, David Savran locates Silver's work in the tradition of dark

farce Farce is a comedy that seeks to entertain an audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd, and improbable. Farce is also characterized by heavy use of physical humor; the use of deliberate absurdity o ...

created by gay playwrights such as

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

Joe Orton John Kingsley Orton (1 January 1933 – 9 August 1967), known by the pen name of Joe Orton, was an English playwright, author, and diarist. His public career, from 1964 until his death in 1967, was short but highly influential. During this brie ...

, and Christopher Durang. Theatre scholar Jordan Schildcrout has noted the recurring theme of the

prodigal son The Parable of the Prodigal Son (also known as the parable of the Two Brothers, Lost Son, Loving Father, or of the Forgiving Father) is one of the parables of Jesus Christ in the Bible, appearing in Luke 15:11–32. Jesus shares the parable wit ...

in Silver's plays, and sees Todd in ''Pterodactyls'' as a symbolic figure who challenges and subverts

homophobic Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred or antipathy, m ...

stereotypes used to vilify gay men during the AIDS crisis.

Awards and honors

* 1994 - '' Pterodactyls'' - nominated for Outstanding Play,

Drama Desk Awards The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Fo ...

* 1995 - ''Raised in Captivity'' - nominated for Outstanding Play, Drama Desk Awards * 2012 - ''The Lyons'' - nominated for Outstanding New Broadway Play; Mark Brokaw (Outstanding Director of a Play); and Linda Lavin (Outstanding Actress in a Play),

Gans, Andrew.
"62nd Annual Outer Critics Circle Award Nominations Announced; 'Nice Work' Receives Nine Nods"
playbill.com, April 23, 2012

References

External links

Official website
* *
Nicky Silver
at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
Nicky Silver Plays at doollee.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Silver, Nicky Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Tisch School of the Arts alumni Writers from Philadelphia 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights 21st-century American dramatists and playwrights American male dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers