Amy Freed (born 1958) is an American

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

. Her play '' Freedomland'' was a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Biography

Early life

Freed was born in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

and grew up in

The Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, and

Westchester County, New York Westchester County is a County (United States), county located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, bordering the Long Island Sound and the Byram River to its east and the Hudson River on its west. The c ...

. Her father, Richard, was an architect. Her mother is the actor, acting teacher and director Margaret Loft.Hurwitt, Robert
"Amy Freed rebuilds an Ibsen play into ‘The Monster-Builder’"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', November 2, 2015 She earned a degree in acting at

Southern Methodist University Southern Methodist University (SMU) is a Private university, private research university in Dallas, Texas, United States, with a satellite campus in Taos County, New Mexico. SMU was founded on April 17, 1911, by the Methodist Episcopal Church, ...

. She spent several years in New York and then attended the

American Conservatory Theater The American Conservatory Theater (ACT) is a nonprofit theater company in San Francisco, California, United States, that offers both classical and contemporary theater productions. It also has an attached acting school. History The American ...

(ACT) in San Francisco, receiving an M.F.A.Niederkorn, William S
"Profile of Amy Freed"
''The New York Times'', November 16, 2003 While at ACT she wrote a play rather than a thesis for her degree. That play, ''Still Warm,'' is loosely based on the TV newswoman Jessica Savitch, and "became a precocious playwriting debut when it was produced at the Climate Theatre in 1991."

Career

Freed was nominated as a finalist in the drama category of the 1998 Pulitzer Prizes for her play ''Freedomland''."Drama's Amy Freed a Pulitzer finalist"
Stanford Report, April 15, 1998''Freedomland'' was 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 tha ...

Playwrights Horizons Playwrights Horizons is a not-for-profit American 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. ...

, running from December 16, 1998 to January 3, 1999. Directed by Howard Shalwitz, the cast featured Veanne Cox,

Jeffrey Donovan Jeffrey Donovan (born May 11, 1968) is an American actor. He has played Michael Westen in the television series '' Burn Notice'', and appeared in films such as '' Hitch'', '' Believe in Me'', ''Changeling'', and '' Come Early Morning''. He play ...

, and Heather Goldenhersh. The "darkly satiric comedy" premiered at the South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa, California, in November 1997. The title is based on the "name of a Wild West theme park in the Bronx, where Freed grew up."

Simonson, Robert Robert Simonson (born September 11, 1964) is an American journalist and author. Personal life Robert Simonson was born in Wisconsin; he has lived in Brooklyn since 1988. Career Robert Simonson began writing about cocktails, spirits and bars for ...

and Lefkowitz, David
"Playwrights Horizons Ventures To Freed's 'Freedomland' Nov. 27"
Playbill, November 26, 1998 Her play ''The Psychic Life of Savages'' won the New York Arts Club's $10,000 Joseph Kesselring Award. The play ran at

Woolly Mammoth The woolly mammoth (''Mammuthus primigenius'') is an extinct species of mammoth that lived from the Middle Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with the African ...

in Washington, D. C. opening in April 1995. Lloyd Rose, reviewing for ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', called the play an "exultantly mean, painfully affecting comedy." That production won a 1995 Charles McArthur Award for outstanding new play. The play also ran at the Wilma Theater, Philadelphia in May 1998. Regarding this play, Freed "calls herself, 'an examiner of pathologies.'" She wrote '' The Beard of Avon'' which was commissioned and premiered by South Coast Repertory, opening in May 2001. The play was produced Off-Broadway by the New York Theatre Workshop, running from November 18, 2003 to December 21, 2003. Directed by

Doug Hughes Douglas Hughes is an American theatre director. Early life Hughes is the son of acting couple Barnard Hughes (1915–2006) and Helen Stenborg. He attended Harvard University, starting as a biology major and graduating with a degree in English. ...

, the cast included

Tim Blake Nelson Timothy Blake Nelson (born May 11, 1964) is an American actor, writer, and director. Described as a "modern character actor", his roles include Delmar O'Donnell in ''O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' (2000), Gideon in ''Minority Report (film), Minori ...

as Wiliam Shakspere ic Mark Harelik as Edward De Vere, Mary Louise Wilson as Queen Elizabeth and Kate Jennings Grant as Anne Hathaway. Her play ''Safe in Hell'', another South Coast Repertory commission, received its premiere production in April 2004.Hernandez, Ernio
"Salem Witches Hunted in World Premiere of 'Safe in Hell' in CA, Starting April 2"
Playbill, April 2, 2004 The play received its East Coast premiere at the

Yale Repertory Theatre Yale Repertory Theatre at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was founded by Robert Brustein, dean of Yale School of Drama, in 1966, with the goal of facilitating a meaningful collaboration between theatre professionals and talented stud ...

in November 2005. The play is "the story of real-life father and son Puritan preachers Cotton and Increase Mather. The comedy delves into the story behind the witch hunt." ''You, Nero'' premiered at South Coast Repertory in 2009 and focuses on "the effect Nero had on the theater scene in ancient Rome..." The play was produced at the Arena Stage in 2011. In 2012, Freed's play "Restoration Comedy" was performed at the Flea Theater. The production was described as "performed with insouciant wit" in a play which "celebrates a libertine spirit that’s hard to deny." ''The Monster-Builder'' premiered at Artists Repertory Theatre,

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

, in February 2014. Called a "wonderfully wild and witty play" by Richard Wattenberg, it focuses on a master architect, Gregor Zubrowski, whose "single-minded pursuit of professional glory has stripped him of his humanity." She wrote ''Hell to Pay'', one of twenty works commissioned by the Berkeley Rep as part of The Food Project. She gave a lecture on the play in February 2014 at Stanford. Her work has been produced at

New York Theatre Workshop __NOTOC__ New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) is an Off-Broadway theater noted for its productions of new works. Located at 79 East 4th Street between Second Avenue and Bowery in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, it h ...

, Seattle Repertory, American Conservatory Theater,

Goodman Theatre Goodman Theatre is a professional theater company located in Chicago's Loop. A major part of the Chicago theatre scene, it is the city's oldest currently active nonprofit theater organization. Part of its present theater complex occupies the ...

, Playwrights Horizons, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and other theaters around the US. She currently teaches acting and playwriting at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, where she advised the creators of '' The Manic Monologues''.

Honors and awards

She has been the recipient of the Kesselring Prize, the Charles MacArthur Award and is a several times winner of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award. Freed received the South Coast Repertory (SCR) 2009 Steinberg Commission, which involved a grant from the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust to write a play for SCR. She was one of five playwrights in the Arena Stage, Washington DC, new program "American Voices New Play Institute", starting in 2010 for three years.

Personal

She is married to ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. ...

film critic Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: Academic criticism by film scholars, who study the composition of film theory and publish their findin ...

Mick LaSalle.

Selected plays

*''Still Warm'' 1991. About the life of the television journalist Jessica Savitch. *''Claustrophilia'' 1993. About the relationship between

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely re ...

and his teen bride."Listing. Climate Theatre, San Francisco"
''Santa Cruz Sentinel'', April 9, 1993, p. 56 *''The Ghoul of Amherst'' 1993. A short comic vignette about the poet

Emily Dickinson Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massac ...

visiting the death bed of a classmate. *''The Psychic Life of Savages'' 1995. About the lives of poets

Ted Hughes Edward James Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He wa ...

and

Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet and author. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for '' The Colossus and Other Poems'' (1960), '' Ariel'' (1965), a ...

. *''Freedomland'' 1997 *'' The Beard of Avon'' 2001 *''Safe in Hell'' 2004 *''Restoration Comedy'' 2005. A reworking of classic Restoration-era comedies by Cibber and Vanbrugh. *''You, Nero'' 2009. A comedy about the Roman emperor Nero, co-commissioned by South Coast Repertory and Berkeley Rep. *''Hell to Pay'' Concerning

factory farming Intensive animal farming, industrial livestock production, and macro-farms, also known as factory farming, is a type of intensive agriculture, specifically an approach to mass animal husbandry designed to maximize production while minimizing co ...

. *''The Monster-Builder'' 2014. A satiric play about an egotistical architect, premiered at Portland's Artists Repertory Theatre in 2014.

References

External links

The Manic Monologues, Leadership