3201 N Orange Ave
Sarasota
FL 34234
“Craig Lucas: An Open Rehearsal”
with Inaugural Hermitage Greenfield Prize Winner and Tony Award Nominated Playwright Craig Lucas
Presented in partnership with Booker High School
Wednesday, March 22 at 5:30pm
Booker High School Courtyard (Outdoor) (entrance at 3201 N. Orange Ave, Sarasota, FL 34234, park and enter near the front office)
Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.
Tony Award nominee and Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Lucas, the first winner of the Hermitage Greenfield Prize, returns to Sarasota to talk process and show how great works – such as his indelible, Pulitzer Prize finalist Prelude to a Kiss – begin to find their feet. This remarkable playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and director is noted for works that center the “power of compassion and empathy in a brutal universe” (The New York Times). His additional Tony Award-nominated librettos include the musicals An American in Paris, Light in the Piazza, and in Paradise Square. Come see Lucas work with Booker VPA students and hear him discuss transforming his iconic play into a musical during his time at the Hermitage, as well as sharing insight on other works in process.
Craig Lucas was the first recipient of the Hermitage Greenfield Prize and is now a returning Hermitage alumnus. His distinguished career has earned him four Tony Award nominations and three Obie Awards, and he has been a Pulitzer finalist. His plays include Missing Persons, Reckless, Blue Window, Prelude to a Kiss, God’s Heart, This Thing of Darkness, The Dying Gaul, Stranger, Small Tragedy, Prayer for My Enemy, The Singing Forest, Ode to Joy, The Lying Lesson, I Was Most Alive with You, and Change Agent. Screenplays include Longtime Companion (Sundance Audience Award), The Secret Lives of Dentists (NY Film Critics Best Screenplay Award), Reckless, Blue Window, The Dying Gaul. Libretti include The Light in the Piazza (music and lyrics by Adam Guettel), Two Boys (composed by Hermitage Fellow Nico Muhly, world premiere at the English National Opera, American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera), Orpheus in Love (with composer Gerald Busby), 3 Postcards (with composer/lyricist Craig Carnelia), An American in Paris (music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin), Amélie (music by Dan Messe, lyrics by Nathan Tysen and Dan Messe), Sousatzka (music by David Shire, lyrics by Richard Maltby), Prelude to a Kiss (music by Dan Messe, lyrics by Hermitage Fellow Sean Hartley, and Dan Messe), Days of Wine and Roses (music and lyrics by Adam Guettel), Paradise Square, and Marry Me A Little, Songs by Stephen by Sondheim (co-conceived with Norman René and Suzanne Henry). His new English-language adaptations include Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya, Galileo and Miss Julie. He has directed the world premiere of The Light in the Piazza, Harry Kondoleon’s plays Saved Or Destroyed & Play Yourself, and the films The Dying Gaul & Birds of America. Lucas has worked with many remarkable directors including Mark Wing-Davey, Oliver Butler, Norman René, Pam MacKinnon, Lisa Petersen, Daniel Sullivan, Tyne Rafaeli, Christopher Wheeldon, Alan Rudolph, Mark Brokaw, Bartlett Sher, and Joe Mantello. He received the Excellence in Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, the Laura Pels/PEN Mid-career Award, the Hermitage Greenfield Prize, LAMBDA Literary Award, Hull-Warriner Award, Flora Roberts Award, Steinberg/ACTA Best Play Award among many others.