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Christopher Durang

Shows · Christopher Durang

LyricistBook Writer 1949–2024

Christopher Ferdinand Durang (January 2, 1949 – April 2, 2024) was an American playwright known for works of outrageous and often absurd comedy. His work was especially popular in the 1980s, though his career seemed to get a second wind in the late 1990s. Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You was Durang's watershed play as it brought him to national prominence when it won him the Obie Award for Best Playwright (1980). His play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike won the Tony Award for Best Play in 2013. The production was directed by Nicholas Martin, and featured Sigourney Weaver, David Hyde Pierce, Kristine Nielsen, Billy Magnussen, Shalita Grant and Genevieve Angelson. Durang was a…

Also credited on2 works

A History of the American Film
All About Me

These come off the person record, which names a work and not a production. So we can say this name is attached to the work and we cannot say which staging, or in what capacity. For a composer or a writer that is the whole career we hold; there is no cast list to find them in.

In the literature8 passages

  • After Bay Street, I was offered another engagement at the historic White Barn Theatre in Westport, Connecticut. That theater was soon to close, but the owner, Lucille Lortel, in her supportive way, kept it open for me. I was given two nights, and it was great to see that the show could work, that the audience really connected with some pa…ebooks/McKechnie, Donna/Time Steps - Donna McKechnie & Greg Lawrence.txt
  • Christopher Durang, another skillful Sondheim parodist, recalled that Sweeney Todd and Evita , Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical about Eva Perón, were both playing when he and Sigourney Weaver were performing one of their famous cabaret evenings. He said, “ Sondheim came to it and I didn’t know he was there, which was lucky. We were told he l…ebooks/Secrest, Meryle/Stephen Sondheim - Meryle Secrest.txt
  • Other original Broadway book musicals: A History of the American Film, book by Christopher Durang, music by Mel Marvin; Angel, book by Ketti Frings and Peter Udell, music by Gary Geld, lyrics by Udell.ebooks/Singer, Barry/Ever After_ The Last Years of Musical Theater and Beyond - Barry Singer.txt
  • After that, I fell in love with the Christopher Durang play Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You . I found it in a stack of plays at the Ensemble Studio Theatre and picked it up and couldn’t stop laughing. I called Chris and told him I’d love to direct a production of it, and he said yes, so we did it at the Ensemble Studio Theatr…ebooks/Tepper, Jennifer Ashley/Untold Stories of Broadway, Volume 2 PART 2, The - Jennifer Ashley Tepper.txt
  • Walsh’s regional directing and choreographing credits include Inside the Music , starring Donna McKechnie, with a script by Christopher Durang, Sugar, Good News, Pal Joey, You Never Know, Free Fall , starring Sandy Duncan, Dancin’ in the Streets, A Broadway Baby, Say Yes by Sherman Yellen and Wally Harper, Greetings from Yorkville , and n…ebooks/Viagas, Robert/B004CRTAGM EBOK - Robert Viagas & Baayork Lee & Thommie Walsh.txt
  • tumn Garden" by Lillian Helman, "The Lower Depths" by Maxim Gorky, "A History of the American Film" by Christopher Durang, and American Premieres of "Forever Yours, Marie-Lou" by Michel Tremblay, "That Time" and "Footfalls" by Samuel Beckett, and "Catsplay" by Istvan Orkeny George de Vincent, Alton Miller Photostheatre-pdfs/Theatre World/Theatre World, 1976-77 Season, v. 33 (Willis).txt

Passages naming this person, found by keyword across 178 books. A keyword match is not a biography, and a common name will pull in the wrong one.

What this page does not know

  • What this person played. No cast list we hold records a character against a performer.
  • Any staging. This name appears in no production cast list we hold — 1,877 of 7,139 people are in that position, most of them writers, composers and designers rather than performers.
  • Any portrait. 1,626 of 7,139 people have one, so this is the usual case rather than the exception.
  • Which of the credits above the roles on this record — lyricist, book writer — apply to. The roles sit on the person and never on a credit, so a director who also acted looks the same here as one who did not.

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