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Marsha Norman

Shows · Marsha Norman

LyricistBook Writer b. 1947

Marsha Norman (born September 21, 1947) is an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. She received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play 'night, Mother. She wrote the book and lyrics for such Broadway musicals as The Secret Garden, for which she won a Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical, and The Red Shoes, as well as the libretto for the musical The Color Purple and the book for the musical The Bridges of Madison County. She was co-chair of the playwriting program at The Juilliard School until stepping down in 2020.

Also credited on5 works

The Secret Garden
The Color Purple
The Bridges of Madison County
The Color Purple (2015 Revival)
The Red Shoes

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

  • The Color Purple (2005–2006) was more retro and sentimental than Caroline, or Change , so it ran almost seven times longer. To be fair, librettist Marsha Norman and songwriters Brenda Russell, Stephen Bray, and Allee Wills had one great benefit: great name recognition from Alice Walker’s best-selling 1983 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel and…ebooks/Filichia, Peter/Strippers, Showgirls, and Sharks - Peter Filichia.txt
  • Lyricistlibrettist Marsha Norman and director Susan H. Schulman, from the impressive-though-problematic 1991 musical The Secret Garden, clearly couldn't handle the material. Or perhaps they knew what they were doing, only to be shunted aside by an inexperienced producer. (The Red Shoes was Martin Starger's fifth Broadway offering, but he…ebooks/Suskin, Steven/B001T4YWBO EBOK - Steven Suskin.txt
  • "Such a struggle but here we are and I think we can be quite proud," Marsha Norman wrote in a note to Mr. Starger that night. "All my best."ebooks/Suskin, Steven/B001T4YWBO EBOK - Steven Suskin.txt
  • Based on the 1983 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel by Alice Walker and adapted with her cooperation, with a libretto by Marsha Norman (who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for her play, ’night, Mother), and directed by Gary Griffin in his Broadway debut, The Color Purple originated at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta in 2004 and opened on Broadw…ebooks/Wolf, Stacy/Changed for Good_A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical - Stacy Wolf.txt
  • If you were thinking about a time=time play, like Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune or Marsha Norman’s ’Night, Mother , then plot time and story time would be equal and it might be drawn like this:ebooks/Woolford, Julian/How Musicals Work_ And How to Write Your Own (Theatrebook) - Julian Woolford.txt
  • Among these newer talents were Wendy Wasserstein (1950with ), Uncommon Women (1977); Marsha Norman with Gettingtheatre-pdfs/McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama, v. 1 (A-C).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.
  • 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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