Tina Howe

Tina Howe

Howe at the 2015 PEN Literary Awards Ceremony, June 2015
Born (1937-11-21) November 21, 1937
New York, New York
Occupation playwright
Period 1970s -
Genre plays

Tina Howe (born November 21, 1937) is an American playwright. She is the daughter of journalist Quincy Howe and was raised in a literary family. Over a career spanning more than three decades, Howe's best-known works are Painting Churches, Coastal Disturbances and Pride's Crossing.[1]

Her works have won numerous awards, including the 1998 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play for Pride's Crossing,[2][3] which was also a finalist for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.[4] Coastal Disturbances was nominated for the 1987 Tony Award for Best Play.[3][5]

Early life

Howe was born in New York City to Quincy Howe, a radio and television newsman and Mary Post Howe, an artist.[6] She is the granddaughter of biographer Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe and the great-granddaughter of the first Episcopal Bishop of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Howe’s parents and grandmother were essential to her success as a writer. Howe's family focused on reading and writing: "Thanksgivings and family occasions were always about, 'What are you reading, what are you writing, what are you working on, what poetry are you interested in?'"[7] Her grandfather, M. A. DeWolfe Howe was a poet who lived to be 96; and her uncle, Mark DeWolfe Howe, was a law professor at Harvard.[8] Her grandfather passed his love of literature on to his sons and daughters, and they did the same. When Howe was ill with hepatitis, her father visited her every day in the hospital, reading James Joyce's Ulysses to her during his lunch break.[7][9]

Howe graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York in 1959, where she wrote her first play (Closing Time).[6] [9][10]

Career

Themes and style

C. W. E. Bigsby wrote that "art is plainly a central point of reference" for Howe, noting Painting Churches and Coastal Disturbances, and also states that "food and consumption" are important. He believes that she has a "commitment to experimentation" and writes that she has said that she is "firmly entrenched in the Absurdist tradition."[11] Frank Rich, in his New York Times review of Painting Churches commented that the play "is in the dreamiest impressionistic spirit."[12] The Variety reviewer of Painting Churches also noted that the play is a "group portrait painted in a soft, impressionistic style."[13] The CurtainUp reviewer of Coastal Disturbances wrote of Howe's work: "Like all of Howe's work, the play's charm stems from its quirky characters. In this case joie de vie, despair, love, lust, anger and fear come and go like the waves hitting the shore in foamy bursts or gentle ripples."[14] Writing in the Sarah Lawrence Magazine, Celia McGerr Regan described Howe: "Howe developed a voice that has been variously described as farcical and absurd, impressionistic and airy, graceful and perceptive, lyric and literate, vivid and language-driven, whimsical and demented. Odd things happen in the face of the recognizable: Trees grow up inside and through a New York State farmhouse (One Shoe Off)..."[10]

Ben Brantley in reviewing Birth and After Birth for The New York Times, observed "The suggestion is of a natural world that thwarts and ultimately devours the ambitions and pretensions of the civilized. This is a theme that Ms. Howe would develop in later works, sometimes artfully (Coastal Disturbances), sometimes clumsily (One Shoe Off), but always in a style that was distinctively her own."[15]

Howe noted about her time in Paris: "The most profound thing that happened to me that year... was seeing 'The Bald Soprano' by Ionesco. That exploded me all over the place." Ionesco, Beckett and Pirandello are still her heroes.[6]

Work

After college, Howe spent a year in Paris, where she continued to write.[9] She did graduate work at Columbia University Teacher’s College and Chicago Teachers College.[16] She started teaching high school in Monona Grove, Wisconsin, (while her husband was doing graduate work)[17] and then in Bath, Maine, which is where she says she learned her craft through running the drama department, a position she agreed to take on the terms that only her plays would be produced.

Her first play to be produced was The Nest[16] which premiered Off-Broadway at the Mercury Theater, running for one performance on April 9, 1970.[18] Howe remembered: "My first play, 'The Nest', was about courtship and how women compete with each other to land a husband. That play closed in one night."[19]

Her play Museum premiered at the Los Angeles Actors' Theatre on April 29, 1976, and was then presented Off-Broadway in a Joseph Papp New York Shakespeare Festival production, opening in February 1978. The play has a large cast of characters, with actors performing several roles, and takes place at a group art show of three contemporary artists, titled The Broken Silence. The Papp production featured Dianne Wiest, Kathryn Grody and Larry Bryggman.[20][21] A CurtainUp reviewer noted that Howe "explained in her author's note for the play's premiere at the Shakespeare Festival, her large cast of characters was created to provide directors and producers with endless staging possibilities."[22] In her note in the Script (published by Samuel French), Howe wrote: "It is my hope that any group wanting to present 'Museum' use the large cast size as a challenge and not as a restriction. The play was wriiten to serve the versatility of actors."[20]

The Art of Dining was first presented Off-Broadway at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in December 1979, directed by A. J. Antoon and starring Kathy Bates and Dianne Wiest, who won the 1980 Clarence Derwent Award and Obie Award.[23] Howe won an Obie Award in 1983 for distinguished playwriting for The Art of Dining, Museum and Painting Churches.[24]

Painting Churches is one of her most critically successful works, winning the Outer Critics Circle Award for best Off-Broadway play in 1984. The play premiered Off-Broadway on February 8, 1983. It was also produced as a telefilm by PBS's American Playhouse series in 1986.[25] Coastal Disturbances opened Off-Broadway in November 1986 at Second Stage Theatre,[26] and then on Broadway in March 1987, and Howe was nominated for a Tony Award, Best Play.[27]

This was followed by Approaching Zanzibar, which shows the Blossom family traveling across the United States to visit Olivia, a sick relative. The play premiered at the Second Stage Theatre on April 8, 1989, directed by Carole Rothman, and starred Jane Alexander as Charlotte Blossom, Harris Yulin as her husband, Angela Goethals as her daughter and Bethel Leslie as her dying aunt.[28] The play was produced at the Southwark Playhouse, London in August 1997. The reviewer for The Independent wrote: "...a zany, expertly mimed sequence throws the tensions of cooped-up family car travel into rollicking relief when, in fantasy, the parents and children swap roles. But, like so much off-Broadway fare, the play insists on coating the pill of pain in the sickly sugar of false reassurance."[29]

One Shoe Off opened Off-Broadway in April 1993 in a Second Stage Theatre production at the Public Theater. The Variety reviewer described the play as "the dining-room play that dissolves in an emotive crossfire of accusation, revelation and reconciliation", "offbeat, sometimes ferociously funny" with an "over-the-top tone".[30]

Her play Pride’s Crossing, described by Playbill as a "family-inspired memory play" was produced Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center from December 7, 1997 to April 5, 1998[31] after an engagement at the Old Globe Theatre (San Diego) in 1997. The play was revived Off-Broadway in 2004.[31][32] She received the New York Drama Critic's Circle Award for Best Play in 1998 for this play.[31][32]

Rembrandt's Gift premiered at the Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2002,[33] directed by John Rando and starring Penny Fuller and a revised version was produced by the Madison Repertory Theatre (Wisconsin) in September 2005.[34] The three person play focuses on an "unlikely, poignant and very funny visit by the great 17th-century Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn.[17][35]

Howe wrote English translations of Eugène Ionesco's The Bald Soprano and The Lesson, which were produced at the Atlantic Theater Company in September 2004.[36] The plays were directed by Carl Forsman and featured Jan Maxwell, John Ellison Conlee, Michael Countryman and Robert Stanton.[37]

The Atlantic Theater Company presented Birth and After Birth Off-Broadway at the Linda Gross Theater, opening in September 2006 in previews. Described by Playbill as "a play about parenting", the play was written in 1972; it was directed by Atlantic associate artistic director Christian Parker.[38] The play was first presented at the Wilma Theatre (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) in September 1995, after being rewritten and having readings, and a workshop at the California State University Summer Arts Festival. The reviewer of this production wrote: "The play bears the mark of a youthful playwright. Howe's brilliant mind is teeming with enough ideas to fill several plays, and her themes and style at times suggest an early fascination with older playwrights such as Ionesco and Albee."[39] Birth and After Birth is "a comedy... in which a self-centered, tantrum-throwing monster of a 4-year-old is played by a fully grown adult male."[40]

Chasing Manet opened Off-Broadway at Primary Stages in April 2009, starring Jane Alexander and Lynn Cohen. The play takes place in a nursing home, with the "rebellious painter" and a Jewish woman becoming friends and planning on escaping to go to Paris abord the QE2.[41] Jane Alexander is a friend of Howe's from Sarah Lawrence.[9]

Howe provided the text for the interdisciplinary work Cheri, conceived, directed and choreographed by Martha Clarke, which opened Off-Broadway in a Signature Theatre Company production at the Pershing Square Signature Center-Irene Diamond Stage on November 19, 2013 in previews.[42]

Howe's plays have been produced in regional theatres in the United States, such as Louisville,[33] Los Angeles,[20] Stockbridge, Massachusetts,[14] Annapolis, Maryland [43] and San Diego,[32] as well as in London.[29] Her plays have premiered in venues such as the Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville (Rembrandt's Gift, 2002)[33] the Public Theater (The Art of Dining, 1979),[23] and the Second Stage Theatre (One Shoe Off, 1983).[30][44]

Awards and honors

She received a Rockefeller Grant (1984), two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, a Guggenheim fellowship (1990), and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature (1993). She was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Whittier College (1997)[45][46] and Honoris causa, Doctor of Letters from Bowdoin College (1998).[1][47][48]

She received the William Inge Theatre Festival Award in 2005.[49] In 2007 she received the Horton Foote Award, presented at the Baylor University Horton Foote American Playwrights Festival.[1]

In 2012, she received the 3rd Annual Lilly Award Lifetime Achievement Award. The Lilly Awards were created to "recognize the extraordinary contributions made by women to the American Theater."[50]

Other

She has taught master classes at New York University, UCLA, Columbia University and Carnegie Mellon.

She was a Visiting Professor of playwriting and Playwright in Residence at Hunter College in New York City, retiring in 2015. She was the head of the two year MFA playwriting program which began in 2010.[9][51][52][53] (Annie Baker has taken the position formerly held by Howe.[54])

She has been a member of the council of the Dramatists Guild of America since 1990.[48][55]

Several of her works can be read in the volumes Coastal Disturbances: Four Plays by Tina Howe and Approaching Zanzibar and Other Plays.[56]

Personal life

Howe is married to historian Norman Levy, who taught American History at the University at Albany from 1967-73.[48] The couple has two children.[6][7]

Howe said of Glenn Gould: "I write my plays to Glenn Gould. I cook the kids' spaghetti dinners to Glenn Gould. I pay the bills to Glenn Gould."[57]

Plays

Awards and nominations

References

  1. 1 2 3 Patton, Paige. "Baylor's Horton Foote Festival to Honor Award-Winning Playwright Tina Howe". Baylor University. Retrieved 4 November 2011.
  2. ↑ "'Pride's Crossing' Listing, 1997" lortel.org, accessed September 6, 2015
  3. 1 2 "Painting Churches with One Shoe Off". Wheaton College. Archived from the original on November 6, 2009. Retrieved 4 November 2011.
  4. ↑ "Pulitzer Prize for Drama" Pulitzer.org, accessed September 5, 2015
  5. ↑ "Tina Howe Broadway (Awards)" Internet Broadway Database, accessed August 26, 2015
  6. 1 2 3 4 Brenson, Michael. "Art Given A Role In Tina Howe's Play" The New York Times, February 18, 1983
  7. 1 2 3 Wood, Mike. "Brief biography of Tina Howe". The William Inge Center for the Arts. Retrieved 4 November 2011.
  8. ↑ Helen Howe, The Gentle Americans: Biography of a Breed (New York: Harper & Row, 1965)
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 "Theater. Review and Interview. 'The Bald Soprano'" The Villager, September 22–28, 2004
  10. 1 2 Regan, Celia McGerr. "Throwing Kisses, Throwing Pies" sarahlawrence.edu, accessed August 26, 2015
  11. ↑ Bigsby, C.W.E., "Tina Howe", Contemporary American Playwrights, Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN 0521668077, pp. 47, 50, 57
  12. ↑ Rich, Frank. "Theater: Bostonian Life In 'Painting Churches' ", New York Times, February 9, 1983, p.C16
  13. ↑ Stasio, Marilyn. "Review. 'Painting Churches' " Variety, March 6, 2012
  14. 1 2 Sommer, Elyse. "A CurtainUp Berkshires Review. Coastal Disturbances" curtainup.com, July 14, 2006
  15. ↑ Brantley, Ben. "The Art of Bringing Up Baby, With All Its Thrill and Terror" The New York Times, October 4, 2006
  16. 1 2 Jackson R. Bryer, Mary C. Hartig (ed.), Tina Howe, Encyclopedia of American Drama, Infobase Learning, 2015, ISBN 1438140762 (no page number)
  17. 1 2 Worland, Gayle. "Gift From The Heart Acclaimed Playwright Returns To Work With Madison Rep On 'Rembrandt's Gift'" madison.com, September 10, 2005
  18. ↑ The Nest lortel.org, accessed August 26, 2015
  19. ↑ Lefkowitz, David. Tina Howe Taking Pride and Visiting 'Museum'" playbill.com, October 14, 1997
  20. 1 2 3 Howe, Tina. "Script", Museum: A Play, Samuel French, Inc., 1979, ISBN 0573612897, pp. 3-7
  21. ↑ "'Museum' Listing, 1978" lortel.org, accessed September 7, 2015
  22. ↑ Sommers, Elyse. "CurtainUp Review. 'Coastal Disturbances', 2006" curtainup.com, July 14, 2006
  23. 1 2 The Art of Dining lortel.org, accessed August 26, 2015
  24. ↑ OBIE Awards Presented" New York Times, May 24, 1983
  25. ↑ "TCM, cast, production, brief synopsis, for 'Painting Churches' telefilm, 1986" tcm.com, accessed August 26, 2015
  26. ↑ "Coastal Disturbances, Off-Broadway", lortel.org; accessed August 5, 2015
  27. ↑ "Coastal Disturbances Broadway" playbillvault.com, accessed August 26, 2015
  28. ↑ Howe, Tina. "Script" Approaching Zanzibar, Samuel French, Inc., 1989, ISBN 0573691282, p. 5
  29. 1 2 Taylor, Paul. "Review: Theatre 'Approaching Zanzibar' Southwark Playhouse, London" The Independent, August 8, 1997
  30. 1 2 Gerard, Jeremy. "Legit/Reviews/Review: ‘One Shoe Off’", Variety, April 16, 1993
  31. 1 2 3 Pride's Crossing lortel.org, accessed August 26, 2015
  32. 1 2 3 Jones, Kenneth. "Tina Howe's 'Pride's Crossing' Gets NYC Revival at T. Schreiber Studio, March 25-April 18" playbill.com, March 25, 2004
  33. 1 2 3 Whaley, Charles. "A CurtainUp Feature The Humana Festival: 2002" curtainup.com, accessed August 26, 2015
  34. ↑ Jones, Kenneth. "Tina Howe's Gift and Andre De Shields in 'Our Town' Punctuate Madison Rep's Season" Playbill, June 10, 2005
  35. ↑ "'Rembrandt's Gift', 2002" actorstheatre.org, accessed September 9, 2015
  36. ↑ Gans, Andrew. "Atlantic Theater Company Postpones Howe's Ionesco Double-Bill" playbill.com, February 25, 2004
  37. ↑ "'The Bald Soprano' and 'The Lesson' Listing" lortel.org, accessed September 8, 2015
  38. ↑ Jones, Kenneth. "Tina Howe's 'Birth and After Birth' Gets NYC Premiere by Atlantic Theater Company" playbill.com, September 13, 2006
  39. ↑ White, Helena M. "Birth and After Birth (review)", Theatre Journal 48.2 (1996) 223-225 (abstract), September 17, 1995.
  40. ↑ Tallmer, Jerry. "After 34 years, ‘Birth and After Birth’ is born" downtownexpress.com, Volume 19, Issue 20, September 29 - October 5, 2006
  41. ↑ Hernandez, Ernio. "Jane Alexander and Lynn Cohen Begin Chasing Manet Off-Broadway March 24" playbill.com, March 24, 2009
  42. ↑ Hetrick, Adam. "Amy Irving Joins Cast of Signature Theatre Premiere of Martha Clarke's 'Chéri'" Playbill, 15, October 2013
  43. ↑ Greenfield, Phil. "'Painting Churches' Warm, Honest Portrait Of A Family" Baltimore Sun, February 1, 1991
  44. ↑ "'One Shoe Off' 1993" lortel.org, accessed September 6, 2015
  45. ↑ Lefkowitz, David. "L.A.'s Whittier Honors Tina Howe With Doctorate and Show May 21-23" Playbill, May 4, 1997
  46. ↑ "Honorary Degrees Whittier" whittier.edu, accessed September 6, 2015
  47. ↑ "Bowdoin College, Commencement, 1988" library.bowdoin.edu, accessed September 6, 2015
  48. 1 2 3 "4th Annual Burian Lecture, February 8, 2000" albany.edu, accessed September 6, 2015
  49. ↑ "Past Festivals by Year and Honoree" ingecenter.org, accessed August 26, 2015
  50. ↑ Gans, Andrew. "Estelle Parsons and Tina Howe Receive Lifetime Achievement Awards at 3rd Annual Lilly Awards June 4" Playbill, June 4, 2012
  51. ↑ Pandolfo, Nicole. "Tina Howe: Playwright, Mentor, Online Dating Advisor" americantheatre.org, May 22, 2015
  52. ↑ "Tina Howe/The New Hunter College MFA In Playwriting Program/Deadline: March 1" stagevoices.com, accessed September 6, 2015
  53. ↑ "Theatre Faculty and Staff" hunter.cuny.edu, accessed September 6, 2015
  54. ↑ Cox, Gordon. "Playwright Annie Baker On Life After The Pulitzer" Variety, May 14, 2015
  55. ↑ "Tina Howe Biography", American Theatre Wing, accessed June 20, 2012 Archived August 7, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  56. ↑ Tina Howe, Theatre Communications Group, accessed November 21, 2011
  57. ↑ Hafner, Katie, A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2010, ISBN 1608190455, pp.222-223
  58. ↑ "East of the Sun and West of the Moon, Children’s Theatre Company, Minneapolis, 1994-95 season" playsforyoungaudiences.org, accessed August 26, 2015
  59. ↑ Chéri signaturetheatre.org, accessed September 7, 2015
  60. ↑ "Tina Howe Field of Study: Drama and Performance Art 1990" gf.org, accessed September 8, 2015
  61. ↑ "Awards" artsandletters.org, accessed September 8, 2015
  62. ↑ "Membership Profile Tina Howe" dramatistsguild.com, accessed September 8, 2015
  63. ↑ Carolyn Kellogg (May 13, 2015). "PEN announces award-winners and shortlists". LA Times. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  64. ↑ "2015 PEN Literary Award Winners". pen.org. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
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