Behind the scenes interview david greenspan playwright performer
David Greenspan (born 1956) is an American actor and playwright. He is the recipient of five Obies, including an award in 2010 for Sustained Achievement.
Greenspan was born in 1956 in Los Angeles, California. He holds a B.A. in Drama from the University of California at Irvine. He lives in New York City with his long-time partner, painter William Kennon.
Career
"A classicist in experimental clothing, David Greenspan is a playwright who is also passionately involved in the theatre as an actor and director. From his early more autobiographical plays (one of which, Principia, took inspiration from the shifting modalities of Joyce’s Ulysses) to more recent works inspired by (and at times adapted from the work of) Hawthorne, Stein, Molnar, and Thorton Wilder, Greenspan’s theatre is a place where anything can happen. Deliciously complicated, incredibly funny, the work, whether tragic, tender, mysterious or cruel, betrays a profoundly empathic imagination. Both wildly conjured and deeply attentive to diverse literary and theatrical traditionsfrom vaudeville and Greek mythology to the Bible and boulevard comedyGreenspan’s plays ask big questions about history, creation, sexual behavior, the complications of family and the very act of performing a play."
In 2009 he collaborated with Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields in a musical adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, under the direction of Leigh Silverman. In an interview with Lizzie Olesker in The Brooklyn Rail, Greenspan describes the musical: "We suggest things. Not like a large animated musical. There’s no amplification of our voices. We wanted something that was more direct and immediate as opposed to something coming out of a wall of sound."
Theater
The Horizontal And The Vertical, world premiere HOME for Contemporary Theatre and Art, NYC, 1986
Dig A Hole And Bury You Father, world premiere HOME for Contemporary Theatre and Art, NYC, 1987
Jack, world premiere HOME for Contemporary Theatre and Art, NYC, 1987
Principa, world premiere HOME for Contemporary Theatre and Art, NYC, 1988
The Home Show Pieces, world premiere HOME for Contemporary Theatre and Art, NYC, 1988
2 Samuel 11, Etc., world premiere HOME for Contemporary Theatre and Art, NYC, 1989
Dead Mother, Or Shirley Not All In Vain, world premiere NYSF/Public Theater, 1991
Dog In A Dancing School, world premiere Dance Theater Workshop, NYC, 1993
Son Of An Engineer, world premiere HERE Arts Center, NYC, 1993
Start From Scratch, world premiere New Renaissance @ Greenwich House, NYC, 1993
Them, world premiere Actors Theater of Louisville, 1993
Only Beauty, reading NYSF/The Public Theater, NYC, 1997
Five Frozen Embryos, world premiere New York Fringe Festival, 2002
2008 Drama League Award Nomination - Distinguished Performance Award - Beebo Brinker Chronicles
2007 Lucille Lortel Award Nomination - Outstanding Featured Actor - Beebo Brinker Chronicles
2007 Outer Critics Circle Award Nomination - Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play - Beebo Brinker Chronicles
Fellowships
An alumnus of New Dramatists, he has received playwriting fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation and Charles Revson Foundation. He received the 1993 McKnight Fellowship from the Playwrights Center and a 2006 Lucille Lortel Foundation Fellowship.
Interviews
Borinsky, Alexander. "David Greenspan. And his Little Dog, Too" "The Brooklyn Rail" (March 2015)
CFR Staff. David Greenspan on David Greenspan" The Clyde Fitch Report" (May 22, 2013)
Charles McNulty. "Theatricalizing Theory: A Conversation with the Inimitable David Greenspan" Los Angeles Times (November 9, 2011)
Raymond, Gerard. "Staging Solos: An Interview with David Greenspan" "Slant Magazine" (July 2011)
Olesker, Lizzie. "The Power of Suggestion: David Greenspan" "The Brooklyn Rail" (May 2009)