Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright, Screenwriter, and Installation Artist
Lynn Nottage: Biography at a Glance
- Lynn Nottage is the first and only woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice, with her works being produced widely across the U.S. and globally.
- Nottage recently premiered MJ the Musical on Broadway, alongside other notable productions such as Clyde's and an opera adaptation of her play Intimate Apparel.
- Beyond playwriting, Nottage is a screenwriter, installation artist, and co-founder of the production company Market Road Films, with projects that have garnered awards and critical acclaim.
- Nottage has received numerous prestigious awards, including the MacArthur "Genius Grant," a Steinberg "Mimi" Distinguished Playwright Award, and recognition as a TIME 100 Influential Person.
- Nottage is a Professor of Theatre Arts at Columbia School of the Arts and serves on the boards of several arts organizations, including BRIC Arts Media Bklyn and the Dramatists Guild.
- She shares her unparalleled insights as a trailblazing playwright and creative visionary and inspires audiences with her profound understanding of storytelling, social impact, and the power of the arts.
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Biography
Lynn Nottage is a playwright, screenwriter, and installation artist. She is the first, and remains the only, woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice. Her plays have been produced widely in the United States and throughout the world.
Most recently, Nottage premiered MJ the Musical, directed by Christopher Wheeldon and featuring the music of Michael Jackson, at the Neil Simon Theater on Broadway, Clyde's directed by Kate Whoriskey at Second Stage Theater on Broadway, and an opera adaptation of her play Intimate Apparel composed by Ricky Ian Gordon and directed by Bart Sher, commissioned by The Met/Lincoln Center Theater and co-curated with Director Miranda Haymon the Performance Installation The Watering Hole at the Signature Theater.
Her other work includes Floyd's (retitled Clyde's) (Guthrie Theater), the musical adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd's novel The Secret Life of Bees, with music by Duncan Sheik and lyrics by Susan Birkenhead (The Almeida Theatre/The Atlantic Theater), Mlima’s Tale (Public Theater/ Kiln), By The Way, Meet Vera Stark (Lilly Award, Drama Desk Nomination- Second Stage/Signature Theater), Ruined (Pulitzer Prize, OBIE, Lucille Lortel, New York Drama Critics’ Circle, Audelco, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award- MTC/Goodman Theater); Intimate Apparel (American Theatre Critics and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Play Center Stage/SCR/ Roundabout Theater); Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine (OBIE Award - Playwrights Horizons/Signature Theater); Crumbs from the Table of Joy; LasMeninas; Mud, River, Stone; Por’knockers; and POOF!
Her play Sweat (Pulitzer Prize, Evening Standard Award, Obie Award, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Tony Nomination, Drama Desk Nomination) moved to Broadway after a sold-out run at The Public Theater. It premiered and was commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival American Revolutions History Cycle/Arena Stage. Inspired by her research on Sweat, Nottage developed This is Reading, a performance installation based on two years of interviews, at the Franklin Street, Reading Railroad Station in Reading, PA in July 2017.
She is the co-founder of the production company, Market Road Films, whose most recent projects include the award-winning documentary Takeover (NY times, Op-doc) by Emma Francis Francis-Snyder, the Peabody nominated podcast Unfinished: Deep South (Stitcher) by Taylor Hom and Neil Shea, The Notorious Mr. Bout directed by Tony Gerber and Maxim Pozdorovkin (Premiere/Sundance 2014), First to Fall directed by Rachel Beth Anderson (Premiere/ IDFA, 2013) and Remote Control (Premiere/Busan 2013- New Currents Award). Market Road Films currently has a first look deal with SISTER. Over the years, she has developed original projects for Amazon, HBO, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, Showtime, This is That and Harpo. She was a writer and producer on the Netflix series She's Gotta Have It, directed by Spike Lee, and a consulting producer on the third season of Dickinson (Apple +).
Nottage is the recipient of a MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellowship, Steinberg "Mimi" Distinguished Playwright Award, PEN/Laura Pels Master Playwright Award, William Inge Festival Distinguished Playwright, TIME 100 (2019), Signature One Playwright, Merit and Literature Award from The Academy of Arts and Letters, Columbia University Provost Grant, Doris Duke Artist Award, The Joyce Foundation Commission Project & Grant, Madge Evans-Sidney Kingsley Award, Nelson A. Rockefeller Award for Creativity, The Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award, the inaugural Horton Foote Prize, Helen Hayes Award, the Lee Reynolds Award, and the Jewish World Watch iWitness Award. Her other honors include the National Black Theatre Fest's August Wilson Playwriting Award, a Guggenheim Grant, a Lucille Lortel Fellowship, and a Visiting Research Fellowship at Princeton University. She is a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama. She is also a Professor of Theatre Arts at the Columbia School of the Arts.
Nottage is a Doris Duke Artist, and a board member for BRIC Arts Media Bklyn, Frontline Women's Fund, Dramatist Play Service, Second Stage, and the Dramatists Guild. She recently completed a three-year term as an Artist Trustee on the Board of the Sundance Institute. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild, WGAE, the Theatre Hall of Fame, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is currently an artist-in-residence at the Park Avenue Armory.
