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The Primary Stages School of Theater (PSST) has announced a newly created Master Class Series that was created to provide students the chance to gain rare insight and experience from some of the finest working professionals in the theater. Special guests for the inaugural series include Michael Cristofer, Lisa Kron, Neil LaBute, Craig Lucas, Austin Pendleton, and Adam Rapp.
As a free supplement to the PSST curriculum, all PSST students are invited to attend these special evenings, which have been designed especially by each visiting guest. Attendees will experience a comprehensive and illuminating night that is part lecture, master class, workshop, and Q&A.
Andrew Leynse, Primary Stages Artistic Director had this to say, "We're extremely proud of the School's growth over the last three years and the accomplishments of our students. Looking ahead, the Master Classes will raise the bar even higher for our curriculum, providing our students with insider-knowledge of what life is like for the professional theater artist."
Michael Cristofer was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for the Broadway production of his play, The Shadow Box. Other plays include Breaking Up (Primary Stages); Ice (MTC); Black Angel (Circle Repertory Company); The Lady and The Clarinet (Mark Taper Forum, Long Wharf Theater, Off-Broadway and on the London Fringe), and Amazing Grace starring Marsha Mason which received the American Theater Critics Award as the best play produced in the United States during the 1996-97 season. Mr. Cristofer's film work includes the screenplays for The Shadow Box directed by Paul Newman (Golden Globe Award, Emmy nomination); Falling in Love, with Meryl Streep and Robert DeNiro; The Witches of Eastwick with Jack Nicholson; The Bonfire of The Vanities, directed by Brian DePalma; Breaking Up, starring Russell Crowe and Salma Hayek; and Casanova, starring Heath Ledger. As an actor, he has performed in over a hundred plays including Romeo and Juliet (NYSF Central Park), Trumpery (Atlantic Theater), A Body of Water (Primary Stages), The Cherry Orchard (Lincoln Center), The Seagull (with JoAnne Woodward), Three Sisters (Williamstown), and the world premiere of The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With Key to the Scriptures by Tony Kushner (Guthrie Theater).
Lisa Kron has been writing and performing theater since coming to New York from Michigan in 1984. Her play, Well opened to critical acclaim on Broadway at the Longacre Theater in March of 2006 and received two Tony nominations. It previously premiered at the Public Theater in Spring 2004 and was listed among the year's best plays by the New York Times, the Associated Press, the Newark Star Ledger, Backstage and the Advocate, followed by an acclaimed run at A.C.T. in San Francisco in 2005. It is included in the anthology, "Best Plays of 2004-2005." Her play, 2.5 Minute Ride premiered at La Jolla Playhouse in 1996 and then in New York at the Public Theater in 1999. It has also been presented by theaters including the London Barbican, Japan's Rinkogun company, Baltimore Center Stage, A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle, American Repertory Theatre, Hartford Stage, and Trinity Repertory Company/Perishable Theater. 2.5 Minute Ride received an OBIE Award, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations, an L.A. Drama-Logue Award, and the GLAAD Media Award for best play on or Off Broadway and was named the best autobiographical show of 1999 by New York Press. Kron's other plays include 101 Humiliating Stories (Drama Desk nomination), Charity and Montecore, two short plays included in the anthology "Neon Mirage and presented at the 2006 Humana Festival and the New York Fringe, 43/13 -produced by Dad's Garage, Theatre in Atlanta, and Martha, which she co-wrote with and for choreographer/performer Richard Move. Kron is also a founding member of the OBIE and Bessie Award-winning theater company The Five Lesbian Brothers, whose plays, Oedipus at Palm Springs, Brave Smiles, Brides of the Moon and The Secretaries have all been produced by their theatrical home, New York Theater Workshop, and have been performed widely throughout the country both by the Brothers and by other companies. Lisa is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Cal Arts/Alpert Award, an NEA/TCG playwriting fellowship and grants from the Creative Capital Foundation and New York Foundation for the Arts. She teaches playwriting at Yale Drama School.
