Will Eno (born 1965) is an American playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. His play, Thom Pain (based on nothing) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 2005. His play The Realistic Joneses appeared on Broadway in 2014, where it received a Drama Desk Special Award and was named Best Play on Broadway by USA Today , [1] and best American play of 2014 by The Guardian . [2] His play The Open House was presented Off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre in 2014 and won the Obie Award for Playwriting as well as other awards, and was on both TIME Magazine and Time Out New York 's Top Ten Plays of 2014.
Eno grew up in Billerica, Carlisle, and Westford, Massachusetts and attended Concord-Carlisle High School. He was a competitive cyclist from the age of about 13 until his early 20s. [3]
For three years he attended the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, but dropped out and moved to New York. [4] He is married to actress Maria Dizzia. [5]
His plays have been produced in New York City, Off-Broadway and by regional and European theatres: [6] the Gate Theatre, the SOHO Theatre, and BBC Radio (London); the Rude Mechanicals Theater Company, [7] The Satori Group (Seattle); [8] the Flea Theater, [9] NY Power Company and Naked Angels (NYC); Quebracho Théâtre - Monica Espina (Paris); Circle-X (Los Angeles); The Cutting Ball Theater [10] (San Francisco). Thom Pain has been produced in Brazil, Italy, Germany, France, Norway, Denmark, Israel, Mexico and other countries. [6]
His plays are published by Oberon Books, TCG, playscripts, and have appeared in Harper's, Antioch Review , The Quarterly, and Best Ten-Minute Plays for Two Actors. [11]
The Flu Season was produced by The Rude Mechanicals Theater Company at the Blue Heron Arts Center, New York City, from January 29, 2004, to February 22, 2004. [12] The play won the 2004 Oppenheimer Award, presented by New York Newsday , for best debut production in the previous year in New York by an American playwright. [7]
Although some his plays were originally mainly produced in Britain, [3] Eno has been making headway in New York City theatre ever since the 2004 debut of Thom Pain (based on nothing) . [13] [14] Charles Isherwood, theatre critic for The New York Times , called Eno "a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation". [15] Thom Pain (based on nothing) was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. [16]
Oh, the Humanity and Other Exclamations (formerly Oh, the Humanity and other good intentions), which consists of 5 short plays, premiered Off-Broadway at The Flea Theatre from November to December 2007. [9] His play Tragedy: a tragedy had its American premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California, in March and April 2008. [17] The play has also been produced by The Satori Group, a Cincinnati-based theatre group, in Seattle in 2009, [8] and is usually mentioned along with another of his plays titled, King: A Problem Play. [18]
Middletown opened Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre [13] in November 2010 through December 5, 2010, and Eno won the 2010 Horton Foote Prize for Promising New American Play. [19] [20] Middletown was produced by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2011, [21] Dobama Theatre of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, Third Rail Repertory Theatre in Portland, Oregon, and Actors' Shakespeare Project of Boston, Massachusetts in February 2013. [22]
Title and Deed (a collaboration with the Gare St. Lazare Players of Ireland) made its American premiere Off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre Company [13] from March 2012 to June 2012. The play premiered in Ireland in 2011. [23] His adaptation of Ibsen's Peer Gynt titled Gnit had its world premiere at the 37th Humana Festival of New American Plays in March 2013. [24]
In his Broadway debut, The Realistic Joneses began previews at the Lyceum Theatre on March 13, 2014, and officially opened on April 6, 2014, [25] after a run at the Yale Repertory Theater in 2012. [13] [26] The play is directed by Sam Gold with a cast that stars Michael C. Hall, Toni Collette, Marisa Tomei and Tracy Letts. [27] The New York Times reviewer of the Broadway production wrote: "But don't come to the play expecting tidy resolutions, clearly drawn narrative arcs or familiarly typed characters. 'The Realistic Joneses' progresses in a series of short scenes that have the shape and rhythms of sketches on Saturday Night Live rather than those of a traditional play. (Most are followed by quick blackouts.) And while the Joneses—all four of them—have all the aspects of normal folks, as their names would suggest, they also possess an uncanny otherness expressed through their stylized, disordered way of communicating. ... But for all Mr. Eno’s quirks, his words cut to the heart of how we muddle through the worst life can bring." [28] The regional premiere was performed at Dobama Theatre of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, featuring Joel Hammer, Tracee Patterson, Rachel Zake, and Chris Richards.
In 2014 his play The Open House received its world premiere Off-Broadway at The Pershing Square Signature Center (Signature Theatre), running from February 11, 2014 (previews), officially on March 3 through March 23, 2014. [29] [30] The cast featured Hannah Bos, Michael Countryman, Peter Friedman, Danny McCarthy and Carolyn McCormick with direction by Oliver Butler. [31] The play won the 2014 Drama Desk Award Special Award Ensemble; the 2014 Lucille Lortel Award, Outstanding Play; and 2014 OBIE Awards, Playwriting and Direction. [32]
His play Wakey, Wakey opened Off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre on February 7, 2017, in previews. Directed by Eno, the two-person cast stars January LaVoy and Michael Emerson. [33] The play officially opened on February 27 and ran to March 26, 2017. [34]
On 5 April 2014, The Economist magazine commented on the comparison of Eno to Samuel Beckett stating: "(Eno) is also quick to acknowledge Beckett's influence, less for the writer's formal inventiveness than for his 'simple human stuff'. For example, he cites the line in 'Endgame' when Hamm declares, 'Get out of here and love one another.'" [35] In response to a query by the critic Jonathan Kalb, he wrote in 2006 that "It would be good for the theatre and for the world at large if there were more signs of [Beckett's] influence--his humaneness, invention, and humility." [36]
He is a Helen Merrill Playwriting Fellow, a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellow. In 2004, he was awarded the first Marian Seldes/Garson Kanin Fellowship by the Theater Hall of Fame. [6]
Eno received the 2012 PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award. [37]
He has received a resident playwrights award in the Residency Five program from the Signature Theatre Company, beginning in spring 2012. The participants are guaranteed three full world-premiere productions over a five-year residency. [11]
Eno received the 2014 Obie Award for Playwriting for The Open House. [38] The Open House also won the 2014 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play. [39]
Eno and the ensembles of The Open House and The Realistic Joneses received a 2014 Drama Desk Award Special Award, "For two extraordinary casts and one impressively inventive playwright." [40]
Paula Vogel is an American playwright who received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play How I Learned to Drive. A longtime teacher, Vogel spent the bulk of her academic career – from 1984 to 2008 – at Brown University, where she served as Adele Kellenberg Seaver Professor in Creative Writing, oversaw its playwriting program, and helped found the Brown/Trinity Rep Consortium. From 2008 to 2012, Vogel was Eugene O'Neill Professor of Playwriting and department chair at the Yale School of Drama, as well as playwright in residence at the Yale Repertory Theatre.
John Guare is an American playwright and screenwriter. He is best known as the author of The House of Blue Leaves and Six Degrees of Separation.
Lucille Lortel was an American actress, artistic director, and theatrical producer. In the course of her career Lortel produced or co-produced nearly 500 plays, five of which were nominated for Tony Awards: As Is by William M. Hoffman, Angels Fall by Lanford Wilson, Blood Knot by Athol Fugard, Mbongeni Ngema's Sarafina!, and A Walk in the Woods by Lee Blessing. She also produced Marc Blitzstein's adaptation of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera, a production which ran for seven years and according to The New York Times "caused such a sensation that it...put Off-Broadway on the map."
Lynn Nottage is an American playwright whose work often focuses on the experience of working-class people, particularly working-class people who are Black. She has received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice: in 2009 for her play Ruined, and in 2017 for her play Sweat. She was the first woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama two times.
Christopher Shinn is an American playwright. His play Dying City (2006) was a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and Where Do We Live (2004) won the 2005 Obie Award, Playwriting.
Annie Baker is an American playwright and teacher who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her play The Flick. Among her works are the Shirley, Vermont plays, which take place in the fictional town of Shirley: Circle Mirror Transformation, Nocturama, Body Awareness, and The Aliens. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2017.
Rajiv Joseph is an American playwright. He was named a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, and he won an Obie Award for Best New American Play for his play Describe the Night.
Pam MacKinnon is an American theatre director. She has directed for the stage Off-Broadway, on Broadway and in regional theatre. She won the Obie Award for Directing and received a Tony Award nomination, Best Director, for her work on Clybourne Park. In 2013 she received the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for a revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She was named artistic director of American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California on January 23, 2018.
Stephen Karam is an American playwright, screenwriter and director. His plays Sons of the Prophet, a comedy-drama about a Lebanese-American family, and The Humans were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2012 and 2016, respectively. The Humans won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Play, and Karam wrote and directed a film adaptation of the play, released in 2021.
Amy Herzog is an American playwright. Her play 4000 Miles, which ran Off-Broadway in 2011, was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Her play Mary Jane, which ran Off-Broadway in 2017, won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. Herzog's plays have been produced Off-Broadway, and have received nominations for, among others: the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Actor and Actress ; the Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play ; and Drama Desk Award nominations for Outstanding Play and Outstanding Actress in a Play (Belleville). She was a finalist for the 2012–2013 and 2016–2017 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She was also nominated for a 2023 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play for her adaptation of Ibsen's A Doll's House.
Johanna Day is an American actress. She was nominated for two Tony Awards for her performances in the 2000 play Proof and the 2016 production of the play Sweat. Her other accolades include a Helen Hayes Award and an Obie Award, as well as nominations for a Drama Desk Award, a Drama League Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award and two Lucille Lortel Awards.
The Realistic Joneses is a play by Will Eno. It opened on Broadway in 2014 after premiering in 2012 at the Yale Repertory Theater.
The Flick is a play by Annie Baker that received the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and won the 2013 Obie Award for Playwriting. The Flick premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in 2013.
Rachel Chavkin is an American stage director best known for directing the musicals Natasha, Pierre, & The Great Comet of 1812 and Hadestown, receiving nominations for a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for both and winning for Hadestown in 2019.
Samuel D. Hunter is an American playwright living in New York City.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is an American playwright. He won the 2014 Obie Award for Best New American Play for his plays Appropriate and An Octoroon. His plays Gloria and Everybody were finalists for the 2016 and 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, respectively. He was named a MacArthur Fellow for 2016.
Leigh Silverman is an American director for the stage, both off-Broadway and on Broadway. She was nominated for the 2014 Tony Award, Best Direction of a Musical for the musical Violet and the 2008 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Director of a Play for the play From Up Here.
Lucas Hnath is an American playwright. He won the 2016 Obie Award for excellence in playwriting for his plays Red Speedo and The Christians. He also won a Whiting Award.
Sam Gold is an American theater director and actor. Having studied at Cornell University and Juilliard School he became known for directing both musicals and plays, on Broadway and Off-Broadway. He has received the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, a Tony nomination for Best Director of a Play, and nominations for four Drama Desk Awards.
Rebecca Taichman is an American theatre director. In 2017, she received the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for Indecent.