Lillian Garrett-Groag - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Lillian Garrett-Groag is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

, theatre director, and actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

. Her plays include The Ladies of the Camellias, The Magic Fire, and The White Rose
The White Rose (play)
The White Rose was written by Lillian Garrett-Groag and premiered in 1991 at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, Calif. The play chronicles the arrest, interrogation and eventual execution of a group of University of Munich students who protested the Nazi regime at the height of World War II...

Theatre career

Miss Groag has acted, directed and written for many regional theatres in the country, Broadway and Off, as well as opera houses. Her plays have also had long runs in Germany, Mexico and Japan.

In 1993, Groag acted as part of an ensemble cast in The Kentucky Cycle

The Kentucky Cycle

The Kentucky Cycle is a series of nine one-act plays by Robert Schenkkan that explores American mythology, particularly the mythology of the West, through the intertwined histories of three fictional families struggling over a portion of land in the Cumberland Plateau...

at the Kennedy Center

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...

in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, and on Broadway at the Royale theatre. For this performance she received a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Supporting Performer in 1994.

In 1997, Groag's play The Magic Fire premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Oregon Shakespeare Festival

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is a regional repertory theatre in Ashland, Oregon, United States. The festival annually produces eleven plays on three stages during a season that lasts from February to October...

. She received a Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays (FNAP) to support this.

Plays

The Ladies of the Camellias is a farce

Farce

In theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims at entertaining the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases,...

about an imagined meeting in Paris, 1897, between the famous theater divas Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...

and Eleonora Duse

Eleonora Duse

-Life and career:Duse was born in Vigevano, Lombardy, and began acting as a child. Both her father and her grandfather were actors, and she joined the troupe at age four. Due to poverty, she initially worked continually, traveling from city to city with whichever troupe her family was currently...

. They are each to start in separate productions of The Lady of the Camellias on successive nights.

The Magic Fire is a play about an immigrant family in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

during the 1950s regime of Juan Perón

Juan Perón

Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...

. They take refuge from the fascist politics of Argentina in art and opera. Eventually, events force them to confront the politics and their moral obligations. Premiered in 1997 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Performed (among other times) in 2006 at the Shaw Festival.

The White Rose (play)
The White Rose (play)
The White Rose was written by Lillian Garrett-Groag and premiered in 1991 at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, Calif. The play chronicles the arrest, interrogation and eventual execution of a group of University of Munich students who protested the Nazi regime at the height of World War II...

is a play about resistance by German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

university students to Hitler's

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

, pivoting around a young student Sophie and a police inspector Mohr.

Midons, a play about the Troubadours in Provence and the "invention of love". A Monty Python

Monty Python

Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...

-type farce with serious undertones. Produced by The People's Light and Theatre Company

People's Light and Theatre Company

The People's Light & Theatre Company is a non-profit, professional theatre founded in 1974 in Malvern, Pennsylvania. People's Light produces 8-9 productions per season, as well as plays performed by the Summerstage school program. There is a holiday show each season, and the past 3 years have...

in Philadelphia.

Menocchio, a play about the famous real-life trial of miller Domenico Scandella in the Friuli

Friuli

Friuli is an area of northeastern Italy with its own particular cultural and historical identity. It comprises the major part of the autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, i.e. the province of Udine, Pordenone, Gorizia, excluding Trieste...

region in 1600. Scandella propounded about evolution, socialism and doubted the existence of God. A comedy. Produced by the Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Berkeley Repertory Theatre is a regional theater company located in Berkeley, California. It was founded in 1968, as the East Bay’s first resident professional theatre. Michael Leibert was the founding artistic director, who was then succeeded by Sharon Ott in 1984. The company runs seven...

.

Blood Wedding
Blood Wedding
Blood Wedding may refer to:* The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, also known as the Paris blood wedding* Blood Wedding , a 1933 play by the Spanish playwright Federico García Lorca* The Ruse blood wedding, a 1910 massacre in Rousse, Bulgaria...

, translated and adapted by Garrett-Groag from a Spanish play by Federico García Lorca

Federico García Lorca

Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...

, is a play about a cycle of murder and revenge in an imagined setting in rural Spain.

War Music (2009), based on Christopher Logue

Christopher Logue

Christopher Logue, CBE is an English poet associated with the British Poetry Revival. He has also written for the theatre and cinema as well as acting in a number of films. His two screenplays are Savage Messiah and The End of Arthur's Marriage...

's modernist rewrite of Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

's Iliad

Iliad

The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...

Translations and Adaptations

A Flaw in the Ointment by Georges Feydeau. Performed in 1993-94 by the Seattle Rep.

The Triumph of Love by Pierre Marivaux. Adapted from a new translation by Frederick Kluck. Performed in 2007 by California Shakespeare Theater and San Jose Rep.

Blood Wedding - Garcia Lorca - Guthrie Theater

Liliom - Molnar - Missouri Rep

Productions directed

1998: Scapin, the Cheat, (Molière), California Shakespeare Theater.

2000: The Taming of the Shrew, California Shakespeare Theater.

2003: Arms and the Man (Shaw), California Shakespeare Theater.

2005: The Tempest, California Shakespeare Theater.

2007: The Triumph of Love (Marivaux), California Shakespeare Theater and San Jose Rep.

The Rivals - A.C.T. in San Francisco

A Flaw in the Ointment - Seattle Rep

Menocchio - Berkeley Rep

Napoli Milionaria and The Magic Fire - Milwaukee Rep

Midons and The Imaginary Invalid - People's Light and Theatre Company, Philadelphia

Enter the Guardsman and The Triumph of Love - San Jose Rep

Death and the Maiden - Center Stage, Baltimore

School for Scandal and Merry Wives of Windsor - at Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Smash - Asolo Repertory Theatre

Asolo Repertory Theatre

The Asolo Repertory Theatre or Asolo Rep is a professional theater in Sarasota, Florida. It is the largest Equity theatre in Florida, and the largest Repertory theatre in the Southeastern United States. Asolo Rep is a resident regional theatre company which also invites in guest artists...

Liliom - Missouri Rep
OPERA - Virginia Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, New York City Opera, Boston Lyric, Cincinnati, Chicago Opera Theatre, San Jose Opera, Florida Grand Opera.

Representation: Peter Hagan - The Gersh Agency - New York / Robert Slotover - Allied Artists, U.K.

Awards

1994: Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Supporting Performer

1996: Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays (FNAP) grant, for The Magic Fire at Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

AT&T American Plays - "The White Rose"

TCG - Playwright in Residence grant, Center Stage, Baltimore. "Menocchio".

External links