The American Theatre Wing Presents The Play That Changed My Life ─ America's Foremost Playwrights on the Plays That Influenced Them

(Applause Books). What was the play that changed your life? What was the play that inspired you; that showed you something entirely new; that was so thrilling or surprising, breathtaking or poignant, that you were never the same? Nineteen of today's most gifted playwrights respond in this most revealing and personal book, published by Applause Books and presented by the American Theatre Wing, founder of The Tony Awards. From Edward Albee's 1935 visit to New York's Hippodrome Theatre to see Jimmy Durante (and an elephant) in Rodgers and Hart's Jumbo, to Diana Son's twelfth-grade field trip in 1983 to see Diane Venora play Hamlet at The Public Theater, from David Henry Hwang's seminal San Francisco encounter with Equus to a young Beth Henley's epiphany after seeing her mother in a "Green Bean Man costume," The Play That Changed My Life offers readers a unique peek into the theatrical influences of some of the nation's most important dramatists. The book is filled with tributes, memories, anecdotes and other insights that connect past to present and make this volume an instant "must have" for anyone who adores the theatre. Also in the book are pieces by David Auburn, Jon Robin Baitz, Nilo Cruz, Christopher Durang, Charles Fuller, A. R. Gurney, Tina Howe, David Ives, Donald Margulies, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Sarah Ruhl, John Patrick Shanley, Regina Taylor, and Doug Wright, as well as an introduction by Paula Vogel. All together, the playwrights featured here have won more than 40 Tony Awards, Pulitzer Prizes, Obies, and MacArthur genius grants.

Ben Hodges is an actor, director, theatre and independent film producer, and was executive director of Fat Chance Productions and the Ground Floor Theatre. He is editor of Forbidden Acts: Pioneering Gay and Lesbian Plays from the Twentieth Century, and co-editor of The Commercial Theater Institute Guide to Producing Plays and Musicals.

Howard Sherman has been executive director of the American Theatre Wing since 2003, where his duties have included executive producing the Working in the Theatre television series and cohosting the Downstage Center radio program. He has previously held management positions at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center, Geva Theatre, Goodspeed Musicals, Hartford Stage, Manhattan Theatre Club, and the Westport Country Playhouse.

Paula Vogel wrote the introduction to this book. She is the Eugene O'Neill Professor of Playwriting (adjunct) and chair of the playwriting department at the Yale School of Drama. She has numerous awards, including the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. She is currently playwright-in-residences at the Yale Repertory Theatre, as well as an artistic associate at Long Wharf Theatre.