Marshall W. Mason

Marshall W. Mason (born February 24, 1940) is an American theater director,^[1] the founder and for eighteen years, artistic director of the Circle Repertory Company in New York City.

Born in Amarillo, Texas, Mason graduated from Northwestern University, where he directed Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the age of 19.^[2] He relocated to Manhattan, where he began working in the off-off-Broadway theater scene in such venues as Caffe Cino,^[3] the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, and Judson Poets Theatre. He made his off-Broadway debut in 1964 with a revival of the Henrik Ibsen play Little Eyolf.^[4] The following year he directed Balm in Gilead, his first collaboration with playwright Lanford Wilson. Since then he has directed more than sixty productions of Wilson's plays, including The Hot l Baltimore, for which he won the Obie Award for Distinguished Direction, Fifth of July, Talley's Folly, and Talley & Son. ^[5]

His first Broadway production was the 1976 play Knock Knock by Jules Feiffer. Additional Broadway credits include Gemini, Fifth of July, Talley's Folly, Angels Fall, As Is, Burn This, The Seagull, and Redwood Curtain. He has been nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play five times,^[6] and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play twice. Off-Broadway he was awarded five Obies for Outstanding Direction and a sixth Obie Award for Sustained Achievement. He is the recipient of the 1979 Theatre World Award, and the 1977 Margo Jones Award for his work with the Circle Repertory Company, and a special 1999 "Mr. Abbott Special Millennium Award" as one of the most innovative and influential directors of the twentieth century.^[7]

Mason has worked widely in regional theaters, including the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, Arena Stage and Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., the McCarter Theater in Princeton, the Hartford Stage Company, the Pittsburgh Public Theater, the Repertory Theater of St. Louis, the Cincinnati Playhouse, and the Milwaukee Rep.

Mason is Professor Emeritus of Theater at Arizona State University, where he taught for eleven years, and was honored with ASU’s 2001 Creative Activity Award. He is the author of the 2007 book Creating Life On Stage: A Director's Approach to Working with Actors.^[8] He divides his time between his homes in Mazatlán and Manhattan.

Additional directing credits

• Home Free! (1965)
• The Madness of Lady Bright (1968)
• The Gingham Dog (1968)
• Three Sisters (1970)
• The Sea Horse (1974)
• Battle of Angels (1974)
• The Mound Builders (1975)
• Serenading Louie (1976)
• Murder at the Howard Johnson's (1979)
• Angels Fall (1983)
• Passion (1983)
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1985)
• Sunshine (1989)
• The Destiny of Me (1992)
• A Poster of the Cosmos (1994)
• The Moonshot Tape (1994)
• Cakewalk (1996)
• Robbers (1997)
• Sympathetic Magic (1997)
• Long Day's Journey into Night (1998)
• Book of Days (2002)
• The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? (2007)

References

1. ^ "Who's Who in the World: 2010"
2. ^ Creating Life On Stage at Google Books
3. ^ "Return to the Caffe Cino: A Collection of Plays and Memoirs", edited by Stephen Susoyev and George Birimisa
4. ^ The New York Times, March 17, 1963
5. ^ Marshall W. Mason at the Lortel Archives
6. ^ "The Tony Award: A Complete Listing", edited by Isabelle Stevens
7. ^ [1]
8. ^ Creating Life On Stage at Google Books

External links

• Marshall W. Mason at the Internet Broadway Database
• Marshall W. Mason at the Lortel Archives
• Robert Patrick's Marshall W. Mason and Claris Nelson page

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Name	Mason, Marshall W.
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Date of birth	February 24, 1940
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