Cusi Cram

Last updated
Cusi Cram
Cusi Cram, Lilly Awards, June 2015.PNG
Cram at the June 2015 Lilly Awards
Born (1967-09-22) September 22, 1967 (age 56)
Manhattan, New York, U.S.
OccupationPlaywright, screenwriter, actress, model, director, educator
Education Brown University (BA)
Juilliard School (GrDip)
Years active1980–present
SpousePeter Hirsch
Parents Lady Jeanne Campbell (mother)
Relatives Kate Mailer (half-sister)
Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll (maternal grandfather)
Janet Gladys Aitken (maternal grandmother)
Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (great-grandfather)

Cusi Cram (born September 22, 1967) is an American playwright, screenwriter, actress, model, director, educator, and advocate for women in the arts. [1]

Contents

Early life

Cusi Cram was born in Manhattan, New York, [2] on September 22, 1967, [3] to Lady Jeanne Campbell, daughter of Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll and Janet Gladys Aitken, and granddaughter of Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook; Lady Jeanne was married at the time to John Cram III, a descendant of railroad developer Jay Gould. [2] Her biological father, however, was Bolivian [4] and worked at the United Nations. [4] [5] She identifies as Latina and has written extensively about her Latin roots in her plays. [6] [7] [8] [9]

Cram's first foray into the world of theater came at age six when she played the role of Moth in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. [10] Campbell had previously been married to Norman Mailer, with whom she remained friends after their divorce. [2] Mailer's later wife Norris Church, a former actress and model, suggested that Cram try out modelling. [2] At age 13, she did, becoming the youngest model ever to sign with Wilhelmina Models, Church's former agency. [2] At the time, Cram attended the Chapin School in Manhattan. [2] Of her modeling days she has said, "And at the time—and I think times have changed a lot—[the look] was very blonde and blue eyed, so I was considered very, very ethnic looking ..." [5]

Career

While working with Wilhelmina, Cram modeled for a variety of publications including Interview , Seventeen , Brides , and Young Miss . [2] While still 13, she joined the cast of the soap opera One Life to Live on ABC. [2] She originated the role of Cassie Callison, [11] a job that required her to leave the Chapin School for the Professional Children's School which allowed her time to both study and participate in filming. [2] She eventually transitioned from acting to playwriting during her twenties, graduated from Brown University in 1990, and landed a job writing for the animated PBS show Arthur . [4] [12]

Cram worked in regional theaters in Massachusetts, California, and Colorado, and had some of her work produced Off-Off-Broadway. [13] Her work on Arthur inspired her 2009 play Dusty and the Big Bad World. [14] The Arthur spinoff Postcards from Buster was subject to a controversy that eventually involved United States Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings after an episode depicted a Vermont family with two lesbian mothers. [14] Dusty, which premiered at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, was a comic retelling of the controversy. [14] Cram's Off-Broadway debut also came in 2009 when her play A Lifetime Burning, based on the experiences of author Margaret Seltzer and the discovery of her partially fictitious memoir Love and Consequences, was produced at 59E59 Theaters by Primary Stages. [13]

Aside from Arthur, Cram has also written for the Cbeebies children's television series The Octonauts , [15] and contributed two episodes to the Showtime comedy-drama The Big C . [16] As of January 2014, she teaches playwriting as part of the joint Fordham University – Primary Stages Master of Fine Arts program. [17]

Production history

TitleDate premieredTheaterNotesRef.
LandlockedNovember 11, 1999Miranda Theatre [18]
The End of It AllJune 15, 2000 South Coast Repertory Part of the Pacific Playwrights Festival [19]
NormalMarch 1, 2003 Actors Theatre of Louisville One-act play, anthologized in Trepidation Nation [20]
CorduroyJanuary 11, 2004 Theatreworks USA Musical, with book by Cram and music by Scott Davenport Richards

Based on the children's book of the same name by Don Freeman

[21]
PredatorJune 29, 2004Echo Theater CompanyOne-act play [22]
FuenteJuly 9, 2005 Barrington Stage Recipient of the 2004 Herrick Theater Foundation New Play Prize

Previewed beginning June 30

 [23] [24]
All the Bad ThingsFebruary 15, 2006 The Public Theater Produced by LAByrinth Theater Company [25]
Lucy and the ConquestJuly 12, 2006 Williamstown Theatre Festival [26]
Dusty and the Big Bad WorldJanuary 29, 2009 Denver Center Theater [14]
A Lifetime BurningAugust 11, 2009 59E59 Theaters Produced by Primary Stages [27]
Fuente Ovejuna: A Disloyal AdaptationNovember 11, 2011Lewis Center for the ArtsBased on Lope de Vega's Fuenteovejuna [28]
RadianceNovember 16, 2012Bank Street TheaterOne-act play

Produced by LAByrinth Theater Company

 [29]

Additionally, Cram's one-act West of Stupid was anthologized in The Best American Short Plays 2000-2001. [30] She has also performed two one-woman shows, Bolivia and Euripidames, at New Georges in New York City. [30]

Personal life

Cram lives with her husband, Peter Hirsch, also a writer on Arthur, in Greenwich Village, New York. [14] [30]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paula Vogel</span> American playwright

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marsha Norman</span> American writer

Marsha Norman is an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. She received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play 'night, Mother. She wrote the book and lyrics for such Broadway musicals as The Secret Garden, for which she won a Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical, and The Red Shoes, as well as the libretto for the musical The Color Purple and the book for the musical The Bridges of Madison County. She is co-chair of the playwriting department at The Juilliard School.

Will Eno is an American playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. His play, Thom Pain 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, and best American play of 2014 by The Guardian. 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.

Theresa Rebeck is an American playwright, television writer, and novelist. Her work has appeared on the Broadway and Off-Broadway stage, in film, and on television. Among her awards are the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award. In 2012, she received the Athena Film Festival Award for Excellence as a Playwright and Author of Films, Books, and Television. She is a 2009 recipient of the Alex Awards. Her works have influenced American playwrights by bringing a feminist edge in her old works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kelli O'Hara</span> American actress and singer (born 1976)

Kelli Christine O'Hara is an American actress and singer, most known for her work on the Broadway and opera stages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Ruhl</span> American writer

Sarah Ruhl is an American playwright, poet, professor, and essayist. Among her most popular plays are Eurydice (2003), The Clean House (2004), and In the Next Room (2009). She has been the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career. Two of her plays have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and she received a nomination for Tony Award for Best Play. In 2020, she adapted her play Eurydice into the libretto for Matthew Aucoin's opera of the same name. Eurydice was nominated for Best Opera Recording at the 2023 Grammy Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynn Nottage</span> American playwright (born 1964)

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tina Howe</span> American playwright (1937–2023)

Mabel Davis "Tina" Howe was an American playwright. In a career that spanned more than four decades, Howe's best-known works include Museum, The Art of Dining, Painting Churches, Coastal Disturbances, and Pride's Crossing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jan Maxwell</span> American actress

Janice Elaine Maxwell was an American stage and television actress. She was a five-time Tony Award nominee and two-time Drama Desk Award winner. In a career spanning over thirty years, Maxwell was one of the most celebrated and critically acclaimed stage actresses of her time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Smith-Cameron</span> American actress (born 1957)

Jean Isabel Smith, credited professionally as J. Smith-Cameron, is an American actress. She gained prominence for her roles in the television series Rectify (2013–2016) and Succession (2018–2023), the latter of which earned her two Primetime Emmy Award nominations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quiara Alegría Hudes</span> American playwright and composer (born 1977)

Quiara Alegría Hudes is an American playwright, producer, lyricist and essayist. She is best known for writing the book for the musical In the Heights (2007), and screenplay for its film adaptation. Hudes' first play in her Elliot Trilogy, Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. She received the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Water by the Spoonful, her second play in that trilogy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annie Baker</span> American playwright and teacher

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.

John Rando is an American stage director who won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for Urinetown the Musical in 2002. He received his 2nd nomination in the same category in 2015 for the 2014 Broadway revival of On the Town.

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.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel D. Hunter</span> American dramatist

Samuel D. Hunter is an American playwright living in New York City.

Jennifer Haley is an American playwright. She grew up in San Antonio, Texas and studied acting at the University of Texas at Austin for her undergraduate degree. Haley also received a MFA in playwriting at Brown University in 2005, where she worked under American playwright and professor, Paula Vogel. Now living in Los Angeles, Haley is pursuing a career in theatre, film and television.

Joshua Harmon is a New York City-based playwright, whose works include Bad Jews and Significant Other, both produced Off-Broadway by Roundabout Theatre Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Betsy Wolfe</span> American actress and singer (born 1982)

Betsy Wolfe is an American actress, singer, and entrepreneur.

Dominique Morisseau is an American playwright and actress from Detroit, Michigan. She has written more than nine plays, three of which are part of a cycle titled The Detroit Project. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2018.

References

  1. ↑ "Cusi Cram" . Retrieved 2018-03-06.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Small, Michael (August 3, 1981). "At 13, Cusi Cram Doesn't Kid Around; Already a Cover Girl, Now She's Scrubbing Up for the Soaps". People . Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. Retrieved December 5, 2013.
  3. ↑ Tallmer, Jerry (August 5–11, 2009). "Cusi Cram's fictional siblings spar, jab amid suspicions, sex". The Villager . Archived from the original on September 1, 2013. Retrieved February 16, 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 Simonson, Robert (August 14, 2009). "Cusi Cram's Lifetime of Learning". Playbill . Retrieved December 12, 2013.
  5. 1 2 Myers, Victoria (Aug 4, 2014). "An Interview with Cusi Cram".
  6. ↑ "Cusi Cram (@cusicram) | Twitter". twitter.com. Retrieved 2018-03-06.
  7. ↑ "Lucy and the Conquest". www.samuelfrench.com. Retrieved 2018-03-06.
  8. ↑ "Fuente". www.samuelfrench.com. Retrieved 2018-03-06.
  9. ↑ Cram, Cusi (2018). "Cusi Cram". In Uno, Roberta; Calhoun, Kristen Adele; Alvarez, Daniela; Khalil, Kassandra L. (eds.). Contemporary Plays by Women of Color: An Anthology (2nd ed.). Routledge. pp. 403–404. doi:10.4324/9781315641584-37. ISBN   978-1-315-64158-4.
  10. ↑ "Up Close: Radiance Playwright Cusi Cram". Inside Labyrinth. LAByrinth Theater Company. August 31, 2012. Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
  11. ↑ Terrace, Vincent (1985). Encyclopedia of Television Series, Pilots and Specials 1974-1984. New York City: New York Zoetrope. p. 308. ISBN   0918432618.
  12. ↑ Goodman, Lawrence (September–October 2009). "Girl Interrupted". The Brown Alumni Magazine. Retrieved January 13, 2014.
  13. 1 2 Cote, David (July 21, 2009). "Cusi Cram on A Lifetime Burning". Time Out New York . Archived from the original on March 8, 2016. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 Jones, Kenneth (January 29, 2009). "Controversial PBS Cartoon Is Focus of Denver World Premiere, Dusty". Playbill. Retrieved December 19, 2013.
  15. ↑ "Octonauts And The Amazon Adventure". Big Cartoon DataBase. 2013. Archived from the original on January 13, 2014. Retrieved January 13, 2014.
  16. ↑ "Cusi Cram". Hollywood.com . Retrieved January 13, 2014.
  17. ↑ "Cusi Cram". Faculty. Primary Stages. Retrieved January 13, 2014.
  18. ↑ McBride, Murdoch (November 15, 1999). "Miranda Theatre Runs Cusi Cram's Comedy, Landlocked, Thru Dec. 4". Playbill. Retrieved January 6, 2014.
  19. ↑ "Best Bets Thursday 6/15". Los Angeles Times. June 15, 2000. Retrieved January 6, 2014.
  20. ↑ "Normal by Cusi Cram". Playscripts, Inc. 2014. Retrieved January 10, 2014.
  21. ↑ Rawson, Christopher (January 12, 2004). "Stage Review: 'Corduroy' is short and sweet". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Retrieved January 10, 2014.
  22. ↑ Schreiber, Brad (June 30, 2004). "The Echo One Acts: 2004, Evening A". Backstage . Retrieved January 10, 2014.
  23. ↑ Sommer, Elyse (2005). "Fuente". Berkshires Review. CurtainUp. Retrieved January 6, 2014.
  24. ↑ "Cusi Cram". Literary. MCC Theater. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved January 10, 2014.
  25. ↑ BWW News Desk (February 14, 2006). "LAB's All the Bad Things Begins Performances Tomorrow". Broadway World. Retrieved January 5, 2013.
  26. ↑ Sommer, Elyse (2006). "Lucy and the Conquest". Berkshires Review. CurtainUp. Retrieved December 19, 2013.
  27. ↑ Isherwood, Charles (August 12, 2009). "A Memoir So Compelling It Just Has to Be Phony". The New York Times. Retrieved January 6, 2014.
  28. ↑ "The Program in Theater announces the Fall Show... Fuente Ovejuna: A Disloyal Adaptation". Arts at Princeton. Princeton University. 2011. Retrieved January 6, 2014.
  29. ↑ Thielman, Sam (November 20, 2012). "'Radiance' Drops a Bomb". Backstage. Retrieved January 10, 2014.
  30. 1 2 3 Glubke, Mark, ed. (2002). The Best American Short Plays 2000-2001 . New York City: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books. p.  85. ISBN   1-55783-480-6.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.